Bollinger

Ulrich Bollinger was born in Switzerland and spoke with a broad edelweiss accent, but was Canadian as Vimy Ridge and poutine. In his early life, he lived with his parents along the fast flowing Ottawa River near Rapides-des-Joachims. His father was engaged in building the big 120-foot high Da Swisha hydroelectric station dam upstream from the community. There he would learn to fend for himself with the confidence of a young man living on the edge of the wilderness and nowhere near the trends of the day. Where common sense is always in style.

Ulrich was a man of many contrasts. He had the distant wary eye of a lone wolf, yet he was at his best among friends, among colleagues — gregarious, outrageous, unfettered. He was an unabashed throwback to a politically incorrect time, preaching the dangers of sitting in a restaurant booth too long and of the consumption of Splenda, yet beneath the granite exterior he had an open mind and a respectful heart that would welcome all who rose to his standard. He didn’t care what you did… so long as you did it well. He was not a new-age man given to sharing his emotions and his fears. Those he kept to himself. He was 100% old school.

Bollinger liked to stand back and watch. To observe the world, to read the room. He would have insisted he was uncool, but coolness was his brand. He spoke highly of you if you deserved it and not at all about you if you didn’t. Among his peers, Ulrich’s language could blanch a whorehouse doctor, but when duty called, he was as eloquent and polished as the Chief of the Air Staff. He had an off-switch and used it to gain respect and admiration for the Yellow Wings Program, a leadership endeavour of Vintage Wings of Canada to fly deserving youth in vintage and historic aircraft.

Ulrich was obsessed with keeping his personal life personal. Most knew him as Bollinger, the f-bombing, story-telling, no-holds-barred raconteur and uber-competent pilot, but he was in his real life a family man deeply in love with Christiane, his bride of nearly 50 years. It was with her and son Hugo at the family dairy farm where he spent most of his later life making cheese and being a man of the land. He loved the science of cheese-making and farming but hated that government intervened in his efforts with inefficiencies and arbitrary policy.

While Ulrich sought truth in science and in action, he also leaned into conspiracy. He taught us that our world was controlled by a conclave of billionaires and that we were being watched. That David Suzuki had ruined everything. That satellites were monitoring us. That the end was near. He was probably right. God, we’ll miss him