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ELEVEN

BUSH PLANES

I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.

— Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974)

“Meet the plane at the public dock just outside Yellowknife, I’ll be there at four o’clock,” the pilot chimed over the phone, not very convincingly. He was already a day late. I had three clients with me, primed to run a photo shoot on the Coppermine River. Earlier that day while killing time at the Golden Arms Pub, I had bumped into a pilot who used to fly in Ontario with Lakeland Airways. I had flown with him on several occasions and he had moved back home where his father was an accountant in Yellowknife. He had come back home to fly with Air Tindy — a reputable charter service based out of Old Town.

“Who are you flying with?” he queried. “Bushwhack Bob,” I told him a little reluctantly. “Good luck, you’ll need it,” the pilot said with disdain and a slight grin. I pried more information about Bushwhack Bob out of him than I felt comfortable with, careful not to let my clients overhear our conversation. Bushwhack, apparently, owed money to just about everybody in Yellowknife, and if he turned up in town, someone was going to skin him like a caribou and nail his hide to the door of the Explorer Hotel.