Next Stop: Calgary

Well, after a weeks trip down to southern Canada and a road trip later around Ontario, the Maritimes and Alberta I've come back with some good news: a job instructing, getting me in the air! I will be starting to instruct at the Calgary Flying Club in Calgary, AB in the later half of March which is very exciting! Don't worry for those interested... I will be continuing this blog as I progress and move / fly to different places.

As for the new job, I will be starting out by working in the mornings on the ramp and the afternoons Instructing until it becomes busy enough to support another full time instructor. It's the basic progression of most flight instructors to start out on the dispatch desk scheduling flights or on the ramp, fueling, de-icing and moving aircrafts. It will be good for some extra money to live while building my client base from the ground.

The Drive from Calgary, west to Springbank Airport

The Calgary Flying Club is located at the Springbank Airport, which is a very busy airport just on the outskirts of the Calgary area. The airport is known mainly as a training airport, supporting 5-6 different flying schools.

I am very excited (can you not tell) to move to Calgary and actually start flying, however I will miss living in the North and will hopefully get a crack at some flying up here, later on in my career. The cold days and winter past times, the true 'Canadian' locals, my co-workers and especially those who took me into their houses when I was scrambling for places to stay.

In the past month, there has been a few interesting trips which have come up in and around Smith which we've had to deal with. The day before going on my trip to the south, I had to prepare the Turbo-Otter for a trip far north for some Caribou hunting well North of the treeline. On top of putting the aircraft to bed with all of its heaters plugged in and covers on the airfoils we prepped different things like fuel drums full of Jet-A inside the cabin to ensure there was more than enough fuel to make it back safely, along with many other safety and emergency 'just-in-case' items. Whether it's pushing 30 or 40 below, the aircraft has to be ready to go when it's supposed to, regardless of how much time it takes to prep the aircraft outside in the cold.

As for this trip, and many similar trips which come up on a regular basis. The people up here charter the aircraft and spend the day, or days at a time going up to remote locations where the animals run free, getting these animals as a source of both food, and income. They use all of the animal's meat to feed their families or to sell, along with Hides, which can sell for quite a price, if cured properly.


Apart from the many hunting trips, we had some visitors come to town from other parts of NWT, including Yellowknife and Hay River for a skating competition. We a few of our Jetstream aircraft chartered to go pick them up to bring them into town, then back again at the end of the weekend. We also had one of First Air's ATR aircraft land, bringing in young kids and their parents into town. With Northwestern being the only operator at the airport, we were called in to unload and reload the aircraft when they came in and when they left at the end of the weekend. Things like this, keep things constantly changing and don't allow it to get boring for too long on the ramp.

Loading bags into the First Air ATR

The past week has brought some magnificent sightings of the Northern Lights, however my camera does not have the proper shutter speeds to take pictures of these glowing bands illuminating the North Sky. In the last week they have been brighter than usual, lighting up the entire sky - I just wish I had these when I first started and was riding the bike to and from work in the black night.

That's all for now, I will surely be continuing my blog as I move south - to Calgary!