Day 6 - Cross-Canada Century Flight 2009

A MEDEVAC arrived this morning at the Fort Frances terminal - woke me up at 6am. I still can't understand why so many patients are brought here to the small local hospital when Thunder Bay is less than an hour's flight east. There are many logging camps and mines in the area, however, and there's little or no road access through the myriad of lakes in the Canadian Shield. This morning's MEDEVAC is the fourth such arrival in the last 16 hours!

This morning was clear skies, no wind, and only a slight low ground fog that burned off within an hour. A few pilots arrived from Branden by car, having tried to fly to the COPA convention in Springbank last week to only discover that they couldn't travel west. It makes me realize that the journey to Sydney is only half of the trip: we still have to safely return home on our own without the help of the rest of the group. I find that it's better not to contemplate that reality right now...

We were in the air by 7:30am, and the skies were beautiful for the first 50 miles of our trip. The Canadian Shield is far different than I imagined; it's entirely flat like the prairies, except that entirely composed of rock, and is covered by lakes and evergreen trees. It's an extremely desolate area, and we quickly passed over the community of Atikokan, which is the only noticable place of civilization between Fort Frances and Thunder Bay. I sure wouldn't want to get grounded in this wilderness!

After an hour of flying, we unhappily discovered that we had caught up with the weather front which we had flown over yesterday. These clouds are obviously not moving very quickly over the great lakes, and it unfortunately appears that they're going to remain ahead of us, hampering our progress the rest of the way east. The clouds were once again broken, but within 20 miles of Thunder Bay, they began to close in and the sky became a uniform gray blanket. It's a funny feeling to be flying at 140 miles an hour over clouds with only a hazy view of the ground that's frequently disappears altogether. In fact, we frequently lost sight altogether of our visual ground reference of the highway, and if not for Thunder Bay's amazing controller who tracked our position on radar, we would have been forced to return directly to Fort Frances. As it was, the controller reported an opening directly over the airport, and guided us in over the clouds before directing us to descend directly down towards the airport. It was such a relief to break out of the sky and to spot the runways directly ahead, clear for an immediate and safe landing amidst the rainy and overcast sky.

Thunder Bay International is a surprisingly large and well-equipped airport. The Esso refueling area has a pilot's lounge, free internet, a NavCan flight planning booth, a TV stocked with DVDs, as well as free refreshments. The Esso personnel have been extremely welcoming, and made us immediately partake of a Thunder Bay treat which is a cross between a cinnamon bun and a doughnut. Of course, I didn't realize how sugary they would be until after I actually had one. :) The Esso here had prepared for a large contingent of our group yesterday to pass by, and they had organized everything from a "marching band" to an antique car show in a hanger. Only ten airplanes showed up, however, and these quickly flew east to Marathon in order to take advantage of the clear skies over the Great Lakes.

It soon turned out that we're not the only aircraft currently grounded in Thunder Bay. By noon, there were nearly 8 or 9 planes here, with nearly twice that many people on board. Three pairs of pilots caught my attention in particular: Ray and Norma from Qualicum, whom we had met back in Brandon. There's also Brent, who's the head pharmacist of the Okanogan's hospitals, and Bob, who's a retired environment or forest ministry worker. There's also two elderly gentlemen flying a cessna together who came in half an hour behind us white as sheets, entirely shell-shocked by the experience of avoiding radio towers while flying at tree level in order to reach Thunder Bay. One of the gentlemen appeared particularly unnerved, and it was a few minutes before he was able to speak about his recent horror adventure!

We stayed at the Esso until the middle of the afternoon, when the sky suddenly cleared around Thunder Bay, leaving blue skies and a nice breeze. Some of the pilots immediately seized the chance to fly to Marathon, but the rest of us held back because there were reports that there was a heavy cloud bank extending over the northern coast of Lake Superior. Within half an hour, however, we decided that this might be our best opportunity we would get for flying the one hour leg east. We were quickly airborne behind the three pilots who had left earlier, flying over the pristine blue of the lake in clear skies.

This never seem to turn out as you expect. Twenty-six minutes into our flight, the pilots who had left earlier were able to report on weather conditions at Marathon. The first pilot told us that there was a solid cloud bank extending down towards the water which prevented him from continuing a and that he was turning back to Thunder Bay. My Dad was in the midst of a 180 to turn around when another pilot ahead reported that he had found an opening through the clouds and was preparing to land at Marathon. His report convinced the other two pilots ahead to fly over the cloudbank, but my Dad decided to immediately return to Thunder Bay. The reason for this was that NavCan was reporting that lightning was soon expected in the area, possibly placing us in the unfavorable position of not being able to find a safe place to land in the event that we were unable to reach Marathon. It was a sound decision to not take any chances, and ensure that we always had a safe alternate airport in the event that our destination was weathered in.

After that failed attempt to reach Marathon, we are now staying in a hotel in Thunder Bay with several other pilots who also failed to make it east today. I counted 6 aircraft still grounded by the weather. It's nice to be able to commiserate over the weather with other members of our group, and flight plan for tomorrow to evaluate our chances of making it through. We also shared supper tonight with Brent, Bob, Ray and Norma at one of the hotel's two restaurants. Unfortunately, we mistakenly went to the "formal" dining room, and enjoyed the luxury of ridiculously expensive food with small portions and extremely slow service. Nevertheless, it was fun to gather in a small group and exchange stories about flying. Ray and his wife also have traveled extensively throughout the world, and retold both their positive and less fortunate adventures in South Africa and Botswana. They warned us to never visit South Africa, but highly recommended Botswana for its high degree of education and wonder safari tours.

It's been a long day, and while we are still 2.5 flying hours away from the main group in Sault Sainte Marie, we've at least reached the Great Lakes. It is supposed to be clear skies tomorrow, so we should hopefully be able to take an easy flight to Brampton via Marathon and Sault Sainte Marie. I will appreciate being able to plan and fly with other members of our group, as it allows for us to receive weather reports from up ahead and accordingly circumvent potentially dangerous and/or impassable weather cells. Right now I'm exhausted however, and am dearly hoping that we can take advantage of the scheduled layover day in Brampton. Good night from Thunder Bay!