Wilfrid Reid May was born April 20, 1896 at Carberry, Manitoba. His family moved to Edmonton in 1902. On the way to Edmonton the family visited family friends. While there, a young cousin nicknamed him "Woppie", which was soon shortened to "Wop" and the name stuck for the rest of his life.

Wop May wasa celebrated WWI combat pilot, flying in old-style bi-planes. But it was his experiences after the war that made him a famous Albertan. He was one of the first pilots flying from Edmonton into northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The term bush pilot started with May and the kind of dangerous and remote flying that Wop May did for a living.

In December 1928 an employee of the Hudson's Bay CompanyinLittle Red River, Alberta suddenly got very ill. He had diphtheria, and the doctor in this northern post was desperate to get medicine to the rest of the town before anyone else was seriously infected. At this time there were no roads in the north, and the nearest telegraph station was miles away over a frozen landscape. The message eventually reached Edmonton, and on January 1 Wop May was asked if he could deliver the medicine. He left in an Avro Avian with another flying club member. The flight took two days in an open cockpit, in the middle of winter, with temperatures and wind chill far below 0oC. They arrived in Fort Vermilion at 3 p.m. where a group had just arrived from Little Red River and the drugs were quickly distributed. Wop and his partner didn't arrive back in Edmonton until the 7th. By this point his flight had become known across Canada as "the race against death", and there were large crowds waiting for them in Edmonton when they landed back home as heroes.

His efforts to save people and serve his country have not been forgotten. As a matter of fact, Wop May has been recognized in many ways. His military flying earned him medals from Great Britain and the United States. He became an Officer in the Order of the British Empire in 1935. In 1974 May was declared a National Historic Person, and a plaque to commemorate him was installed in Edmonton. May is immortalized in songs by Stompin' Tom Connors and he was also the subject of a 1979 National Film Board of Canadavignette. On October 6, 2004, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity located a rock on the south slope of the Endurance Crater on Mars. The 1 meter (3.3-foot) rock was given the name wopmay after the legendary Canadian bush pilot. Canada has a geologic feature known as the Wopmay Fault Zone, lying to the west of Hudson Bay along the Wopmay River.The city of Edmonton, Alberta named the neighbourhood of Mayfield in honour of Wop May.

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