I'm back there tomorrow for the day, taking a new group of executives to check the place out. Tomorrow we are going to tour the gold mine, but today we just hung around the airport and surrounding area.
The airport is a lot more active that one might think. Check out what I saw:
I haven't seen a DC-3 in years. This one is based in Red Lake and does regular freight runs to northern reserves.
Gotta love the speed tape on the nose!
These engines have character. And grease!
I took a pic of the cargo - true northern goods - pop and chips.
More planes:
One of Bearskin Airlines' Metros. They have like 20 of them and use 'em to run passenger skeds in Northern Ontario, and I commuted on them regularly when I flew for Thunder Airlines. Metros are noisy, bumpy, hateful airplanes.
A Thunder Airlines King Air 100 dropped by on a medevac. The passenger was on a stretcher, and they loaded the stretcher onto a baggage cart to bring it out to the plane. Gotta love the north.
Some random straight Navajo. I flew the 'ho when I lived up in northern Saskatchewan, back in the day.
A Beech Travelair, owned by Perimeter Airlines based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I got my multi engine rating on a Travelair, it was a fun airplane. Perimeter uses them on bag runs, moving cancelled cheques to and from small towns to the larger centers for processing. A typical day would be - Winnipeg - Kenora - Sioux Lookout - Red Lake - sit for 12 hours in Red Lake, then - Sioux Lookout - Kenora - Winnipeg.
We headed to the local float base and I was rewarded with a great pic of a Dehavilland Norseman:
I used the super-high shutter speed on this one and caught the prop clearly as she came in for a landing at the waterbase :)
The waterbase was full of Beavers, Otters, and more.
A slightly better angle of the Beech 18 on floats. It uses the same engine as on a Beaver, the Wasp jr.
It was a beautiful day, but eventually it was time to return to Toronto.
That's what a decent-sized forest fire looks like from 37,000 feet.
The smoke stretches for miles and miles
The F/o hard at work, with the clear blue sky in the background and a cloud layer that made us feel like we were skimming across the surface of some white ocean.
I really like this pic for some reason.
Well, it's 10:30 and time for bed - I am doing the same thing over again tomorrow, bright and early. See you up in the sky.
8 comments:
Whoops. I was going to say that the furthest north I have been in Canada was Lac du Mille Lac, not Lake of the Woods. And my husband has an interest in GoldCorp which runs some of the mines in Red Lake. Someday I'd like to explore some of the "great white north". Glad you had a good day.
nice pictures
Cool Photos Sulako. Thanks :)
I think that DC-3 used to operate out of Oshawa. I know Enterprise had (have) a base their. Not sure now
Yup, that DC3 belongs to Enterprise Air (or Triumph Airways as they are now known as). The aircraft is based out of Oshawa, but I believe they have leased it or its on contract doing runs in Northern Ontario and Manitoba. I have almost 900 hours flying that wonderful plane. One of the last things I did before I moved on to my current job was help polish the fuselage. Good to see that she's still flying.
The PAG Travelaire goes YWG-YQK-YHD-YRL, no stop in YXL. And JV only has 6 or 8 metros. PAG has 20+.
Okay, I'm busted. I was making up routes and numbers, mostly because I couldn't be bothered to do actual research.
/throws self on the floor and begs for mercy.
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