Canada Part II: By Land, now By Air

Our destination, Donald Lake, is not accessible by road.  When you reach the end of the road at Red Lake, you board a bush plane for a 25 minute ride due west (and I do mean ride in the horse sense, part of the price of admission).  At the end you are deposited in the middle of nowhere (my definition - when there are no roads), but it's a good thing.  Anything and everything that goes into the "bush" must be loaded in or strapped to the outside where the pontoons are attached to the plane.

A photo from last summer when they flew in the metal roof we were installing.  I'm telling you, if they can tie it on, they can fly it in.

This is an Otter, the plane we took, loaded with lots of stuff.

This is some of that stuff I mentioned, some cabinets for the kitchen
and a hutch for storing games and books.

More stuff...food, drinks, and personal gear.  All weighed for your safety
and for calculating the price we'd pay for the plane.

Once all calculations have been made, it is stacked
and stored away in the plane with ropes and straps.
The seats fold up against the wall to make room for storage.
We take our places in the little jump seats and prepare for takeoff.

Now I don't know if dog years are similar to bush plane years, but our plane, as good as they are for the job they perform, is most likely 40+ yrs. of age in human years...you can do the math if you are a dog lover.  Any observations you make upon entering the plane and taking your seat are not going to be supportive if you have a fear of flying.  You'll see duck tape, caulking, torn upholstery, zip ties, and any number of other stop gap measures taken to ensure your safety!  For me, I loved every second of it, cause these things can take anything anywhere and have been doing so for decades.  

To the untrained eye, this may look overwhelming, but if you look
closely, behind the instrument panel you'll find a set of
hamsters taking turns working the wheel to power this old gal up.
See a GPS?  Exactly!

After what seemed to be a 10 second safety briefing (by the guy who reads the side effects on prescription commercials) on emergency procedures by our seemingly 12 year old pilot, we were off.  The only thing that slightly bothered me was the emergency medical kit.  It was somewhere in the rear of the plane behind hundreds of pounds of stowed gear and while I was stuck on that thought, I missed where my flotation device was or how to get the roof hatch off in case of, well... whatever.

Once in the air you see lots of water and trees.  Flat like Kansas,
but lots of water and trees.  A thunderstorm off in the distance.

We were off and knocking on the pearly gates.

To be continued...

My Zen from the air:  Our pilot was not 12 and our plane, even though it was old, is still working for a reason.  Its dependable, as was our pilot.  Never underestimate the age of anything or anyone.

Speaking of age, don't we look just a day over 50?