George Theriault has been flying in northern Canada since the summer of 1934. When he established his own air service in in 1954, his skills as a bush pilot and sportsman made him one of the most popular outfitters in northern Ontario. This series of stories chronicles his many adventures from Alaska to Labrador, including seal and whale hunting with native people. .
My life has revolved around airplanes since I was fourteen years old. It didn't come as a surprise to me when my three sons all decided to become commercial pilots. I never remember encouraging any of them to pursue a flying career. In fact, I may have suggested alternatives, but that didn't stop them from doing the one thing that was completely natural to them. All my children, including my three daughters, grew up reading maps. Each took their turn sitting in the co-pilot seat acting as the navigator. Their navigation skills were superior to many of the pilots that I hired. On one occasion, my oldestson, John, had to map read for a pilot who got lost when he decided to fly over a fog bank. When the fog finally cleared, they were about twenty miles beyond their des-tination, Raney Lake. There were no rec-ognizable lakes in sight. John spotted a village on a lake and they landed to ascertain their whereabouts. Once they had established their location, John easily navigated them back to Raney Lake. That same pilot never did learn to read a map and eventually got stranded for several days on a lake near James Bay.When John completed his commercial license in the spring of 1972, he hadn't yet trained on the Beaver and we needed another Be a ver pilot immediately. I had confidence that he could learn the skills q u i c k l y, so I took him with me on a fire patrol in Biscotasing, twenty miles south of Chapleau. We we restationed there for about four days when I was called back to the base in Chapleau for some other emergency. I had an aircraft fly down to pick me up and left John with the Beaver to continue by himself. The weather was still very dry and the fire danger was extreme. Two days later, it began raining to the west and the Beaver was no longer needed for fire patrol. By the time John arrive dback in Chapleau, the storm was very close and the winds were blowing down the river at over 30 mph. He landed the Beaver in front of the airbase. Then his difficulties began because he couldn't get the aircraft turned downwind to taxi it back to the dock......