Those Virtuous Strannies, The Bachelor, and the One That Got Away

Many logbooks ago, a small Richmond-based airline acquired some WW2 flying boats known as the Canadian Vickers Stranraer or Stranny for short. The name of the airline was Queen Charlotte Airlines or QCA, also known as that “Queer Collection of Aircraft.” This had nothing to do with the sexual orientation of a few spirited QCA pilots…..but more about that later.

As biplanes go, the Stranraer lacked the kind of lines that would steam-up the Ray Bans of most red-blooded aviators. While her comely pair of double D-cup Pegasus engines might have seduced the airplane passions, her hulled fuselage was more gangly than beautiful. But as the indomitable QCA founder Jim Spilsbury wrote in The Accidental Airline, a good read for flyers, sailors or landlubbers alike “….you’re hanging up there over Hecate Straits, 250 miles of the roughest water on the Pacific – all that open water….in case of engine failure, in case of anything else, what sense does it make flying around there with landplanes? “ Spilsbury was quick to point out their seaworthiness – a good ploy in the late 1940s when the idea of over-water flying in a wheel plane gave many of those potential ticket buyers the jitters and a very dry mouth.

Spilsbury’s hunch paid off, and five Stranraers were soon hauling cargo and passengers under the QCA banner. Their bevy of flying boats were not the best-looking girls on the beach, but they were soon kicking sand in the face of the competition vying for the bustling northern route while endearing herself to passengers and pilots alike.

But it was the unmarried pilots who were partaking in another kind of fringe benefit: those lonely fish wives and lumber molls dotted along the coast. Many of QCA’s pilots were ex-RCAF who paid heed to their own kind of scheduled service outside the cockpit. “I’ve never seen anything like it” lamented Spilsbury. “Flying attracted a special group of people because it promised escape and excitement.” One particular pilot really had that special something. Women from up and down the coast would show-up at his Vancouver doorstep – “Here I am!” It would have been the perfect fodder for a 1950’s reality show: The Flying Bachelor. Those rabbit ears on the new black and white Motorola would be tuned to another Casablanca-like dispatch every Thursday night: a foggy wharf, the Stranny bobbing in the background, a farewell single-stemmed rose, tears, and a one-way trip back to Bella Coola. Bye-bye.

Unfortunately, most of the QCA Stranraers which plied our coast also met with a tearful fate. All but one met a watery grave or burned to the water line. In 1983, a contingency from the Canadian Museum of Flight, headed by lifetime member Captain Bill Thompson, made an expedition to Belize Inlet where Stranraer 915/CF-BYJ crashed Christmas Eve of 1949.

After she was plucked from the shoreline, CF-BYJ was stabled in the museum’s hangar barn awaiting restoration. But, alas, airplanes are like high-maintenance lovers; sometimes you just have to let them go. It was a hard loss for the Canadian Museum of Flight, but we sincerely hope the museum in Shearwater Nova Scotia will meet the challenge of restoring her back to glory.

The only physical reminder of a Stranraer left in British Columbia is a lilliputian replica of 920/CF-BXO, The Alaska Queen, which sits in a quiet corner of the Canadian Museum of Flight hangar, painted in the yellow and black livery of Queen Charlotte Airlines.

The life-sized CF-BXO is now part of the permanent collection at the Royal Air Force museum in Hendon, England. When Jim Spilsbury visited Hendon, he was dismayed that any trace of her British Columbia heritage had been erased. Spilsbury later wrote, “I visited her there in 1984, all painted in RAF colours as if she had never been built for the RCAF in Montreal or had a glorious career flying for QCA at all. I tried to bring this to the attention of the museum officials but they obviously didn’t believe a word I said.”

Let’s hope it never happens again because it is always about more than the airplanes. Behind every square inch of fabric wing or metal rivet is a human face with a story to be told.

We can make it happen – with the passionate support of those dedicated to preserving our aviation legacy.

So, the next time an airplane brimming with unique regional significance lands on our doorstop, we can give voice to that human story and it will shout “Here I am…..and I’m here to stay!”

– published in the Winter 2009 issue of Glidepath magazine

(Jim Spilsbury’s quotes courtesy of “The Accidental Airline – Spilsbury’s QCA” by Howard White and Jim Spilsbury. Used with permission from Harbour Publishing. Spilsbury’s books may be ordered at http://www.harbourpublishing.com ).

The Waco Pick-Me Up

Airplanes and horses have a lot in common. Both require a lot of maintenance to ride high in the saddle. After moving onto acreage perched on the cusp of a light-aircraft practice area, the horses won out. But it was hard to forget those aspirations of flight while flinging the manure into the delirious blue when a sunny weekend guaranteed an impromptu air show. The ears would be tuned to the puttering of a student’s C-152, or the powerful roar of an aerobatic engine. A lot of time was spent leaning on the pitchfork, looking up.

I figure if one can’t get inside an airplane, the next best thing is being near one. And there’s nothing I’d rather get closer to than a vintage airplane. It was the Canadian Museum of Flight that reopened the hangar door.

While attending the 2003 Canada Day festivities at the Langley Airport, I was enthralled when some of the museum aircraft circuited the field. But one really stoked my fancy; a cheery red and yellow cabin biplane. I tracked down a museum volunteer who told me the red and yellow biplane was the late “Doc Pickup’s 1937 Waco.”

A few days later I made my first visit to the museum. I think I spent at least three hours that day inspecting the Waco, looking at the displays and other aircraft, and chatting with the friendly volunteers. I also learned a bit about the Waco’s history plying our coast as a small-town doctor’s winged horse and buggy. The Waco was one of our province’s first air ambulance – saving the lives of countless fishermen, loggers, and other inhabitants of the nooks and crannies scattered along the coast.

A couple of months later while attending another public event, there was my cheery biplane again, wagging her wings at the crowd. Whenever I could steal a few hours away from the job or farm, I’d make my way back to the museum with notebook in hand. It is a good place for a budding writer; every airplane is entwined with a plethora of stories. But it was Doc Pickup’s Waco and its strong ties with our coastal heritage that always made the visit especially worthwhile. I called it the “Waco pick-me up.”

On May 27th, 2009, it was exactly one year to the day that I had lost a good friend to cancer. It was an overcast morning weather-wise and emotionally. An early-afternoon break in the clouds took me outside to sand rake the paddocks. I soon heard the approaching hum of another airplane. I knew the museum had been preparing the Waco for a trip to Alberta in celebration of Canada’s 100th anniversary of powered flight, but I had been too preoccupied to remember the exact departure date. Today would be just too uncanny. I ran for my binoculars and immediately recognized a familiar head-on silhouette coming my way. The Waco then flew directly overhead! More inspiration and cheer on a day that needed it the most. I waved and wished the pilot a safe trip and God speed home.

As I watched my favourite biplane fade into the distance, I think Doc Pickup must have been looking down and nodding in approval.

After all these years, his Waco is still uplifting souls.

Postscript: I have since flown with “the fine old lady” and that she is, indeed.


It was also a pleasure to interview Peggy Hogg, one of Doc Pickup’s nurses for an issue of Glidepath magazine. Thanks to the Canadian Museum of Flight for making this all possible.

Slow Plane to Shangri-La - The Malibu Lodge of Princess Louisa Inlet

After meeting Bill Boeing in the 1950s, my dad said Boeing’s business mind fostered airplanes, but sea-going vessels were in his heart. Boeing owned a magnificent boat named the Taconite. After retiring from the Seattle aircraft company in the mid 1930s, the Boeing yacht was a frequent visitor to the coves and inlets along the British Columbia coast.

Boeing particularly loved the towering granite peaks that lined those inlets. His heart may have been gently lapped by the sea, but that head would always dwell at the higher altitudes. Maybe those peaks reminded him of those adventurous early dreams of building airplanes that would fly high above them. Princess Louisa Inlet would have appealed to that lure of adventure. Only a skilled yachtsman could navigate the churning rapids at its entrance. Once traversed, a prize beckoned at its end - Chatterbox Falls - a pristine veil of glacial water cascading down upon the largest granite face in North America.

Boeing would often invite guests onto the Taconite, particularly those who had never witnessed the resplendence of the B.C. waterways. It was during one of these trips in the summer of 1939 that Boeing carried another aviation pioneer, the venerable Tom Hamilton, the inventor of the variable-pitch propeller. Hamilton was another man whose head would always be in airplanes, but unlike Boeing, his heart had not found its eden.....until that warm summer day in the late 1930s when he discovered Princess Louisa Inlet.

The propeller wash from those patented variable-pitch rights had made Hamilton a wealthy man. This idyllic paradise could be bought and was soon his. Hamilton’s vision was to create an elitist resort for Hollywood’s rich and famous - and named the property overlooking the inlet’s entrance Malibu - after the California beach colony. This is where he would build his utopia.

However, the construction of the Malibu lodge would be arduous and expensive. Materials and labour had to be flown in vis-à-vis floatplane, or barged in from Vancouver, over 350 miles away. The site had no source for hydropower and had to rely on gas generators for electricity. But when the lodge was finally completed after W.W.II, it was truly magnificent. Constructed entirely of huge western red cedar and douglas fir logs, its windows overlooked the churning rapids and the endless stretch of inlet sea. Charming boardwalks with driftwood railings clung to the rocky precipices, and a small golf course had been blasted, then greened, right into the granite.

Despite its splendor, Malibu was simply too secluded - too inaccessible. For almost five years the resort struggled with an ever-increasing vacancy rate. By the late summer of 1950, there was only a smattering of staff and guests when one of the chambermaids was diagnosed with polio. The polio epidemic at the time was aggressive and frightening, and staff and guests fled to Vancouver in one of the resort’s cabin cruisers, literally leaving their dinner on the table. Malibu’s other cruiser was left anchored in lodge’s cove with its portholes open, and eventually sank. Malibu was abandoned and put up for sale, and remained deserted and neglected until 1953, where it would begin its new life - catering to those hungry for the nourishment of spirit.

Young Life is a non-denominational Christian organization which offers teenagers a summer camp experience that vows to give them the greatest week of their lives and reaffirm their faith. In 1953, the organization operated a large ranch in Colorado, but was interested in another venue closer to the Pacific rim. When Young Life’s founder, Jim Rayburn, toured Malibu he knew its scenic soulfulness would mirror the ideals of Young Life. The asking price for Malibu at that time was the princely sum of one- million dollars, a figure that the organization could never muster. So Rayburn invited Hamilton to the Colorado Ranch. Hamilton was impressed and inspired, and agreed to sell Malibu for $300,000. When Rayburn returned to Malibu, he named the panoramic viewpoint above the lodge, Inspiration Point.

Since 1954, when Malibu reopened its doors to the youth of the world, it has become renowned as the ultimate spiritual camp experience.

Revisiting Malibu was the highlight of our three-day trip last summer. As our
de Havilland Beaver pulled into the Mallibu dock, we were greeted by one of the camp counsellors. She explained the programme as we walked through the rustic beauty of the lodge and surrounding property. Its youthful inhabitants were indeed experiencing one of the greatest weeks of their lives, as the song of their laughter resounded from the inlet walls. It reminded me of the words from the High Lama of Shangri-La in Hilton’s Lost Horizon, "For here, we shall be with our books and our music and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be Kind. It is our hope that the love of Shangri-La will spread throughout the world.”

We reboarded the Beaver and were soon heading back down the inlet towards Chatterbox Falls where our pilot would circle and head back over Malibu for one final look. As we flew over Inspiration Point, I thought of Boeing, the swirl of Hamilton and his propeller, and this paradise, rediscovered for those who have set their sights on that indomitable journey of vision, faith, and spiritual adventure.

High Times and Low Tides - Peggy Hogg Remembers

Homecoming! The Waco Cabin and Peggy Hogg Revisit Alert Bay, August 2012 (Photo by Bob Fowles)

Old airplanes are intoxicating. They are the perfect vehicle for the embellishment and romanticiation of history. Those who experienced that history tend to view those airplanes with a great deal more pragmatism.

No airplane represents this conundrum best than the Canadian Museum of Flight's 1937 Waco AQC-6 Cabin or "Big Red" as she is known around the hangar. Her sister ships may have been flown by the likes of Howard Hughes - the museum Waco is fondly remembered for the her blue-collar practicality while serving the rambunctious West Coast communities under the auspices of Dr. Jack Pickup. (The CMF website has a more extensive article on Dr. Pickup, courtesy of Aeropane Monthly).

In the early 1950s there was little time for embellishment for those living on the rugged British Columbia coast from Campbell River northward. Work hard. Play harder. The flotsam was often thrown to Dr. Pickup and his associates.

Peggy Hobbs was an operating-room nurse in the Alert Bay hospital from 1951 to 1953. Her husband Sam was one of the village's R.C.M.P. officers. Ed Bray was a bush pilot who flew out of Alert Bay from 1952 to 1955. Glidepath interviewed these individuals to give you a little bit of an idea of what it was like for those who experienced that history firsthand.

Peggy Hobbs remembers Dr. Pickup as being an extremely dedicated physician and surgeon - the proverbial jack of all trades in medicine. Peggy accompanied Dr. Pickup in the Waco on serveral emergency flights to the logging camps and fishing villages, but tends to view the Waco with the same utilitarianism as her former employer.

In Aeroplane Monthly, Dr. Pickup stated there were patients to look after and he couldn't afford to waste time. It would appear some pilots didn't like to waste any time obtaining a flying licence either. One of Peggy's more vivid memories involved a relief surgeon/pilot, sans pilot licence.

"I didn't know he didn't have a licence. He seemed perfectly fine to me" said Peggy.

"He had apparently flown bombers in the war" volunteered Peggy's husband, Sam.

"We got up and got down in his airplane, but he didn't last very long as our relief surgeon" sighed Peggy. "Like many there, they just took life as it came."

Ed Bray was one of Dr. Pickup's best friends who often flew Jack to his calls. "Jack was a pilot, but did not fly to emergencies unless he really had to because he was so busy at the hospital. I had my own airplane, but Jack said I should know how to fly that Waco in case something happens. I went out and flew it around for a little while."

This is a good testament to Ed's piloting skills. No lesson. No simulator. And many times, no altitude either.

"When the weather was socked in, you flew ten feet above the water line. There's more than one guy in a fishing boat sitting there on deck minding his own business who had to duck because of another low-flying airplane. On really bad days we would just taxi. Every pilot including Jack carried a tide book to see if the tide was going to be high or low" laughed Ed.

Joking aside, Ed summed up his memory of Dr. Pickup: "A lot of people's lives were affected by Jack Pickup. His airplane played a significant role."

Perhaps that is the best embellishment of all.
- by Carla Deminchuk
Originally published in the Summer 2009 issue of Glidepath

Marilyn's Story Becomes Our Story

So many biographies have been written about Marilyn Monroe, but few have been privy to her autobiography.

That's right. She did write an unfinished autobiography entitled My Story which was published ten years after her death.

In a chapter entitled "Soldier Boy," Marilyn writes about her battle with loneliness and poverty on the streets of Hollywood:

"Sundays were the loneliest. You couldn't look for a job on Sundays or pretend you were shopping in stores. All you could do was walk as if you were going someplace. I discovered a place to go - the Union Station.

You learned a lot watching them. You learned that pretty wives adored homely men and good-looking men adored homely wives....faces that could light up like Christmas trees when they saw each other. They kissed each other as tenderly as if they were lovers in a movie.

One Sunday morning I was walking in one of the streets near the Union Station, when a young man in a soldier's coat greeted me.

'Help the disabled war veterans. Give the crippled war heroes a chance for recovery.'
He was carrying a box full of cards with small tin stars pinned on them.

'Five silver stars for fifty cents,' he said."

Marilyn replied that she could not buy any because she had no money. She writes about her empathy and sadness:

"I could hardly talk. My heart hurt me. There was something so lonely
about this young man who had been a soldier and who was selling fake tin stars that I wanted to cry."

It was a harbinger of things to come.

In 1954, on the cusp of her greatest fame, Marilyn joined the USO tour in Korea. Dressed skimpily on a cold January day before 10,000 soldiers, she performs "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," but wondered if she had chosen the right song:

"It seemed like the wrong thing to say to soldiers in Korea, earning only soldier's pay."

Perhaps she was thinking of that one soldier selling tin stars outside Union Station.

Marilyn went on to write that even though the "Diamonds" song depressed her, she knew the soldiers liked her performance very much.

"Then I remembered the dance I did after the song. It was cute dance. I knew they would like it."

That is where My Story ends.

As we know, those 10,000 soldiers in Korea did "like" her, and cheered loudly. When Marilyn returns to Joe DiMaggio, she tells him "Oh Joe, you've never heard such cheering."

"Yes I have," sighs Joe.

The marriage was over a few months later.

Marilyn would dance, sing and cry for nine more years, but she never returns to her unfinished manuscript.

Had Marilyn lived, she would have just turned 82.
Would she be as lonely as she was fifty years earlier?

I often see the same kind of palpable loneliness amongst writers.

In a recent poem one of my colleagues wrote that love is like the master of smoke and mirrors. Our hearts are pierced "with sharp shiny swords."

It reminds me of the soldier selling his shiny tin stars a few blocks away from Hollywood's Walk of Fame - only it is our hearts that get cut out like pieces of tin, then thrown down and stomped upon along our Walk of Pain.

Still, we write our stories -- our autobiographies and memoirs. They spill over with the trials and tribulations of finding our success in life. Memories of love lost and found. Children who lived and died, and children who were never born. All loved.

Like Marilyn, we often wonder if we are singing the wrong song.

But those last lines of Marilyn's book always come back. "... I remembered the dance I did after the song. It was cute dance...."

We press on. The angst of that loneliness is sometimes replaced by joy.

So, we write. My Story becomes Our Story.

And we continue to write because it is the tool for sharing and caring. Someday we will look back at our scribblings. We may regret some of the things we wrote in anger, but we will remember and embrace the joy even more.

It was something we just had to do because....
"I knew they would like it."

Peace Marilyn.
Peace to us all.

GOOD-MORNING VIETNAM #1

“‘Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?’ and ‘Are You Experienced?’ were the ballads that summer of ‘67. Do you see the irony?” Duncan asks, as he takes another swig from his Corona.

“Yes I do, Duncan. I wonder if Jimi Hendrix was thinking of those boys heading to Vietnam when he penned those lyrics?”

“You know Hendrix?” Duncan inquires? “I’m surprised.”

“Why? Just because I turn up looking like the Avon lady?”

Duncan laughs. We are sitting in his sister’s garden. After four hours of taped interview, the awkwardness of our first meet has dissipated, but we still fumble for words.

Somehow, the Technicolor splendor of the garden seems out of place as Duncan struggles with his former life in faded khaki. There is a 37 minute hour on one tape. Another one is punctuated with even longer periods of silence. It is something we have learned to work with. It gives Duncan a chance to regroup his thoughts. It gives me an opportunity to regroup what has just been said into the next question, or jot down a few more ideas.

But Duncan tells me that the silence of a Vietnam vet seems to terrify most people.

“When I came home, I think people were worried I would go into some kind of psychotic flashback unless they kept me talking about the most asinine things. Then one day I just stopped talking.”

I do not say anything, but give a little nod with my head.

“But you do know that I still have told you more about Vietnam in these four hours than I have told anyone in 38 years? My sister and I have always been close. I think she feels shut out by this memoir business.”

I have sensed his sister’s distance, and would like a chance to get Duncan away for awhile. I suggest a drive around Stanley Park.

“It’s been a hot day. It will soon be dark and cool by the water. We can stop and look at the city lights from across the harbour. What do you think, Duncan?”

He readily agrees.

Thirty minutes later we are slowly cruising around the park’s perimeter. I have opened the moon roof. The air is refreshing. We pass Lost Lagoon, the Nine O’Clock Gun, Deadman’s Island, then stop at Prospect Point to look at the city at night. A few stars twinkle faintly overhead, but most are obscured by the glow from the city.

We sit in the car - close - but do not talk about that distant land of Vietnam. Our conversation again drifts back to the music of the decade; the musicians who survived and those who did not. Duncan tells me that Jimi Hendrix was his favourite.

“Most people think Purple Haze was inspired by L.S.D., but it wasn’t. Hendrix read a lot of science fiction. He got the idea for the song from a book by Philip Farmer called ‘Night of Light.’“

Duncan then looks up through the open moon roof
of the Infiniti, and quotes the line which inspired Hendrix’s song:

“The sky was clear but the stars seemed far away, blobs straining to pierce the purplish haze.”

It reminds me of our struggle to find our visibility. Duncan has his fog of memories. I struggle to find the words which hang overhead like suspended atoms.

“Do you see the irony?” I ask.

“Yes I do,” sighs Duncan.

Our day has ended as it began.

Journal Entry From March 21, 2007 - The Deep Sink of Today's Fang

The beauty of this area is its proximity to the natural splendour of a crystal-clear lake, river, a lush west-coast rain forest, or those towering
snow-capped peaks.

Today I was at the base of one of those peaks known as Mt. Slesse or "The Fang" as it is known to the Coast-Salish natives. But the freshly-fallen snow glistening off its summit did not soften the jagged memory of what happened on this mountain almost 52 years ago.

On December 9th, 1956, a Trans-Canada DC-4 airliner slammed into the east face of Mt. Slesse, killing all 62 onboard. The exact cause of the crash was never determined, but the pilot reported icing and engine failure shortly before the DC-4 disappeared from radar.

A few years ago, after visiting the crash victims' memorial located a few miles away from the base of the mountain, I decided to do some research. But I was to find that people who live at the foot of mountains sometimes do not like to look all the way up. Because of the wintry conditions at the time of the disaster, the search and recover efforts were delayed until Spring. When the recovery team finally reached the site the following May, they discovered that the crash had spread debris and bodies over a fairly wide area of the mountain. After some cursory investigation, it was decided that the crash site and remains of the victims would be left intact.

The wreckage was left undisturbed for many years. In the mid 1960s, one of the locals climbed up to the site. The hike awas difficult, but not impossible for those with some mountaineering experience. He described it as "walking into a time warp." Hats, shoes, purses, suitcases and other items were strewn over a wide area. When he relayed this information to the local townspeople, a restlessness descended. Soon, many were also hiking to the crsh site. The wreck was pilfered. Some of the artifacts and personal possessions of the passengers wer brought down the mountain. Sometimes these ghoulish souvenirs would be passed around the town's beer parlour on a Friday night. What is disturbing is teh fact that the knowledge of this pilfering was kept secret amongst the locals. A code of silence descended upon the town. Some viewed the silence as a cloak of shame.

When the relatives of some of the victims were eventually advised of this, they were justly outraged and sought remedy. The provincial government declared the crash and debris area a consecated site. Trespassers would be subject to severe penalty.

On this last day of winter, it was cold standing in the shadow of Slesse's peak, but there was one large rock which was being warmed by the sun. The rock and weight of the book in my purse invited me to sit down and read awhile. I pulled out "Wartime Writings, 1939 - 1944" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Saint-Exupery is one of my favourite writers. After earning his wings in 1926, he became an air-mail pilot. His love of flying and concern for mankind inspired most of his writings.

The technology of flight was something Saint-Exupery would always marvel at, but he juxtaposed that with a fear for the future of humanity. His writings are peppered with the endangerment of man's spiritual adventure. If he had been with me today, he would have been horrified at the thought of men stealing the materialistic wealth from the dead. Slesse's fang would have sunk itself deep into Saint-Exupery's soul.

I opened my book and read one of his last letters, dated July 30th, 1944. As I sat at the base of that mountain which will always be pitted by the kind of spiritual endangerment Saint-Exupery warned us about, a couple of lines from his letter resonated a cold starkness: "As I was crossing the Alps pursued by German fighter planes, I smiled at myself. If I'm shot down, I won't regret anything. The future anthill appalls me, and I hate the robot virtues.

When will it be possible to say to those one loves that one loves them?"

(On July 31st, 1944, Saint-Exupery took off for a recognizance mission and disappeared over the Mediterrranean. His body was never found. The wreckage of his airplane was discovered off the coast of Marseilles in 2000).

The Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley, B.C. has a small display devoted to the Mount Slesse disaster.

Propeller cairn on Mt. Slesse