Flying On Instinct

by L. D. Cross

  Had all gone well, the MacAlpine expedition would have been back home by September 20. When they had failed to show up at Bathurst Inlet on the Arctic Ocean, 360 miles (580 kilometres) northeast of Yellowknife, by September 24, one of the few northern radio stations sent out word that the group, due 12 days earlier, still had not arrived. An aerial search started that day. For eight weeks, bush pilots flew over 30,000 square miles (77,700 square kilometres) of Arctic Barrens, battling fog, mist, rain and snow, navigating by the sun or the seat of their pants when their compasses were disturbed by the nearby north magnetic pole. The rescuers also became stranded at remote locations when fuel was low, food scarce or equipment broke. It was one of the largest aerial searches in Canadian history to that date.

  The world press was fascinated and, according to MacAlpine’s grandson, “gobbled up every detail of the search” for the missing prospectors. Finally, the search was called off when word came that the MacAlpine expedition was safe. Lieutenant Colonel MacAlpine and his mining associates footed the cost of the search, which was almost $400,000. During their ordeal, the stock market crash of 1929 happened, and a journalist noted, “Such investors as were on board the two aircraft who had left a buoyant, albeit nervous, stock market situation encountered glum news indeed on their return to civilization.” The members of the expedition were reunited with their planes, but many lost their fortunes.

  The functional Fokker Universal was also the bush plane flown by Walter Edwin Gilbert, another Western Canada Airways (later to become Canadian Airways) pilot. Gilbert had enlisted in the RFC in the First World War and by 1918 was in France as a front-line fighter pilot. Back in Canada after the war, he flew forestry patrols and mapping missions across northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In 1929, when stationed in British Columbia, Gilbert had been instrumental in saving the life of H.C. Hughes, superintendent at the Emerald Mine in the West Kootenays. Hughes had been mauled by a grizzly bear and lost a lot of blood. Infection had set in, and he urgently needed to be flown out for treatment to save his life. Gilbert, under contract with the mine’s owner, Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company, got the call. An experienced pilot was needed to pick up the patient and deliver him to a critical-care hospital as quickly as possible. Gilbert took on the mission. He flew 280 miles (450 kilometres) from Stewart to Burns Lake to pick up Hughes in a mere 2 hours and 10 minutes. The next morning, he ferried the wounded man and an attendant 520 miles (835 kilometres) to Vancouver via Quesnel and Bridge River. Hughes survived thanks to Gilbert’s flying skill and stamina.

  Bush pilot Walter Gilbert was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his contribution to mapping the Arctic. He is shown here at The Pas, Manitoba, in 1929. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA PA-102345

  This was only the beginning of Gilbert’s phenomenal bush-flying career. He was transferred by WCA to Fort McMurray, Alberta, accompanied by his wife Jeanne, who flew with him so often that she logged more miles than any other woman in Canada prior to the Second World War. They first stayed at the Franklin Hotel, then bought a tiny “wooden shack” just behind it. First World War flying ace, bush pilot and explorer Punch Dickins, also flying with WCA, was already stationed there.

  In July 1930, Gilbert, his engineer Stan Knight, pilot Buck Buchanan and Major Lauchie (L.T.) Burwash of the federal Department of the Interior left on a government-sponsored aerial exploratory trip with three objectives: find the remains of members of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, who had departed England in 1845 and perished after abandoning their ships while searching for the Northwest Passage; take aerial photos of northern coastlines; and record magnetic properties near King William Island in an attempt to verify the location of the north magnetic pole. Gilbert flew up the Boothia Peninsula, his plane outfitted with an aerial camera and a portable radio, a new device that allowed him to communicate with headquarters back in the Mackenzie River District. Arriving in the settlement at Coppermine, Northwest Territories, he proceeded to methodically map a large part of the Arctic coastline and the area of the North Pole.

  The other pilot on the expedition, Buck Buchanan, had come along to retrieve the WCA (now CA for Canadian Airways) plane left behind by the MacAlpine party the year before. Designated “SK,” she had been sitting outside at Queen Maud Bay, entrusted to a group of Inuit camped nearby. With time to spare before the supply ship arrived with their gear for the Franklin search, Gilbert and Buchanan retraced the MacAlpine flight path; looking down, they saw the plane moored right where she had been left. They touched down and checked her out. Other than a few rusty cables, SK appeared airworthy. Pushing their luck some more, they topped up her oil and poured in some gas. The engine caught first time. It was getting dark, so they set up camp for the night. After tossing back food rations, Gilbert noticed some Inuit approaching the campfire. He invited them to join him and Buchanan, but they declined. One man held out a closed fist. When he opened it, Gilbert saw the key to the plane’s cabin in his palm. MacAlpine had left it with him for safekeeping, and he was now returning it to the plane’s rescuers. Gilbert was touched by the Inuits’ honesty. When he and Buchanan had pried open the cabin door earlier, everything inside was as it had been left. Returning to Coppermine the next morning in separate planes, Buchanan refuelled and waved as he flew off in Fokker Universal G-CASK, leaving Gilbert, Knight and Burwash to start their hunt for Franklin.

  The many 19th- and 20th-century searches for clues to Franklin’s fate had expanded knowledge of the islands and waterways of the Arctic Archipelago, but many questions remained about the expedition’s tragic end. The Inuit had brought some medals to show authorities, but this time Burwash also had a map from an anonymous old sailor that purported to shown the location of Franklin’s grave on King William Island. The three men lifted off into a clear sky, but then smoke billowed out of the engine. They returned to the airstrip. The diagnosis was a blown piston, and the correct part could only be installed by CA in Winnipeg. He needed a replacement plane. Now his aircraft radio would not work. Gilbert remembered there was a radio on board the supply ship Bay Chimo, which was about to depart. He leaped on board just in time and made the call.

  The next morning, Gilbert was rousted out of bed by the roar of an engine low overhead. Running outside, he came face to face with a laughing Buck Buchanan and SK, newly outfitted and with a full tank of gas. The threesome threw their gear into the refurbished Fokker and took off. With Coppermine behind them, they ran into a blizzard and were forced down at Bernard Harbour, southwest of Sutton Island, for seven days and nights. Burwash was convinced the mission was cursed. Overflying more of the Arctic coast, Gilbert continued aerial mapping until they landed at Cambridge Bay for supplies. From there, he proceeded to the rocky, ice-strewn coast of King William Island and put down on the southern tip. They refuelled from a cache that had been left for them and picked up Dick Finnie, another Department of the Interior employee, who was making a film about the North. As they flew on to Victory Point, the compass needle became erratic and began spinning in circles. Gilbert was well aware of the effect magnetism had on compasses and pointed at Knight, who began operating the aerial camera as rapidly as possible. Then he gave Gilbert a thumbs-up. They had just been the first to fly over and photograph the north magnetic pole.

  Reaching Victory Point, they set down on an ice-free inlet and rushed ashore. Burwash and Finnie took off to search, while Gilbert and Knight made camp. The next morning, the four men gingerly picked their way over sharp rocks that cut into the soles of their boots. Then Burwash sighted something. It looked like an abandoned campsite. Scattered around were food tins, a bit of dark-blue cloth and some metal fragments but nothing else—certainly no bones. The camp had remained undiscovered until then, but the few artifacts Burwash collected yielded no clues to the eventual fate of the campers. The next day, Gilbert flew around the island, Knight photographed its coastline and they flew back to Coppermine in silence.

  They had been gone for three weeks an
d now set out for Fort Smith and its radio link to the outside world. Gilbert was surprised to learn the press had speculated that they too had been stranded at the mercy of the elements or died in an Arctic crash. He immediately sent word to Jeanne that he was very much alive and flew on to meet her at Fort McMurray, where the aerial explorers were greeted as heroes.

  A year after Gilbert’s party failed to find any remains of Franklin’s crew, William Gibson of the HBC searched the south coast of King William Island and discovered a number of skeletons and artifacts from the Franklin expedition. In 1981 and 1982, anthropologists from the University of Alberta discovered the scattered remains of seven unidentified Franklin expedition crew members on King William Island.

  In recognition of his contribution to mapping the Arctic, Gilbert was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1932. He was awarded the McKee Trophy in 1933, “in recognition of his exploratory flights throughout the North.” Gilbert settled into the life of a bush pilot in Fort McMurray, taking prospectors and miners on charter flights across the North. With Punch Dickins, he completed the first commercial flight to Port Radium on Great Bear Lake in 1931, and that same year the Canadian Press paid him to fly a reporter to Aklavik for an interview with Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly non-stop from New York to Paris, and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The couple were flying across Canada on a trip to China and the Far East. The next morning, when Lindbergh had difficulty lifting off in his heavily fuelled plane, Gilbert pulled in front and took off so Lindbergh could ride his slipstream up off the water and into the air.

  CHAPTER

  5

  The Flying Knight

  of the Northland

  CLENNELL HAGGERSTON DICKINS could not remember when he was not called “Punch.” Born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, he moved to Edmonton with his family when he was 10. His nickname was bestowed either when his brother, Francis, called him Punch for some unknown reason, or when his maternal Aunt Nell called him a fat little punch because his clothes kept riding up over his tummy. However he received it, the nickname stuck for life. As a bush pilot he acquired other monikers. Northern Natives called him Snow Eagle, northern whites called him White Eagle, the press dubbed him The Flying Knight of the Northland and the Inuit called him Tingmashuk (birdman), although they were often very skeptical of his airplane because “the wings don’t flap.”

  After enlisting in the infantry in the First World War, Dickins spent a less-than-exciting year as company clerk, then transferred into the RFC, where he became a bomber pilot, shooting down seven enemy aircraft and becoming one of the few bomber pilots designated an ace (a pilot with five or more kills). He modestly attributed his success to teamwork with his skilled gunner, Second Lieutenant Jock Adam, and by 1918 they had flown 73 missions together. Dickins was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) at age 20 in 1919. After returning home, he briefly studied engineering at the University of Alberta, then earned commercial-pilot certification and joined the new RCAF from 1924 to 1927. Seeking to impress a girl named Connie whom he had met at university, Dickins flew his plane under Edmonton’s High Level Bridge over the North Saskatchewan River. It was a dangerous stunt but dramatic enough to catch Connie’s attention. They married in 1927 and remained a devoted couple for almost 70 years.

  Assigned to report to the Edmonton Post Office on the use of aircraft to deliver letters and packages faster than by rail or truck, he left the military for civil aviation. He joined WCA and convinced them of the profitable future for airmail, proving it by flying the first prairie airmail circuit, which included Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Like fellow bush pilots, Dickins was fascinated by the new frontier, the North. During his long career, he flew more than 1,000,000 miles (1,610,000 kilometres) across the uncharted Arctic using nothing more than dead reckoning and his handmade maps because weather reports, accurate compass readings and even prepared landing strips were unknown. As a bush pilot, Dickins was reported missing many times, but he always made it out and back home. His exploits became legendary. Dickins delivered the first airmail over the Northwest Territories; he was the first pilot to fly along the Arctic coastline, the first to fly the full 2,000-mile (3,220-kilometre) length of the Mackenzie River, doing so in two days, and the first to fly prospectors to Great Bear Lake when uranium deposits were found there.

  Throughout his life, Dickins was lucky. He walked away from many crack-ups without a scratch, leaving his planes to be picked up at a later date. He once ditched on a northern Ontario lake when his engine quit. He camped out, rationing his food to stretch over one week. Although he had brought his rifle along and could supplement his rations with wild game, he had no idea where he was. On day three of his encampment, he heard the roar of a plane and threw some more twigs on the fire. The search plane had spotted his signal fire and flown over to investigate. Seeing Dickins’s waving arms, the pilot dipped his wings up and down and then landed to pick him up and fly him out.

  It could have been much worse if Dickins hadn’t been wearing his usual cold-weather flying suit, which was a fur parka made entirely out of rat pelts. (They were probably muskrat pelts, but people liked the rat story better.) It was a unique wardrobe choice but essential to surviving in a harsh environment. Dickins counted on it to keep him snug and warm in the worst weather. It again proved its worth when he was forced down by a blizzard shortly after takeoff and had to walk through hip-high snow back to base.

  In 1928, the parka accompanied him on a contract job for Lieutenant Colonel C.D.H. MacAlpine of Dominion Explorers. The job involved checking out locations along Hudson Bay and then parts of the unmapped Northwest Territories. Richard Pearce, the editor of Northern Miner, came along to write about the trip. Fuel caches would be available, but there would be long unexplored stretches of the Barrens to cover. They flew out of Winnipeg to Port Churchill and looked down on a pod of whales cavorting in the water below. Refuelling at Baker Lake, they flew over trackless tundra with not even a caribou herd in sight. For hours, there were no identifiable markers, and Dickins began to question his navigation. Were they going in the correct direction? The horizon was an indistinct blur with sky and land indistinguishable. He checked his rudimentary instruments and his maps, such as they were. He checked his own internal compass and sense of direction honed over years of bush flying. Cabin conversation ceased. The engine droned on. Finally there was a reflection from something down below. It was Dubawnt Lake. They had made it over the worst part of the Barrens. Turning south, Dickins put down at the RCMP post at Stony Rapids, where they spent the night and refuelled after MacAlpine had a wee private chat with the reluctant commandant, who at first claimed there was no fuel available for the plane.

  The next morning, gassed up, they set out again, but there were strong headwinds that ate up fuel at an alarming rate. Then the needle in the fuel gauge stabilized at quarter-full. Dickins was relieved, but not for long. When the engine started sputtering, he realized the needle was not registering accurately because it had frozen. The engine was dead, and they needed a place to land immediately. Down below was the Slave River. Dickins lined up with the ribbon of water, looking to see if there were any deadheads just under the surface, or any sandbars or animals crossing. It looked clear, but there would be no second chance. He had to get it right the first time. The three men chucked up their safety harness for maximum restraint and prepared to go in. Dickins chose his spot, an area without dark shadows that would indicate any obstacles. The Fokker floated down and landed like a leaf on the water. As the plane headed into shore, the men jumped out, sloshed through the cold water and tied the plane to some trees with rope from its cargo compartment.

  Over a campfire, the men discussed their options. Nobody knew where they were, so rescue was unlikely. They could abandon the plane and trek 60 miles (97 kilometres) with few supplies through unmapped bush in what they believed was the direction of Fort Smith. Dickins suggested they get the axe out of the plane, cut down s
ome trees, build a raft and float downriver, hopefully to civilization. It was agreed that a raft was their best chance of getting out safely. MacAlpine and Pearce went to check out possible logs for the raft, and Dickins went to get the axe. Standing on one of the plane’s floats, he stopped to catch a sound that was not made by Mother Nature. It sounded like the putt-putt-putt of an engine, but his engine was very dead. Then he heard the blast of a whistle coming from the river. He grabbed his binoculars and scanned the water. It was surreal. Coming around the bend, belching black smoke and churning the water, was a real live steamboat.

  Dickins jumped back on shore and tore through the underbrush, shouting and waving his arms. The boat kept moving. Racing over rocks into a clearing, he yelled even more, jumping up and down on top of a high boulder. The boat slowed, started a turn and gave a loud blast. Somebody on board waved back. As the steamboat pulled near shore, a man in a red-and-black-checked wool jacket leaned over the rail and shouted, “Are you guys in trouble?”

  Not any more, thought Dickins, but he shouted back, “Do you have any airplane fuel on board?”

  “Sure do,” was the reply. “Got ten drums for some guy called Dickins who is supposed to fly up here next winter.”

  In 1929, one of the first airmail planes in the North is loaded with mailbags at Fort McMurray, Alberta, en route to Aklavik, Northwest Territories. GLENBOW ARCHIVES NA-463-49