Flying On Instinct (10 page)

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 from 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.”

T
he 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, R
ita 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

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.

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.

In the late 1950s, Reilly was promoted to captain, the first woman in Canada to carry this title. In 1959, she was hired as co-captain of a DC-3 by Peter Bawden Drilling
Services in Calgary to fly to major oil fields in western and northern Canada, including Frobisher Bay and Resolute Bay in the Arctic. She became the first to pilot the DC-3 during long periods of darkness and extreme weather, often without radio communication and navigation aids. In 1965, Reilly moved to Edmonton to join Canadian Coachways (later known as Canadian Utilities) as the company's chief pilot. She had modifications made to her Beechcraft Duke twin-engine plane to improve its performance in severe northern conditions. When Reilly finally retired, she'd flown more than 10,000 hours as corporate pilot-in-command, all without a single crash. She was inducted into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974 for “her dedication to flight” and “her self-set demands for perfection.”

Dedication came naturally to Ruth Parsons. She was born into a family of bush pilots in 1933. Her four older brothers flew fish, furs, trappers and miners along with their equipment around northern Ontario. Parsons earned her private pilot's licence in 1952 and her commercial licence in 1954, working part-time at the public library for 50 cents an hour to pay for lessons. As a fallback plan, she enrolled in teachers' college, earned her certification and taught in Fort William for three years.

When Parsons went to Kenora for float certification, her brother Keith, who was aboard as a passenger, decided to test her skills on the way. His theory was that any pilot who
could fly a plane while scared stiff was competent to be in the air. Parsons was not aware of this peculiar instructional technique. As she was lining up to land, he threw his arms up in front of his face and screamed, “What are you doing? Look out, you're going to kill us!” Ignoring the outburst, she landed safely and taxied over to the dock. Getting out, Keith grinned at her and said, “You'll do fine, kid.” She did—but she never flew with him again.