Smokey and other Musings from this week

Smokey Hanging out atop one of the Light Fixtures in the Parts department at the top of Hanger 2

There has been a few who have asked about Smokey... so I figured I would do some more 'in depth' research on him. Smokey the hanger cat has been with Northwestern for about 8 years, and could be anywhere from 12-15 years old. He lives upstairs in the parts department, where it is pretty warm both in the summer AND winter (all the hanger's heat rises and makes it a sweatbox up there). He was picked up at the animal shelter to take care of their mouse problem, but when one of the ladies up there started bringing him canned salmon for breakfast most mornings, he has acquired a taste of the rich, and is leaving us to have to resort to mousetraps! (If someone brought ME Salmon every day, would be pretty happy too)

The ladies up there say he is deaf and that you have to tap on the floor to get his attention (funny he seems to hear me calling him). I think he may be outsmarting them and ignoring all the yapping that goes on up there!


This week has been averaging 30 below, with it being even colder before the crack of dawn! (It surely has made for some nice skies in the mornings and during the day!) We have also had a few visitors coming in and out. Wednesday brought in this 'sporty' helicopter which was in for fuel enroute from Yellowknife down to Saskatoon. I know very little about helicopters, but for some reason it doesn't seem practical to travel that way over such a large distance - He said it would take another 7 hours from his stop in Fort Smith.

The second visitor was the RCMP's aircraft which stopped in to do a prisoner transfer from one of the two jails in Fort Smith and bring him to Yellowknife. His hands were cuffed, then tied to his waist by a thick leather belt (I presume to stop him from getting anywhere if he tried to run). However, on a regular basis, RCMP officers escort people to go to court in Yellowknife on our AM scheduled run. This guy must have been too dangerous to to have to get his own aircraft sent for him.

Loading the Cessna 206 up to the brim for one of the many runs we do up to a small town in the Northwest Territories. Food and supplies, all the essentials