Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Friends and family members this week memorialized Aaron Nash as a standout artist, snowboarder, outdoorsman and fisherman.

Nash, 38, died last week. He suffered from bipolar disorder for decades. A memorial service was scheduled for 7 p.m. March 17 in the Chilkat Center.

Friend Jason Shull said Nash was intense, funny and generous with his time. "Aaron had an ability to saturate himself in the experience, which allowed him to experience things on a much deeper level than most people do in a lifetime, daily. What made him special was that he drew people into his moment. It would start with an idea, often kind of crazy. If Aaron wondered at eight in the morning how far he could take a jet boat up the Katzehin, by noon you were with him high and dry up the river."

Nash made front-page news in high school competing on regional championship teams in cross country, basketball and track, and for his advanced artwork. "He was probably in the top five athletes ever to come from Haines," track coach Jim Stanford said.

Nash turned a vacant lot into Haines' first skateboard park, built a half-pipe in the front yard of his family's downtown home, and with his brothers and friends pioneered the local snowboard scene before heli-skiers discovered Haines. He fished and hunted, and as a young man traveled through Central and South America.

Art teacher Linnus Danner said Nash was a dream student. "He was in a different league because at such a young age he mastered drawing. In junior high he could draw a perfectly proportioned human body. He was incredibly gifted, and really fun to teach, because any little thing you said to him about what he was drawing, he'd get it and go with it," she said.

Nash inspired her advanced art curriculum. Several of his pieces are on permanent display in the school. "He is the shining example for students," Danner said. He earned a scholarship to the Northwest College of Art and Design.

Aaron Andrew Nash was the fourth child of six of fisherman Don Nash and nurse and quilter Becky Nash. He was born March 17, 1977 and lived in Pelican until moving to Haines in 1986. He spent the rest of his life living on the same block, most recently with his son and the family he formed with girlfriend Barbie Brouillette.

"Aaron loved Barbie and her children and his, and they loved him back," Becky Nash said.

Nash worked as a sport fishing guide at his family's lodge and as a deckhand long-lining and trolling. He owned a hand troll permit and worked as a deckhand on his family's boat. "I couldn't have asked for better company on the boat. He was a fine crew and a well-loved son and brother," Don Nash said.

Nash snowboarded in borrowed gear, sometimes in Helly Hansen fishing bibs, winning the most recent Big Air competition with three "gigantic" back flips, Luck Dunbar said. "He climbed higher than anyone on the mountain. He came down like a cannon ball. He didn't speed check. He'd hit the jump and pop it like a sonic boom, then he'd fly like Superman, kicking back and sailing through the air with the board above him like the tail of a humpback whale. I've never seen anything like it."

Sister Corrie Nash said her brother's legacy is kindness. "I can't recall Aaron ever saying a bad word about anyone. His friends were all over the map and from all walks of life. He was a cool kid, but never the cool kid."

Nash was preceded in death by brother Olen Nash. Survivors include son Noah; girlfriend Barbie Brouillette and her children Karl, Emma and Eric Gillham; parents Don and Becky Nash; siblings Yongee, Lee and Song Nash, and Corrie Stickler and their families; six nieces and nephews; grandmother Evelyn Beilh; the extended local Nash family; and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.

Great aunt Carol Lawrence will remember Nash with a smile every time she passes his Main Street mural. "Who else but Aaron would put a rubber ducky in the middle of that beautiful painting of the sea and birds?" she said.

Donations in Nash's memory can be made to an educational fund set up for Noah Nash at the Haines bank.