Winters Back

What I wake up to every morning

Well, another week has gone by and the weather has become more 'seasonal' once again. 40 below is the daytime high, and the average temperature until the end of the 5-day forecast, which leads me to believe that this is the 'real winter' which people speak about - where its -30 for an entire month at a time. When the temperature rises close to 0 (in May), I feel it will be t-shirt weather!

I've been keeping my truck plugged in constantly, and when I am not driving it for a few hours, I pop the terminals off the battery and carry it inside with me. Although the oil is like molasses at those temperatures, even with the block heater working, my car been getting me to work every morning while others have had to beg for rides when their cars are frozen solid. Even though my truck starts, it sure drinks it's fair share in gas, and digs deep into my pocket. In the 3 months that I have had it, I broke my first 1000km on it yesterday, yet am filling up almost twice a week! It sure is reliable for 25 years, but it definitely has some inefficiencies in the engine and exhaust system!

I'm not too sure if anyone caught the season premiere of 'Ice Pilots' which is a show based on an airline similar to ours called Buffalo Airways, flying out of Yellowknife, NWT. The greater majority of our flight crew and ramp staff all got together at Troy and Andrea's house last wednesday evening to watch it. it's funny how pilot's would love to watch that, even though its the exact same thing which we live every day. Anyways, in that particular episode, they were on the Northern tip of the Canadian Mainland stranded in the cold as they forgot to bring their 'Herman Nelson', which is a huge deisel-powered heater to warm up the engines and aircraft if it's shut down for any period of time.

That same day at work, before I got together with everyone I was helping a Twin-Otter Crew of South Nahanni Airways, from Fort Simpson, NWT. We were getting their aircraft and engines warm enough with our Herman Nelson, after it had been sitting on the ramp in the freezing cold for several days to depart on a return charter up to Yellowknife. We use it frequently when something happens and our back-up aircraft needs to be heated for a quick departure

Blowing Warm air in through the flight deck window early in the morning

Buffalo Airways and Northwestern Air Lease are similar companies in terms of their day-to-day operations. Buffalo provides scheduled service to many remote communities in the far north from Yellowknife, which is the hub for the north, and keeps their aircraft flying (and making money) by doing mainly cargo charters, in the far North.

At Northwestern, they connect Fort Smith with the North and the South (as it is predominantly a government town) by providing service to Edmonton and Yellowknife several times daily. Our aircraft are kept busy by doing charters to the diamond mines, as Fort Smith is home to many miners, as well as many other on-demand passenge travel. We have recently picked up a large contract with a company called Aluma out of Fort McMurrary. Northwestern is doing 3-5 weekly flights from Fort McMuray to Edmonton and Calgary for the to transfer the rig operators up north on their rotations. It's a big contract for the company and the pilots love it as it is alot of extra mileage (which is how they get paid - A Base salary + mileage).


To add to our Jetstream charters, our single engine aircraft do significant flying in the spring summer and fall when the ice roads are not open, flying in weekly supplies to places without road access (quite common up here).




Above is a picture of the Cessna 185 on Ski's leaving on a food run to a place called Kozo (I'm not exactly sure where it is) but they are delivering food to the prison up there - they get steak and ribs on a weekly basis. At Christmas they shipped up several turkeys and hams. Doesn't seem like such a rough life afterall. I've even seen sushi being sent up.

The New Year

Little Buffalo Falls

Well, the New Year also brought up a special visitor to come spend time with me and enjoy and explore what the North has to offer. Heather came up for a week and a half and rang in the new years in true Canadian style: in the trailer park. We were also able to go for a little hike with some of my friends outside of town and checkout the Northern Life Museum, which is home to the ever-so-popular stuffed Wood-Buffalo. It sure was nice to have company up here, although I was working for the greater majority of the time.

Myself, Heather, Andrea, Sunny, Troys Grandma & Troy
Troy, Andrea and Sunny (missing Adam in the picture) were the people I stayed with in November

"It feels like summer" is what I was told as I was greeting passengers arriving from Yellowknife last week (no, not Heather - Although I'm sure it felt like summer to her). I chuckled to myself before I realized it actually isn't all that bad here.

Sure feels like summer!

The temperature has been hanging around - 15C for the past few weeks, which has become quite comfortable, compared to Yellowknife which has been sitting somewhere close to -30C. So far it has been quite a mild winter here in Fort Smith when the weather should be very similar to that of Yellowknife. I've also noticed that other places in the north are a lot warmer than usual: Iqaluit has been above 0 for the most part of the fall and winter, there is barely any snow right now, not to mention Frobisher Bay is not even frozen.


I figured I'd share this picture above which is of my roommate, Thomas doing the fuel dips. On a daily basis, one of our tasks is to dip the fuel tanks levels and do fuel quality tests. We need to keep track of their levels, ensuring we never run out and ensure that there is no foreign debris or water going into the aircrafts fuel tanks, which could lead to catastrophic problems.

Up here in for Smith we have 3 tanks of Jet A Fuel and 2 Tanks of 100 Low-Lead General Aviation Gas holding 105,000L and 75,000L respectively. Throughout the winter, we do not use or sell AVGas all that much as it is primarily used to fill up our Cessna singles and the Water Bombers in the summer; however, we can use anywhere between 2000 - 6000L of Jet A fuel on a daily basis. One of the many reasons why we need to know how much is in each tank at all times.