Bush Pilot - Northern Ontario

If you live in Northwestern Ontario, or even visit for a short time, you will quickly appreciate that Bush Pilots are a vital necessity. Huge areas of forest sprinkled with hundreds and hundreds of small lakes makes travel a nightmare.. The rocky terrain requires very difficult and expensive road building .

Trappers and hunters in this area, in days gone by, traveled on the rivers and lakes and along the old portages that connected them.

In the modern age, float planes bring the avid fishermen to lakes rarely seen, let alone fished. A few roads are scattered about with huge distances in between.

Float plane pilots are in a league by themselves and proudly tagged with the name Bush Pilot. They are a breed that live in the North and daily flit from lake to lake, not only flying in fishermen, but supplies and equipment to remote mining or logging camps. They regularly go places that a normal pilot would never risk with his plane or life.

You need only to fly into some remote lake and back out again to understand what a Bush Pilot does for a living. Landing in a small lake surrounded by tall pine trees would be equal to landing in a large pasture. The descent can be abrupt and takes place when all you can see is miles of trees under you. Suddenly, the splash of the floats in the water signals a wet landing.

The take off experience makes the landing hardly worth mentioning. You taxi down to the end of the lake and turn around. When the pilot is satisfied all dials and equipment are a go, he applies full power. Your first take-off in a float plane makes a fast boat ride seem dull.

As the plane roars down the lake you cannot help but see you are fast running out of lake. When the far shoreline fills the windshield and your heart is in your throat, the plane rises like a leaf in the wind. The floats seem to skim over the tops of the shoreline trees which flash by below. Your view suddenly changes in seconds to miles and miles of trees spotted with lakes.

In winter the floats are removed and skis added. For a short period of time bush flying takes a break until the lakes and rivers have frozen over enough to support the weight of an aircraft. In spring the reverse takes place until there is enough open water to take off and land.

The life of a bush pilot is rarely dull and boring. Mix in bad weather and anything can happen and does.