From the Late August 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
If it wasn’t for my natural trepidation over speed, height and the general unreliability of machines, I might have been a bush pilot.
At least I’ve thought about it on various occasions. During my late teens and early 20s, I even considered a role in the U.S. Air Force as a possible place to begin such a career.
But, rather than sitting at the controls of assorted high-tech aircraft, I wound up staring into various computer screens, crafting news and feature stories about the adventures of others.
My early inspiration for this unfulfilled dream came from reading about the exploits of that rare breed of individuals who pioneered the use of airplanes to carry people and goods to places that were previously accessible only by horseback, ox cart, dog sled, or canoe.
According to a Time-Life book about the subject, these daring pilots not only flew over the ice-cloaked mountains and endless tundra of Alaska, but also penetrated the forbidding barrens of northern Canada, the scorched outback of Australia, the humid jungles of New Guinea, the razor-backed ridges of Mexico’s Sierra Madre and the tangled rain forests of the Amazon.
Traveling in minutes or hours over territory so rugged that it took days or weeks to traverse on the ground, they connected countless remote settlements and lone individuals with the outside world, bringing in medicines, mail, essential commodities and emergency aid—and yanking isolated areas into the 20th Century.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to have had many Forrest Gump-style experiences—simply by being in the right places at the right times. That’s how I came to acquire my own pseudo bush flying adventures in Alaska.
The first such escapade was in 1989, when a high school friend—Dave Bogart—and I rented a small Cessna Skyhawk and took it on a short flight over a wilderness area west of Anchorage, where he was living at the time. An occasional bush pilot who has since purchased his own plane, Dave was then working for the fabled Flying Tigers. He now captains Federal Express flights around the globe. Once airborne, Dave let me take over the controls for a few minutes as we soared above the landscape. Ten years later, he would take me and my family on other flights over glaciers near Wasilla and Palmer.
A day or so after that inaugural trip over the Alaskan bush, I boarded a small float plane on a lake north of Seward and flew to the village of Chenega Bay in Prince William Sound. I was ostensibly there on Kellogg Foundation business, but briefly felt as though I was living the life of a bush pilot.
Back in Anchorage, a foundation colleague and I next boarded a commercial jet for Dutch Harbor, about 800 miles out in the Aleutian Island chain. Landing there was one of the trickiest maneuvers I have ever seen.
The plane descended over the windswept and fog-shrouded Bering Sea and flew between two rugged mountains, making a hard right turn onto the short runway and braking with a force that pressed passengers hard against their seat belts. There were several commercial fishermen on board, who spontaneously erupted into loud cheers and applause when the jet rolled to a stop.
After a night at the crowded Unisea Inn, my colleague and I climbed into another small craft bound for the village of Nikolski, an island or so away. We passed over a herd of reindeer at historic Fort Glenn, wandered in the clouds for a spell and set down on a gravel airstrip on Umnak Island.
“You were flying with God up there,” one of the villagers remarked as we climbed out of the airplane. So we were.
We were especially lucky that day—able to complete our business, and fly back to Dutch Harbor and Anchorage on schedule. Sometimes the uncertain Aleutian weather keeps planes grounded for a couple of weeks.
Nineteen years later, I was back in Alaska on business—taking an Alaskan Airlines flight from Anchorage to Kotzebue in the Arctic Circle, via a quick stopover in Nome. I was traveling that time with a video crew and flew from Kotzebue to the village of Noorvik to do some interviews at a small health clinic and nearby native fish camp.
Yet another adventure for a wannabe bush pilot.
If I had unlimited courage—along with sufficient aeronautical knowledge and skills—I could probably still “slip the surly bonds of earth” and become one for real.
But at this late stage of my life, I’ll probably just keep dreaming about such airborne adventures—and writing about individuals with the grit and determination to actually make them happen.
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