No two trips were ever the same. But memory seems to serve up a generic trip somehow. Always busy , always adventurous and exciting one way or another. And we always had an overall plan that could me massaged to suit the mission. No two plans were the same either. We serviced three logging companies and two helicopter logging outfits that kept us busy with crew changes as far away as Alaska.
These were the glory days alright , the early nineties.
I'd flown my hundred or so hours of fire bombing in the Yukon and was in the nine months R and R mode that was required to return me back to normal life..... only to go do it again.
So I get a call from my friend , Sir Cumference (Big Howie), a man of ample girth with opinions to match. He tells me of our two collegues , Loui and Milt , who had returned from an auction in the US having bought an old Navajo that they had convinced themselves that Walter , of Walter's Bulldozing needed. This was a surprise to Walter , especially at three am from two drunken varmints in the centre of the USA. Well , friends are friends , so Walter coughs up the seventy grand and goes back to work in the bush.
So the Navajo sat at the Chilliwack airport until it was revealed that there hatched a plan to do crew changes up North to Bella Coola , for Walter's road building company , about a two hour trip maybe once a week. Well , nobody knew how to go about it. But , Big Howie did ... so he phones me. Yep! I'm interested so Walter's Mrs phones me and told me to go check out the airplane and tell her what I thought of the plan. Howie and I studied the manual , finished our coffee and took her for a burn. I liked it very much and accepted the part time job. I guess I would meet the boss on the first crew change up North. We spent some time together in Bella Coola while the crews were taken in to the floating camp by Beaver and it became quickly evident that once a week wasn't enough , especially when we discussed the possibility of flying spare parts and dynamite too. I immediately found the flying to be fun and very challenging especially since I had no current instrument rating and these wet coastal mountainous conditions were not a place for a tenderfoot. Besides , I sure want to get to know this airplane before I try the deadly concoction of an IFR/VFR mix.
The Bella Coola airport, flanked by rocky , slabbed sided mountains up to ten thousand feet , was Wilderness Airlines territory , always had been. In fact , it was they who flew our crew in on the Beavers and upon whose Navajos and King Airs , our crews used to travel.
The Duke was the new kid on the block and about as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue to the Airline management. But Hey! A buck is a buck and Walter has his rights.