Hunter Nathaniel Lewis sailed away on an adventure to hide treasure on December 30, 2021 from Trinidad Bay, and has not been seen or heard from since, although broken pieces of his canoe and treasure box have washed ashore in the days after. He is greatly missed, but we know he is moving on to his next big adventure in the cosmos now.

Hunter came into this world with a bang two weeks early on September 15, 2000, in Carson City, Nevada. He must have known he would have a lot to complete in a short life and was impatient to get here! From the very beginning he was a busy body, moving around in the womb so much that his mother’s water broke and he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his sweet little neck, not once, but twice. Once he was born he was a constant worry for his mother all his life as he went from one adventure to the next. Nothing scared him. He was so active as a toddler his mother would have to hold him down to get him to take a nap on some days. In these younger years, he climbed many mountains in the Sierra Nevada Range in a backpack on his father’s back, exclaiming, “go higher, Daddy,” as he pointed up the trail.

Once his brother was born, Hunter was so happy. He excelled at being a big brother and was so proud of Bodie. Even when he was away at college, he would call and check up on his younger brother. They shared a love of Dungeons and Dragons and when Hunter went away to college, Bodie carried on the tradition of hosting games for his friends. Hunter took these games very seriously, as he did all things he participated in. His life in itself was a meaningful quest. All things quest-like became his favorite. From video games to the Lord of the Rings and The Martian, to games with his friends, everything was a quest. An adventure. A meaningful experience, as I’m sure all of his friends can attest to. His last quest, The Lost Lewis Treasure Hunt, was two years in the making and was the most epic of them all, as he has now disappeared and became the lost Lewis treasure.

Hunter moved to Arcata at 5 years old and attended Pacific Union School from kindergarten to 8th grade, and Arcata High School from grades 9 to 12. His best friends made during these years in school were his best friends for life. When Hunter got into something, he got into it passionately. Swimming, soccer, cross country, tennis, mountain climbing, Tae Kwon Do (2nd Dan black belt), video filming and editing, DnD, and more recently piloting airplanes. Music was a passion throughout his life, as he played trumpet, guitar, bass guitar, ukulele, violin, mandolin, keyboard and melodica. Most of these were self-taught, and he played passionately with a great deal of skill. He loved to belt out songs for his friends or to himself, and he had a mature, eclectic taste in music. His current life goal was to be an astronaut, and everything he did recently went towards working to that goal. He was studying aerospace engineering at California State University, Long Beach, had earned his pilot’s license and had just been accepted into NASA’s early astronaut training program. There was no limit to what Hunter could achieve. If he could dream it, he could become it!

One of Hunter’s most joyous moments was meeting the love of his life, Kinsley. They met during quarantine last year on a trip with friends to Zion National Park and were inseparable from then on. They had happily just celebrated a year together and talked often of their combined future. She attended many holidays with our family here in Humboldt County, as well as with Corey’s extended family in Colorado, and Hunter would travel to Massachusetts to visit her family, which are all part of our family now.

Hunter is survived by his parents, Micki Vetrie of Arcata and Corey Lewis of Blue Lake, and his younger brother, Bodie, as well as many extended family and cherished friends from all over the country and world.

This world may be a little darker now that he is gone, but he made all our lives brighter when he was here. May we remember him with happiness and strive to brighten up the world and embrace life fully like Hunter did. “Live like Hunter.”

A public celebration of life will be held on Sunday, January 30, from 2-5 p.m. at the Arcata Community Center, 321 Martin Luther King Parkway, in Arcata. In lieu of flowers or donations to the family, donations can be made to Humboldt Bay and Fire at hbfire.org.