Operating the Canso Flying Boat in the High Arctic
Most of our time was spent flying. The weather during the summer of ‘66 was exceptionally good, and every company in the north took advantage of it by trying to cram six months of work into two. The Canso we flew, CF-IEE, was configured as a freighter. My dad doesn’t remember much about the history of CF-IEE, but it had the side blisters removed. The gauges and engine instruments, which the flight engineer monitored, were still located in the tower, but the throttle, prop, and mixture controls were between the captain and co-pilot on the overhead console.
The Canso had an incredible fuel range, allowing us to cover vast areas of the Arctic in a series of combined flights. We flew regularly to the waters of Eskimo Point, Whale Cove, Rankin Inlet, Chesterfield Inlet, Baker Lake, Wager Bay, Repulse Bay, Resolute Bay, Igloolic, Coral Harbour, Pelly Bay, and other remote locations. Several of these settlements had gravel airstrips, but I recall also landing on the water there. The landing strips were often too wet or soft in the spring to accommodate larger aircraft. The Canso was called to operate off the water for the heavy loads.
On flights north out of Churchill, we followed the flat, rocky western coast of the vast Hudson Bay. On many clear days, we wandered offshore to spot beluga whales congregating near the mouths of larger rivers. The Seal River estuary was one of our favourite places to watch the ghostly white whales swimming lazily in small family groups along the coast. Early mariners called them the “canaries of the sea” because of their shrill and somewhat squeaky cries.
Bowhead whales had been hunted nearly to extinction, but occasionally, we would spot carcasses washed up along the shore, attracting polar bears.
In places like Repulse Bay and Igloolic, we often anchored the big flying boat in deeper water. The community would send a boat to bring us to shore. In Wager Bay, our Eskimo boat driver took us on an extended tour along the coast. He told us they had seen polar bears swimming across the bay the day before, but despite straining my eyes, we were not lucky enough to spot them again. However, we saw plenty of ringed seals, the polar bear’s favourite prey, basking in the sun along the brilliant white fragments of sea ice that lingered well into the height of the Arctic summer.
Mining exploration was booming in the Arctic, with companies like Inco and Noranda having crews in the field. Many exploration and drilling crews further inland were supplied by small fixed-wing aircraft, like the single Otter or the Beaver, equipped with oversized tundra tires. Seismic camps near waterways were also serviced by floatplanes or flying boats.
On one charter, we delivered aviation fuel drums to survey parties near Nejanilini and Baralzon Lake. We landed the Canso at both lakes to drop 45-gallon fuel drums into the water, where they were floated to shore. The fuel supplied several Northern Helicopter Bell 47s operating for geodetic surveys.
After delivering the fuel, the pilots invited us on a fishing expedition up the Baralzon River. The day was cold and dreary, but the fishing was spectacular. In minutes, I caught several master angler-sized Arctic graylings. At age eleven, fishing was my life, and hooking one of these ancient Arctic species sent a 10,000-year chill down my spine.
The helicopter flight was a trip through evolutionary time. In this latest wonder of technology, we flew low over the tundra, exploring everything unusual that caught our attention. The pilots knew what to look for. We hovered low over herds of barren land caribou, followed arctic foxes as they trotted along nervously, looking over their shoulder; we watched arctic hares and ground squirrels as they dashed about and admired the graceful flight of the snowy owls.
The most exciting event for me was spotting a lone tundra wolf. Her fur coat was a dirty grey-yellow, typical for the summer. She loped along at a terrific rate with long, spindly legs. The pilot followed her briefly across the rolling sand eskers. The hair on my arms and neck stood up as she snarled and bared her teeth. I had a small cheap box camera of which I was pretty proud and from which I could take decent photographs. In the excitement of any given moment, however, my father would snatch the camera from me to snap the “important” pictures. These pictures would inevitably turn out off-centre and shaky, but today, I can still make out the prehistoric look of aversion on the wolf’s skulking countenance – just not in Dad’s picture.
I found plenty of discarded caribou antlers as they shed them each year. Because antlers are such an essential source of calcium and minerals for Arctic animals, it is unusual to find antlers that have not been chewed into pieces. I was lucky enough to find one in good shape. I carried that antler home like a trophy and kept it for many years, along with my skull collection. I am not sure why, maybe because he had a trapline, but my mother referred to my collection of muskrat, beaver, raven and mice skulls as Grandpa’s “boneyard.”
The area around Baralzon Lake has since been designated an ecological preserve for its high concentration of subarctic plant and animal life. The Qamanirjuaq caribou herd, which migrates through the area, has been estimated at nearly 500,000 strong—a spectacular natural phenomenon.
On flights into the far-flung communities, we carried gas and diesel fuel drums, dumping them from the floating Canso to drift ashore, where locals pulled them out. On a hot day in Repulse Bay, after watching naked brown Eskimo children playing between blocks of beached sea ice and swimming in the icy water, my father, the co-pilot, and I stripped to our underwear and jumped into the frigid sea. The shock was unforgettable. The effect I remember was like watching a slow-motion video of me jumping into the icy cold salt water and playing the video in reverse, with me coming out so fast that I did not even get wet.
One of Transair’s summer contracts was transporting Eskimo (Inuit) children between their homes in the Keewatin and Baffin Regions, including Igoolik, Pond Inlet, Eskimo Point, Rankin Inlet and Repulse Bay, to the Roman Catholic residential school in Chesterfield Inlet. I felt an empathetic bond with these displaced children. Many were my age or younger, being forced from their family homes by some government dictate to live in residential hostels for the sake of a foreign culture’s idea of education. The fear in the eyes of the younger children as they boarded the Canso was real.
I remember the children getting motion sickness during the flight and throwing up in waves. Many wore modern clothing purchased from the Hudson Bay Company, but the vestiges of whale blubber grease, fox fur collars and sealskin clothing could still emit a strong enough raw odour to make me wince. I often threw up in sympathy on those flights, hiding in the galley so the kids wouldn’t see me getting sick.
I recall being cold, wet, and sick often throughout the summer. During rough, turbulent weather, the water leaked into the Canso everywhere. One of my jobs was ensuring the bilge pumps were working, and I would often get soaked. I treasured my down-filled Woods Arctic 5-Star sleeping bag because no matter how wet I got or it got, the down would still keep me warm. I would find a place amongst the cargo or in the galley just behind and below the flight deck and curl up inside its cozy warmth.
Partly to give me a break from the ordeal of day-to-day Arctic flying, my father would leave me in Frobisher Bay or Chesterfield Inlet for days. Once, when the Canso was dispatched on a particularly long and gruelling trip, including a stop in Pelly Bay, I stayed with a French-Canadian Catholic Father in Chesterfield Inlet who taught and preached in the native residential school. He was kind enough but very stern. His policy toward me was not to interfere, and my policy was not to be interfered with. We got along by respecting each other’s boundaries.
The priest—I don’t remember his name—had me stay in Turquetil Hall and attend classes, where I experienced first-hand the realities of life in residential schools and the living conditions. The residence and classrooms were crowded, their textbooks were basic, the kids were not allowed to speak to each other in Inuktitut, their English was rudimentary, and they had to spend most of their school years away from their homes and families.
As for the students, I got into an impromptu wrestling match with one of the Eskimo boys my age, who saw me as an alien. I won because I cheated. I always cheated in wrestling. At no time did anybody get mad. We just wrestled because we didn’t know what else to do. I befriended another Eskimo boy, who was delighted to discover we shared an interest in guns and hunting. I had a Daisy BB air rifle at home, while he had a popgun with a cork attached by a string. From what I understood, he went hunting with his father when he wasn’t at school. So did I. We had no other way to communicate besides those few cultural exchanges, but it didn’t stop us from trying.
Conclusion: Lessons Learned from the North
The summer of 1966 left an indelible mark on me, shaped by the stark realities of life in the Arctic and the experiences I shared with the Inuit children I encountered. As a young boy, I was struck by the strength and resilience of these children, who endured separation from their families and the imposition of a foreign culture with quiet courage. Their fear, discomfort, and determination were vivid reminders of how profoundly different our lives were—and yet, how much we shared in our humanity.
Although I lacked the maturity to fully comprehend the residential schools’ long-term impact on the children, so did the administrators. What I did understand was the loneliness in their eyes and the hardship of being uprooted from their communities. Only years later did I begin to grasp the lasting scars these schools left on their identities, language, and culture. That summer I spent with my father offered me a glimpse into a world where the idea of progress was often misguided, where the richness of Inuit traditions was too frequently dismissed in favour of assimilation.
Yet, the Inuit children taught me something invaluable: the power of adaptation and perseverance. Despite the challenges, they found joy, curiosity, and friendship moments, even with an “alien” like me. My brief time living among them—and experiencing a sliver of their daily struggles—planted seeds of empathy and understanding that I carry to this day.
Looking back, that summer was more than an adventure; it was an education that opened my eyes to the diversity and complexity of human experience. The Inuit children I met were not just passengers on the Canso or classmates in Turquetil Hall; they were teachers in their own right, pointing out the importance of resilience, cultural pride, and the deep bonds of family and community. Though I was just a visitor to their world, they left a lasting imprint on mine.
In Eskimo Point, I observed local artisans working on their “trade” carvings of soapstone and ivory. There were undoubtedly genuine artists in the communities I visited, but I couldn’t afford their work. The carvings I bought were made not by skilled artists but by the average guy just trying to cash in on a growing industry. I purchased their shoddy discards for one dollar each. There was already, in 1966, a sorting out of who had it and who did not. Even at eleven, it was easy to see the difference between the good and the great. The carvings I bought were rough, scraped, and awkward, but I still have them. They mean something to me, personally.
True art, sculptured soapstone, ivory or even bone, captures an idea, moment or story to be passed on through tactile and visual experiences. The feelings invoked—love, joy, or despair—are experienced by touching or sharing the artifact. That tactile, concrete aspect of Inuit art can pass on the stories without the telling. The art is the telling. The story is in the art. I did not understand that back in 1966, a realization I appreciate more now than I did then. Travelling from past to present is a journey from which you can learn, but only if the story is told. The story of the journey becomes the art.
After the hormones of early manhood had ravished my teenage brain, I lost the incredible sense of wonder that my first trip into the Canadian Arctic had invoked in me. Little can compare to that impressionable age in a child’s life, somewhere between 9 and 12 years old, when curiosity, awareness, and wonder make the whole world—even a backyard pond, forest or patch of prairie – a special place to explore. So much of who we will become developed during those formative years. That age is our eleventh hour, our zenith, and like so many others, I have spent most of my adult life, the remaining hour, trying to win that feeling back.
Article and Images by John S Goulet
