“A funny, engaging and all-around wonderful book of stories about a legendary group of Canadians! From CMH’s legendary Hans Gmoser wanting to jump out of Jim’s machine 200 feet above the ground (he thought he was on the ground) to wild parties, this book’s often hilarious and always fast-reading stories rip along at rotor speed. Jim Davies was the aerial division of an era that reinvented the Canadian mountains thanks to the helicopter. Heli-skiing, long-line rescue, Pierre Trudeau on skis, gripping do-or-die flying, this is a book that revolves around flying but is really about the people that made the Canadian mountains what they are today. It’s full-on adventure backed up with exhaustive research and a deep insider’s knowledge of Canada’s mountains. Loved it!” —Will Gadd, adventure athlete and professional guide

“If you  were stuck in a mountain hut waiting for a helicopter ride out you’d want Jim Davies to be your pilot, and you’d want this book to keep you entertained. Davies would get you if anyone could, and this book will make the time fly too. It’s funny, engaging, ruthlessly researched and an all-around great read that will make you laugh out loud at the crazy adventures in an era that brought us helicopter mountain rescue and heli-skiing. Thanks to Jim Davies and the rescue techniques he developed, many of my friends are alive today.” —Will Gadd, adventure athlete and professional guide

“Kathy Calvert’s book deeply honours Canada’s greatest rescue pilot. The stories in these pages are timeless and tell the tale of the effort one human being made to care for others. This is the most important work one can do, and the story of ever striving in the effort to help those in need is how mankind will move forward. Heroes do great things, always in service of others. Jim Davies personified this ideal. It is likely the effort to help is what made him so great.” —Ken Wylie, author of Buried and member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association

“So heartening to read of Jim Davies, a hometown Banff boy, contributing so much to western Canadian mountain culture. I love our history, and Jim’s life is such an enriching and important piece of our collage. The image of his calm and steady hands controlling a hovering helicopter one metre away from a mountain wall while vertically referencing a park’s rescue specialist dangling 30 metres below at the end of a long line, coming to the aid of the injured climber, calms me. What a gift to us all. Thank you so very much, Jim, and thank you, Kathy Calvert, for sharing Jim’s amazing life.” —Barry Blanchard, author of The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains

“Stories are key to every culture, forming our sense of who we are and how we came to be. As a pivotal contributor to the evolution of both the helicopter skiing industry and the professional mountain rescue service, Jim Davies tells a story that is essential to the foundation and the modern branches of the unique lifestyle activities and culture of western Canada’s mountains. Kudos to Kathy Calvert for recording and sharing these bold, often hair-raising, always entertaining, and culturally vital stories of Jim Davies’s life and flying career in Vertical Reference.” —Lynn Martel, author of Stories of Ice: Adventure, Commerce and Creativity on Canada’s Glaciers