by L. D. Cross
By May 1953, Wardair Ltd. was in business, first operating domestically and then expanding into overseas charters. The airline had some unique assignments in the early years. On one occasion, a Texas rancher wanted a musk ox to crossbreed with his cattle, so two Wardair planes located a herd on the tundra and separated a young specimen from the rest. After one plane landed, its flying cowboys roped the wild creature, tied its legs and stowed it in the cargo area. They neglected to sedate it. For Ward, who still pitched in to clean and maintain his planes, this was the ultimate messy job.
Ward took his company public in 1961 but retained controlling interest. By the mid-1970s, Wardair was Canada’s third-largest commercial airline and largest international air charter carrier, but the company faced tough competition from Air Canada and CP Air as well as difficulties with government regulators. In 1989, Ward surprised Bay Street by selling his airline. It was yet another step in the familiar process of growing an airline by buying out the competition. In 1987, Pacific Western Airlines Corporation had purchased CP Air, which had already acquired Nordair and Eastern Provincial Airways. These four airlines were combined into Canadian Airlines International, which was further expanded with the purchase of Wardair but eventually taken over by Air Canada in 2000.
Having received many aviation and business awards, Ward was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974. At the time, it was noted that “his lengthy and continuing efforts to responsibly service this nation’s most northern frontier by air, despite adversity, together with his development of a viable international charter service, have been of outstanding benefit to Canadian aviation.” The following year he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
As Max Ward discovered, flying in the North was a dangerous proposition, and it remains so today. In wild, unforgiving country, bush pilots are at the mercy of unforeseen circumstances. They live or die by their endurance and skill. But thanks to his skill and determination, Ward’s one-man shoestring operation in the North grew into a multi-million-dollar charter operation that circled the globe.
CHAPTER
8
Tales from
Mountain Valleys
WHILE THE ENGINEER DID MOST of the drudge work to keep bush planes flying, it was usually the pilot who scooped up most of the glory. When their names and exploits appeared in newspapers, the recognition got them more flying contracts. Francis Russell “Russ” Baker used the press with great success, growing a single-plane operation into Central BC Airways. Stories about his derring-do and pioneering flights into unexplored territory appeared regularly in BC papers. Baker flew through difficult mountainous terrain with prospectors and also conducted mercy flights, arriving just in time to rescue lost trekkers. Forestry wardens were flown on patrols over hundreds of miles to otherwise inaccessible areas by “veteran bush pilot Russ Baker.”
Baker’s reputation also brought him work from the Americans during the Second World War. Shortly after the US entered the war, following the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, came the military initiative to build a highway from western Canada to Alaska so Allied troops could be rapidly deployed north if the Japanese invaded North America. Baker was one of several bush pilots contracted to fly surveyors along the proposed route. He did that and a lot more. On January 5, 1942, 14 new Martin B-26 Marauder bombers left Gowen Field at Boise, Idaho, headed for the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. They were being flown by new members of the 77th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group, Air Force Combat Command, many of whom had minimal training. On January 16, facing the probability of foul weather, they took off along a 1,000-mile (1,610-kilometre) route to Whitehorse, Yukon. They were equipped with pencil sketches rather than maps and had no electronic navigation aids.
By 6:00 pm, three of the B-26s were lost, running out of fuel and flying at low altitude because of snow squalls. The crews decided to crash-land at a suitable location, should they be lucky enough to find one. When a fairly wide valley with a flat floor was sighted amid the mountains, they decided to go for it. Two planes landed without incident by keeping their wheels up, which allowed the aircraft’s fuselage to skim over the snow like a boat’s hull. The third plane dropped its landing gear as a braking manoeuvre to lose speed and nosed over into four to five feet (1.2 to 1.5 metres) of snow. Fortunately, the pilot and co-pilot received only minor injuries, and the rest of the crew was unhurt.
The aircraft were all equipped with survival equipment, so the crews set up camp in the valley. At first light on January 17, a search was begun for the missing planes but was not successful. On January 18, they were spotted by some Curtiss P-40E fighter planes also en route to Alaska. Then “veteran bush pilot Russ Baker” was dispatched to rescue them. He arrived the next morning in a small Fokker equipped with skis and began airlifting the men to Watson Lake, Yukon. It took almost a week for Baker to ferry all 24 crewmen to safety. A few months later, salvage crews were sent to the wreck site to strip the planes of all useable parts, which were then airlifted out. The remaining skeletal frames were abandoned. The valley began to be called Million Dollar Valley, an exaggeration of the cost of the three B-26 bombers.
For his role in rescuing the air crews, Russ Baker was awarded the United States Air Medal for “exceptional daring and pilotage ability” in January 1942 by President Harry Truman. By the 1960s, only a few of the 5,266 B-26 Marauders manufactured had survived the war or the scrapyard, and aircraft enthusiasts began searching around the world for restorable aircraft. In 1971, the Million Dollar Valley wrecks were rediscovered, and everything that remained was retrieved. By 2006, one of them had been restored to flying condition and another was undergoing restoration.
Baker worked for his old friend Grant McConachie of CPA as a pilot delivering mail to the North. He was made senior captain and later divisional superintendent for CPA at Whitehorse. It was during his time at CPA that Baker realized there was great business potential for charter aircraft companies. In 1946, he left to co-found Central BC Airways, based in Fort St. James, with fellow pioneer pilot Walter Gilbert. Its mission was to provide reliable air service to those working in mining, forestry, trapping and hunting in western and northern mountain communities where access was constrained by weather, topography and marginal profitability. It was an iffy business proposition, but Baker made it work and bought out Gilbert’s share in the business.
Baker started with two Beechcraft seaplanes, two employees and a contract with the BC Forest Service. To meet the expanding needs of the Forest Service, he acquired four more aircraft in 1947, and in 1948 became the proud owner of the first Beaver aircraft manufactured by de Havilland.
In 1947, Russ Baker became the first pilot to set down in the ancient land of the Naha, a wild and rugged area with no roads in and no roads out. Just a bit north of the 60th parallel in Canada’s Northwest Territories, the Nahanni area includes one of the deepest canyon systems in the world and the turbulent Nahanni River, which cuts through the remote Mackenzie Mountains. Today Nahanni National Park Reserve is one of Canada’s greatest treasures and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But it once had a more mysterious and sinister reputation. In autumn 1946, the Canadian media began running stories about lost miners and hidden riches in a far northwest “tropical valley” in the Nahanni. These fanciful tales were a welcome break from post-war recovery news. A young cub reporter for the Vancouver Sun, Pierre Berton, who wrote many of the Nahanni stories, decided to race against his journalistic competition to be first on scene in the legendary Headless Valley of the South Nahanni.
The most common explanation of the origin of the valley’s name dates from 1906, when prospecting brothers Willie and Frank McLeod attempted to take the Nahanni as an alternative route to Klondike gold. Rumours circulated that they had found the mother lode before misfortune struck. Their headless skeletons were discovered in 1908 by other prospectors. There were suggestions that Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper, might have been involved in the deaths when he first came fr
om the east to Yukon’s Ross River area, but nobody knows for sure.
Encouraged by his editor, Hal Straight, Berton approached Russ Baker. Although no plane had ever landed in the remote Nahanni in winter, Baker was eager to try. In January 1947, Baker, Berton and Vancouver Sun photographer Art Jones flew north to Prince George on a commercial flight, where they were met by Ed Hanratty, Baker’s mechanic, with a Junkers monoplane.
Members of the Headless Valley Expedition, photographed in January 1947: (from left to right) Pierre Berton, Russ Baker and Art Jones. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA PA-102384
During that harsh winter, -60°F (-51°C) temperatures were recorded on a regular basis. Berton had been born in the North and knew harsh winters. Baker also had many wintry bush escapades, once responding to a rescue plea for a ski-equipped plane to fly out 60 starving members of a road crew stranded in the snow 140 miles (225 kilometres) north of Fort St. James. Because the local lakes were still open, Baker had flooded a sandbar, which froze just enough for him to take off, his plane stripped down to lighten the load. He made the round trip 10 times from his makeshift runway, saving all the men. Berton wrote of Baker’s prowess and his mercy flights: “Maimed loggers, dying Indians, expectant mothers, flu-ridden children, fever-stricken prospectors have all buffeted northern gales to safety in his planes.”
The four men flew north in 100-mile (160-kilometre) segments, landing to repair a cracked cylinder, then to fly a pregnant woman to the closest hospital. At each stop, Berton radioed back a dispatch to his editor; these were syndicated across Canada and around the world. By February 1947, as they approached the Shangri-La, some 100 newspapers were following the adventure. At Fort Liard, they picked up an additional man, RCMP constable Jim Reid, who would serve as an unimpeachable witness. They headed on to Nahanni Butte, where they were greeted by Gus and Mary Kraus. The front pages of the February 16, 1947, newspapers declared:
Headless Valley, NWT (delayed - INS)—We landed today bang in the center of “Headless Valley,” the much talked about, much disputed core of the wild Nahanni country—our plane bounced on the rough ice like a prewar golf ball. It is the first time that a plane on skis has landed in this mysterious valley of the north.
As their Junkers’ engine idled on the frozen river, the men quickly ran out and set up prepared road signs, took photographs and entered a small cabin where a surprise awaited them, according to a story that appeared in the Vancouver Sun on February 17:
In the heart of this weird valley, deep in the grim sawtooth Nahanni Mountains where men have died for their gold, we found, of all things, a pin-up girl. Are you listening, Rita Hayworth? More important, is your press agent listening?
Miss Hayworth, let us be the first to tell you that you are the official queen of Headless Valley. For it was your pretty head and scantily-clad torso that we found staring right at us out of a tattered and crumbling cabin in the forbidden valley.
Who placed you here in this empty, forgotten log shack in this dead and silent banshee wind we have no way of knowing, but very nice you looked smiling at us from a sun-soaked California beach as you adjusted the zipper on your white-necked bathing suit. Believe us, Miss Hayworth, you brought the only breath of the tropics that has ever kissed the snow-locked wastelands that stretches across the 10 miles of this valley of dead men.
Over Officer Reid’s objections, Berton removed the photograph “for historic value,” suggesting he would send it to Miss Hayworth for her autograph. Then they took off and flew farther upriver to Pulpit Rock, the Gate of the Nahanni River, before heading out of the area. Back in Vancouver, the newspaper declared the Headless Valley series the greatest newspaper adventure story since the war.
After his adventure with Pierre Berton, Russ Baker continued to build his business. The real success of Central BC Airways began in 1949 when Baker amalgamated struggling companies that included Kamloops Air Service, Skeena Air Transport, Associated Air Taxi, Whitehorse Flying Services, Queen Charlotte Airlines, Associated Airways, Aero Engineering Ltd. and Airmotive Accessories Ltd. These acquisitions made Central BC Airways the third-largest airline in Canada at the time, after the larger Trans-Canada Airlines (later Air Canada), and Canadian Pacific Airlines.
Another opportunity came in 1951 when Central BC Airways won the contract to provide air support to the Aluminium Company of Canada (Alcan), which was building large smelters at Kitimat and Kemano. With more expansion in mind, Baker changed the name of Central BC Airways to Pacific Western Airlines in 1953 and began scheduled service between Vancouver and Kitimat. He was on his way from bush pilot to aviation executive. In 1957, Baker took over Canadian Pacific Airlines in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Prior to his untimely death from a heart attack in 1958 at age 48, he had laid the groundwork for air service between Calgary and Edmonton, as well as daily service from these centres to the Arctic Ocean coastline and beyond. He was buried in a high hilltop overlooking the lakes of Stuart, BC, his grave marked by an anodized Beaver aircraft propeller on the headstone.
In 1975, Baker was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame for “his unflagging efforts to provide safe, reliable, all-weather air service to the residents of Canada’s western reaches and northern frontier.” Today, aviation history buffs visit the Russ Baker Memorial, a one-third–scale model of the German Junkers W34 floatplane, known as the workhorse of the North, erected at Cottonwood Park in Fort St. James.
CHAPTER
9
Women Take to the Skies
MANY MILITARY PILOTS WHO SAW action during the First World War returned to Canada and took up barnstorming to earn a living before becoming bush pilots. But it wasn’t only male pilots who performed aerial acrobatics and barnstormed across open skies. Pioneering female pilots also proved their flying abilities to amazed onlookers; however, several decades would pass before women would fly paying passengers into the Canadian wilderness.
Eileen Vollick, Canada’s first licensed woman pilot, knew by age 19 that she wanted to fly. It was 1927, and Charles Lindbergh had just flown non-stop across the Atlantic, while Amelia Earhart was capturing public attention. Vollick had already parachuted into Burlington Bay near Hamilton, Ontario, in the summer before she started lessons at the flying school owned by Jack V. Elliot at Ghent’s Crossing. Len Tripp, Vollick’s instructor, had only one reservation about her: at five foot one, she had to sit on a pile of pillows to see out the cockpit of the ski-equipped Curtiss JN-4 Canuck biplane (known as a “Jenny”), registration G-CANY. She demonstrated takeoffs and landings on the frozen bay, performed five figure eights and flew 175 miles (282 kilometres) cross-country navigating by sight and landing perfectly. The comptroller of civil aviation issued Vollick private pilot’s licence number 77 on March 13, 1928.
Vollick flew in the US and Canada, barnstorming and performing aerobatic rolling and spinning manoeuvres. Aerobatic flying requires a broader set of piloting skills and exposes the aircraft to greater structural stress than normal flight, but Vollick loved it. But in 1929 she met and married James Hopkin and moved to New York City, far away from stunt or bush flying. There they raised two daughters. Vollick died in 1968. In 1976, the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of female pilots, and the Ontario Heritage Foundation unveiled a plaque honouring her historic achievement; it is located in front of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at the airport in Hamilton, Ontario.
Another woman with an early passion to fly was Vi Milstead. Born in Toronto in 1919, Milstead was the daughter of a carpenter. Money was scarce in the Great Depression, but she worked double shifts in a wool shop to earn extra money for pilot training. She learned to fly at the old Barker Field in Toronto, named in honour of Lieutenant Colonel W.G. “Bill” Barker, Canada’s most decorated First World War pilot. Milstead passed her private pilot’s flight test in 1939, got her commercial licence in 1940 and earned her instructor’s rating in 1941. She was an instructor until civilian flying was halted in Canada because of gas rationing in 1942.
&n
bsp; In 1943, at the age of 24, Vi Milstead joined the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and flew new fighter planes from factories to military bases across England and Allied Europe. She had approximately 1,000 flying hours and easily passed her check-out in a Harvard AT-6. Milstead piloted 27 different types of single-engine aircraft and 17 different types of advanced twin-engine aircraft as a first officer (equivalent to the military rank of captain). She was the longest serving Canadian female pilot in the ATA. Her favourite aircraft were the Spitfire and the de Havilland Mosquito. At war’s end, she resumed her career as a flight instructor and pilot and went on to become one of Canada’s first female bush pilots.
Milstead married Arnold Warren in 1947, and they moved to Sudbury, in northern Ontario, to fly for Nickel Belt Airways. Her work included flying surveyors to inspect mining sites, trappers returning back to their cabins with supplies, and sports hunters and fishers. Another task was spotting and reporting forest fires, and she also flew in men who had been recruited in local beer parlours to fight these fires. They were not always in the finest condition, and she had to encourage the odd one to leave the comfort of the aircraft and get on with firefighting. Flying a Fairchild Husky, Milstead also taught pilots how to land and take off on floats during summer and skis in winter. After two years on assignment in Indonesia with a United Nations organization, Vi and Arnold returned to Canada, where Milstead followed her interest in recreational aviation. She was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 2010.
Like Vi Milstead, Moretta Fenton Beall “Molly” Reilly worked to support the war effort. When the Women’s Division was formed in 1941, Reilly was one of the first recruits and became an aerial photographer. Reilly had really wanted to fly with the RCAF in the Second World War, but at that time women were not permitted to be military pilots. She served in Canada as a non-commissioned officer until 1946. Post-war, Reilly earned her pilot’s licence and got a job with Southern Provincial Airlines in Ontario, flying Douglas DC-3s and Twin Beech aircraft. In this position she participated in the development of the airline’s air-ambulance service throughout eastern Canada.
