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It was a nice surprise to find this book in my mailbox at a company’s ‘crew room’. A friend of mine, one of our pilots, left it there, signed: “it was pleasure to fly with you”. Recently we worked together, and, as it turned, after a few short minutes of usual ’small talk’, both of us quickly found a turf of common interest laying in the subject of bush flying. His dad, by the way, was mentioned in the book, for he was one of the prominent aviators opening up the province’s North for exploration and development.

First, and foremost, I found this piece of reading to be very ‘educative’. At least, for myself, because the only way, - in which I’ve been able so far to explore the subject, - is the ‘reading and listening’, and the only ‘actual field exploit’ undertaken to the date, - and in which I had a chance to get in touch with ‘authentic bush flying’, - was our trip to Red Lake, Ontario where we were introduced to it through experiencing the Norsemen Festival.

Amazing, how could even minute things be connected in this world.. I’ve gotten just another proof of this wisdom when I learned from a chat with my friend that his dad used to fly this particular Norseman, CF-SAN, which was bought by the Saskatchewan government in the 40s, and flown under the colors of a provincial company called ‘Saskatchewan Government Airways’.

You can see more pictures of the plane if you follow this link to one of the ‘Red Lake posts’ on this blog.

And one episode with participation of the CF-SAN was shown in the book too! In 1960 it got into a ‘flip-over incident’, when it was caught by a gust of high wind while water-taxiing on the  Ile a-la-Crosse lake. However, it stayed afloat, and a pilot and all passengers on board managed to get out unhurt. Later the plane was salvaged, and brought back to flying condition.

As I progress through the book, I experience my own kind of ‘opening’ - as the horizons of knowledge about Canada’s geography are being expanded by every minute of its reading Perhaps you know that almost all the territory of Northern Saskatchewan rests on the Canadian Shield, an ancient bedrock geologic structure of tremendous size, sprawling across nearly the half of the continental Canada to the East.

It is a very rugged, rocky terrain, being hard to move across on the surface. No wonder that aviation from the beginning was seen as a tool of great potential in furthering the territory’s exploration.

Prince Albert, La Ronge, Stanley Mission, La Loche, Reindeer Lake, Stony Rapids, Uranium City, Lake Athabasca.. All these, - along with many others - are mentioned in the book as the ‘key points’ supporting the growth of operation over the time, and building infrastructure for northern flying in the province. And I’ll bet these towns’, lakes’, places’ names tell volumes to generations of Canadian pilots who started, or continued, their careers in this ‘country of pure wilderness’.

Interestingly enough, in recent years a number of helicopter pilots, former natives of the ex-Soviet republics, have been noticed in the Saskatchewan’s Canadian Shield too. They made their way to Canada, and ended up flying in the bush.

Isn’t that one more amazing example of the global inter-connection stretching across both sides of Arctic?

(to be continued..)