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November 25, 2002
Subject: Norseman in the Arctic
This was a
summer to remember. It was 1959. Spartan Air Services of Ottawa was looking for ham radio
operators to go north, to the high Arctic to work for the summer as radio
operators. They were mapping the
Arctic Islands from high altitude aircraft.
These planes flew at 30 000+ ft and
in order to take accurate pictures there must be 0 % cloud cover,
perfect weather. They needed
weather observers in a network stretching
across the Arctic. Since there was
no telephone service in the Arctic, the only thing was short wave radio.
That’s where I and a group of fellow hams fitted in.
My job was to provide weather reports from remote Melville Island back to
our base in Resolute Bay, N.W.T.
As a high school student I had been a
ham radio operator. One of those
kids who hadn’t discovered girls yet and spent
his spare time building short wave radio transmitters and talking to
other hams all over the world. Of
course, at that point, the Internet had not yet been invented and ham radio was
a big deal. Amateur Radio was my thing and I loved it.
We arrived in Resolute Bay in May of
1959 from Edmonton via
Transair DC-4 charter. Resolute
Bay was DESOLATE. As our DC-4 came
in for final approach, we could survey the wreckage of other less fortunate
aircraft. We wondered why they put
them all along the approach to the runway.
Maybe to warn pilots that
this was a scary airport and to be careful.
It was like January back at home. They
put us up in a military style barracks, later moving to a tent village.
We ate at the RCAF mess. The food was excellent. To get people to come up to Resolute you had to feed them well. It was to be the best eating we did that summer. Later on, while stationed on Melville Island we had to eat out of cans.
Our Norseman, CF-OBG, was a rented bush plane from Pacific Western Airlines out of Edmonton. It was equipped with floats for water landings and ski-wheels for ice/snow/land. Our pilot, Unflappable Phil, brought her into Resolute Bay about mid-June. He flew through a storm with quite a bit of icing on the way. Pretty tricky business for a plane without de-icers. Once safely on the ground his hands were noticeably shaking as he lit his cigarette on the filter end! (See picture – Norseman Bush plane)
We flew out of Resolute Bay on June 26, to head out for Melville Island about 250 miles to the north-west. We had a full load of food, camping gear, radios, fuel and weather instruments. Passengers were John, our lead weather observer, our pilot and myself ( Dave).
Our power plant, a Pratt & Whitney Wasp purred like a kitten (a very loud kitten) and never missed a beat all the way. There were no seats on the aircraft for passengers. John and I had to stand the whole trip hanging on to fully loaded fuel barrels for support. Yes, no seat belts either! Over the east coast of Melville I snapped a picture. The colors in the picture are accurate and beautiful. The original Kodachromes were carefully kept over the years and just recently digitized for the Internet. (See picture – Melville From The Air)
We landed uneventfully on icy Weatherall Bay on the north-east coast of Melville Island. At this point we were about 600 miles from the north pole. We were in the middle of winter but it was not snowing. Our plane, OBG, was unloaded and then off. We immediately set up camp, getting the most important things set up first – radio, antenna, electrical generator. We had to have communications in case of a problem; we were completely isolated. The rest of our camp was set up in short order and we soon had good radio communication with Resolute Bay. Our radio was our telephone.
The campground layout can be seen in the photo. Sleeping tent on the left, weather station and eating tent on the right. Those 2 silver poles are our radio antenna supports. To the left of the sleeping tent, a tiny yellow blob is our electrical generator. The lake in the foreground is a melt water pool that gave us fresh water for drinking. Yes, we boiled it first. Nobody got sick all summer either. No flu, no colds and no sunburn.
(see pictures - Melville Campground)
DISASTER - Some time later, in a hasty attempt to make a sked, the WRONG fuel was poured into our oil heating stove. Gasoline explodes in an oil heating stove. It did! Two very lucky campers emerged alive. I had 2nd degree burns to the back of my hand and John was luckier escaping injury. The tent burned quickly to the ground, but John, with some very quick thinking, yanked the radio out before it was consumed by the fire, grasping the then very hot radio with his gloves. The real problem was that our supplier in Ottawa had neglected to label the two identical fuel cans. We didn’t either.
John is an electronics genius. He was able to repair the radio already badly scorched by the fire. Tinkering and building radios for years had paid off. We were back on the air in a couple of days putting out a distress call. It was necessary for OBG to make another trip to Melville to re-supply us. This could prove tricky because the ice in the bay was now too thin to support the heavy bush plane and the thin ice would cut the floats to ribbons. It was decided to attempt a risky landing with the Norseman’s wheels on the muddy tundra as all the snow had melted.
Norseman OBG showed up on schedule with a re-supply of all our burned out gear. Unflappable made a textbook landing on the tundra behind our tent. This is a heavy plane and after a perfect landing it started to settle into the tundra mud up to its axles. After unloading, our next task was to get OBG out of the mud. We had a few spare planks and we pushed her onto the planks with that P & W Wasp roaring at full throttle. This was possibly the most dangerous part of the whole summer. As the wheels of this heavy flying truck lurched onto the planks, the front ends of the planks lifted up almost into that 3 bladed propeller turning at full throttle. The planks missed the propeller by just inches! Once out of the mud, OBG did the fine thing she was designed for.
Norseman OBG returned at the end of August to bring us back, this time on floats. Phil, our seasoned pilot taxied, then lifted our heavily loaded float plane off in a remarkably short run. He used an old bush pilot trick to get her off quickly. In the short patch of open water, he rocked the machine vigorously up and down to break the suction under the plane’s floats. She lifted off quickly. Phil was no newcomer to flying; neither was OBG. John and I just loved it. This aircraft impressed me tremendously. Noisy, yes, but rock solid. A fine machine. I wonder if OBG is still flying. Anybody out there with an up-to-date registry book?
Dave Flarity (Amateur Radio Call – VE3DVE – still active)
Pictures:
