Читать книгу Pilots of the Purple Twilight - Philip Henry Godsell - Страница 12

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When Theodore Link, Imperial Oil Company geologist, brought in an oil-gusher in the summer of 1920 at the Discovery Well some fifty miles down-river from the lonely outpost of Fort Norman, perched precariously on the riverbank eleven hundred miles beyond the end-of-steel, it did not occasion any great surprise to Northerners. For years, Captain Mills had pointed out the oil-slick on the river to passengers on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s sternwheeler. In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie made a similar report on his voyage of discovery down the great river that bears his name, whilst other evidences had been noticed still further down-river, and along the Arctic coast. However, when word of the discovery of “black gold” in the Northwest Territories reached Edmonton late that fall it created unusual excitement, and the adventurous from all walks of life prepared to make an assault upon the North in order to get in at the killing.

Whilst no one realized it at the time, it was, actually, the prelude to the famed one-hundred-and-thirty-million dollar United States-sponsored Canol Project which blossomed forth during the Second Great War with an overland pipe-line from Fort Norman to the hastily-erected refinery at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

By the time the rivers were frozen the oil rush was in full swing, and an in-rush of would-be oil-stakers commenced to wend their way northward for this frozen Land of Hope. As they mushed down-river, foot-sore, and inadequately equipped to battle with the piled-up bordeaux of river ice, the deep snows and the biting cold of fifty and sixty below zero, excitement spread in their wake. If this motley horde of mixed Canadians, Jews, Assyrians, and others, were willing to make this arduous trek for the sake of staking out oil claims there must, indeed, be something to it!

As the invading army of oil-seekers, led by Billy George of Edmonton—self-styled “Empire Builder”—trekked northward there followed an exodus of local residents and trappers from every fort along the route: Peter Baker from Fort Fitzgerald with his dilapidated dog-team; the Connibear party from Fort Smith; Jim Darwish from Fort Rae; Flynn Harris, Indian Agent and Magistrate from Fort Simpson and his entourage; “Slim” Rader, “Slim” Behn; “Rags” Wilson, and Corporal Bill Doak of the Mounted Police, from Fort Norman along with many others. Not the least conspicuous was Wada, the colourful and mysterious Jap, with his magnificent team of white-haired, sharp-eared huskies. Of a dramatic frame of mind, Wada attired himself to match his team, sporting a parka of snow-white mountain goat-skin, white trousers, white winter mukluks, and a pair of white polar bear-skin mittens suspended from his neck with a bright worsted cord which matched its myriad colours with the gay embroidery on his dog-tapis.^[1]

Unprepared for this unexpected demand upon the resources of the trading posts along the river, frozen fish for dog-feed was soon at a premium. But that didn’t deter the redoubtable Wada—who seemed to take even greater care of his dogs than of himself. When nothing else was available, he would buy a case of canned salmon—at two dollars a tin—rather than see his huskies go hungry!

Food, too, became almost worth its weight in gold, and had to be rationed out to make the supplies last, and many of those oil-seekers knew what it was to go hungry. Old-timers still recall the starved and emaciated Jew who, upon reaching Fort Simpson, vainly sought sustenance for himself and fish for his dog-team. Father Decoux, at the Mission, assured him there was not a fish to spare. “But, Father,” he wrung his hands in supplication, “you must let me have something. You can’t turn me down,” he moaned. “I’m a good Catholic—a good Catholic. My father was a priest, and my mother was a nun!”

Meanwhile Charlie Taylor, Imperial Oil Company representative in Edmonton, gazed with alarm upon this in-rush to take advantage of Link’s discovery and blanket the entire area with stakings long before the firm could get into the country at open water. Furthermore, the location of the discovery was considered too remote from civilization to be of any commercial value in view of the inadequate transportation facilities. Faced by these twin problems, he adopted the novel idea of persuading his head office to authorize the purchase of a couple of aircraft in order to get his men to Fort Norman long before the spring break-up would permit them to travel north by canoe or stern wheeler and link the new oil-field with civilization.

Inquiries disclosed that a New York firm had obtained the Junkers agency for this continent, and that several of these machines were available. Selection centred on two, all-metal monoplanes—of the type known as J. L. 6’s—with cabins capable of accommodating six passengers, and a wing-spread of forty-eight feet. Equipped with engines geared to 175 h.p., they were capable of a maximum speed of 130 miles per hour. These planes could be equipped with pontoons for landing on water, or skis for winter work. Two of these machines, manufactured in New York, had already proven their serviceability in carrying mails between Omaha and San Francisco.

The question of pilots to make the long, mid-winter flight in bringing the planes from New York to Edmonton was quickly settled. Since his return from overseas, “Wop” May, with his brother Court, and Lieutenant George W. Gorman, had organized a flying company with one plane, the City of Edmonton, with which they had engaged in barnstorming all over the West, especially at fairs and stampedes. At the Calgary Stampede they had made history by inadvertently landing the plane squarely atop a merry-go-round. Capitalizing on the untoward incident, they had walled-up the merry-go-round with its novel burden, charged admittance, and made a very nice clean-up out of what had, at first, appeared to be a disaster. Promptly, “Wop” and Gorman were engaged as pilots, while Pete Derbyshire—who had oiled and serviced the City of Edmonton at every village and town in Alberta where May and Gorman had put on their flying stunts—consented to go along as engineer.

Towards the end of November, 1920, the party entrained for New York and, in the third week in December, the two, wheel-equipped Junkers took off to wing their way across the continent in a tough, cold air route which carried them from Belfontaine to Sandusky, Cleveland and Chicago, and on by way of Minneapolis, Brandon and Saskatoon to Edmonton. May’s machine bore the Canadian registration, G-CADP, and Gorman’s, G-CADQ. Bitter cold, zero visibility and heavy icing forced both planes down at Virden, Manitoba, causing Gorman to remain there several weeks until the damaged tail of his machine was repaired.

For three days, Edmonton had been on tip-toe—waiting to fittingly welcome the intrepid aviators back from their cross-continental flight in the bitterest winter weather—when Court received a long-distance message from “Wop” at Saskatoon advising him of Gorman’s accident, and saying that, while bad weather there had held him up, he expected to reach Edmonton around three in the afternoon. But they had not counted on the difficulties experienced in de-icing, and getting oiled-up in the bitter cold, and by the time they took to the air the following-wind had changed to dead ahead. For the last hour of the flight “Wop” gave the machine all she had and, at 5.20 p.m., January 5th, the Junkers, barely visible to the assembled reception party in the rapidly-darkening sky, slipped to the runway beside the May-Gorman hangar and four half-frozen men staggered from the metal cabin.

Early in the afternoon, “Wop’s” parents had accompanied Court to the airfield along with Mayor Duggan, Alderman Collison and Charlie Taylor. There a colourful link with the Old and the New was forged by the presence of Frank Oliver, editor and owner of The Bulletin, and former Minister of the Interior, who had piloted his own conveyance into Edmonton many years before—not a modern, cabined monoplane but a primitive, squeaking Red River cart hauled by slow-moving oxen!

“We’re mighty glad to see you home, ‘Wop’,” beamed the Mayor.

“Maybe I’m not glad to get here!” he answered through chattering teeth!

The piloting of the all-metal airships from New York to Edmonton in the middle of winter (commented The Bulletin, under date of January 6th, 1921) opens up unthought of vistas in the world of aviation, and the fact that this has been accomplished by Edmonton boys reflects exceptional honour on the city that for many years was the end-of-steel. In the earlier years of railroads, if you wanted to go further than Edmonton, you went by “bull-team” or canoe. Now Captain May has opened up a scheme of transportation that requires neither paved roads nor steel rails.

Here, “Wop” severed his connection with the venture to carry on with his own flying company—May Airlines, Limited—with the remark that his immediate ambition was to “sleep for a week.” Lieutenant Elmer G. Fullerton was engaged to take his place along with an extra mechanic, William Hill.

The Junkers were next flown north to Peace River Crossing, where a landing site, a hangar and living quarters were established. The engines were given a thorough overhauling by Derbyshire and Hill and, as weather of Arctic severity continued to prevail, the wheels were replaced by skis, and everything readied for the take-off. With Lieutenant Gorman in command, and an Imperial Oil employee, W. Waddell, as passenger, the expedition headed northward on its historic flight to Fort Norman—carrying sleeping-bags, snowshoes and emergency rations for ten days.

While the Imperial Oil Company was preparing for this new, aerial, assault upon the North I had been busy making my usual winter inspection of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-trading posts along the Mackenzie River. Just a few days before Fullerton and Gorman were due to take-off for Fort Norman, John Robillard, my Chipewyan guide, drove my dog-drawn carriole into the snow-filled courtyard of Fort Simpson. From then on dog-team travel would, of course, be a thing of the past, and the long, tiresome “in between” season of disintegrating ice would set in until the arrival of the stern-wheeled Mackenzie River early in July would link us, once again, with the Outside, bringing belated mail, supplies and badly-needed provisions for our depleted larders.

Word had reached back to us at Fort Simpson that Sergeant “Nitchie” Thorne of the Mounted Police, who had headed south by dog-team in February, had delivered his prisoner, Albert Lebeau—accused of murdering his squaw—to Inspector Fletcher at Fort Fitzgerald, and gone on south to Edmonton. There would be no chance, therefore, for “Nitchie” to return until July, when the ice had cleared from Great Slave Lake.

A couple of days after my return—on March 28th—a deafening clamour arose from the courtyard and a crowd of thoroughly frightened Indians hurtled into the trading store. “The Thunder Bird! The Thunder Bird!” they cried, their coppery faces pale beneath the tan of the spring sun. Factor Camsell and I spilled out into the courtyard, wondering what the upset was all about.

“THE THUNDER BIRD!” shrieked another frightened Slavey as he pointed a trembling finger to the sky.

There, to our complete amazement, were two glittering aeroplanes zooming in a wide circle far overhead. Not a soul in Fort Simpson had ever seen an aeroplane! Now, they looked with increasing wonderment at these two mechanical monsters preparing to make a landing.

As the Junkers zoomed down from the skies, dark figures tumbled from the Indian cabins. Here, indeed, was the awesome “Thunder Bird” in person—the holy bird that sits aloft on the highest mountains, hatching out the lightning and making thunder with the drumming of its wings. Yes! here it was—roaring down menacingly—its huge “eyes” flashing in the sunlight.

It was altogether too much! With a hoarse croak of terror, old Chippesaw, the medicine man, plunged back into his cabin, snatched up a muzzle-loader, and dashed outside in time to take a flying shot at the foremost plane before it straightened out and swerved towards him. Throwing away his gun, he dashed, headlong, for the protecting woods—a score of terror-stricken bucks and squaws at his heels.

Gliding over the roofs of the Mission buildings, the foremost Junkers alighted gracefully upon the snow. The skis commenced to skim the drifted surface. The weight settled down upon them. For a brief moment the plane rocked, as though tossed upon billowing waves, then sprawled forward, swayed from side to side, and nose-dived into the hard drifts. There was a sound of rending metal, accompanied by a cascade of glittering crystal. The door flew open and three kicking, sprawling, humans landed, head-first, in the snow. To the utter astonishment of all around, there emerged from the smother the surprised face and lanky form of Sergeant “Nitchie” Thorne! Staggering to his feet, he brushed the snow from his clothing and turned—to look into the amazed eyes of his wife.

Fullerton’s machine, noticing the mishap, circled, and alighted without any trouble in the nearby “snye.”

Captain Gorman swore lustily as he staggered through the drifts towards the damaged machine, which lay like a sick bird upon the snow. A hasty examination disclosed that the prop was completely shattered, the undercarriage wrecked and the wing-tip damaged.

Back at my headquarters at the Hudson’s Bay fort, we learned from Gorman the circumstances that had led to the Sergeant’s serio-comic return. Just as the fliers were about to leave Edmonton, Sergeant Thorne had run across Captain Gorman. Could the Sergeant, Gorman asked, give him some information concerning ice conditions, and prospective landing places, in the North? The Sergeant did! Then, the thought occurred to Thorne that to return home in eight hours—over a route which, ordinarily, took eight long weeks of hard slogging by snowshoe and dog-team—would be accomplishing something unusual and spectacular. The deal was closed, and the Sergeant proceeded north beside Gorman in the cockpit on what was actually the first air-patrol in the history of the Mounted Police, while Dominion Land Surveyor W. Waddell accompanied Elmer Fullerton.

There was just a touch of the dramatic in the Sergeant’s make-up, and he’d had reasons of his own for pointing out that Mission field as a prospective landing place instead of the nearby channel between the island and the mainland. Beside the field were the red-roofed buildings of his barracks. It would be quite a joke to make a grandstand landing at his own back door!

With DQ out of commission it was decided that Elmer Fullerton should complete the three-hundred-and-fifty mile flight to Fort Norman the following day. Since, however, Fullerton’s machine had developed engine trouble, his propeller and one of his skis were fitted to the damaged plane, and the wing-tip straightened. Next morning, with Hill, Waddell and the equipment aboard DQ, Gorman proceeded to take-off. But ill-luck continued to dog him. As his machine sped forward it rocked, nose-dived, and shivered the second propeller to atoms.

Dolefully, the party returned to the fort, Gorman striding like a caged lion up and down the Mess room, his future plans completely shot by the double disaster. Here they were, he raved, marooned in the wilderness, with not a chance to get out to civilization till the river steamer called on its up-river trip late in July. If they could only get another prop! But, the nearest telegraph office was almost a thousand miles to the southward—there were no radios in those days—while dog-team travel was out of the question as the ice was getting bad. Disconsolately, they made their way to the Mission and hired a cabin from Father Decoux.

Around the Carron stove in the Company’s Mess Room that night the aeroplanes became the sole topic of conversation between Fred Camsell, Walter Johnson and others, the rather doubtful performance of these machines having convinced them that you couldn’t beat the old, reliable canoe and dog-team. To these insular Northerners the aeroplane was just another of those “contraptions” which, while they might have their place in the effete Outside beyond the frontier, had no place in the North. The fact that Thorne had actually accomplished in eight hours a journey that usually occupied eight weeks of soul-searing toil meant just exactly nothing since the party was now marooned by the failure of their machines. There was, however, one dissenting voice. It was that of Walter Johnson, general handyman around the post in winter, and engineer aboard the diminutive Liard River in the summer, who, in his earlier years, had been apprenticed as a cabinetmaker in England.

Until the small hours of the morning, Gorman, Walter and I talked the situation over. “Wouldn’t it be possible,” I suggested finally, “to make another propeller?”

“I don’t think,” Walter replied with a quiet smile, “it should be so hard to make one after all.”

Fred Camsell chuckled. Elmer Fullerton laughed outright. But, Walter was not to be deterred. Fixing them with a baleful look, he grunted: “I’ve never yet seen a wood-working job I couldn’t handle!”

Next morning I persuaded Gorman to accompany Walter and myself to the scene of the mishap, where Walter examined the broken prop minutely. It was composed of nine laminated strips of black walnut glued into a solid block, cut to shape by the most accurate machinery, then finished off by trained workmen and tipped with copper.

“Well, Walter,” I queried, “what’s the verdict?”

“I dunno.” He gave me a long, reflective look. “If only I had the proper kind of wood I still believe I could make one!”

“How about using those oak sleigh-boards I had shipped in last fall to make a dog-carriole with?” I suggested. “They’re all straight-grained, for I selected them myself, and we’ve lots of moose-parchments in the fur loft that could be boiled down into glue.”

The sleigh-boards were a factory-made product shipped by the Hudson’s Bay Company to many of their Northern posts to be steamed and bent into the conventional freight toboggans. They consisted of machine-planed, straight-grained oak boards, twelve feet in length, eight inches wide and one inch in thickness. Later, reports stated that the marooned aviators had hied themselves into the woods, shot a moose and converted the fresh skin into glue. Nothing could be further from the facts. Owing to the country having been burned over, there were no moose anywhere in the vicinity of Fort Simpson that winter, as we knew to our cost—having been forced to subsist all that season on bannock, and hung whitefish which smelled to high heaven, having become thoroughly rotten due to a thaw while they were being transported by scow from the fall fishery at Wrigley Harbour to the fort. Later, the writer, personally, selected the moose-parchments from a number of old, dried skins stored in one of the buildings, and supplied the type considered most suitable for the purpose of making glue.

Gorman shook his head, though I noticed that Walter was intrigued with my suggestion. Examining the pitch of the propeller, he took some measurements.

“How about letting me off for a few days?” he asked. “I’d like to see what I can do.”

“Go to it,” I said. “Take all the time you like.”

To the aviators, the idea of a sleigh-board moose-glue prop seemed ridiculous. Only Hill, Gorman’s mechanic, greeted the suggestion with the faintest display of grudging enthusiasm.

A few steamer clamps, an auger, a ship’s adze, axes, chisels, planes and crooked knives were the only tools available, yet, quite undaunted, Walter went ahead. Day by day he sawed and chipped at the toboggan boards. With Hill’s assistance, numerous templates of tin were cut to shape, using one unbroken blade as a guide. Gradually the home-made propeller assumed the regulation form and shape. But would it, when completed, be capable of standing a strain of fifteen-hundred revolutions per minute from a 175 h.p. engine? And—would it be capable of driving a machine, weighing two tons, through the air at a speed of ninety miles an hour? Walter, still optimistic, swore it would! Everybody else was either sceptical or downright disbelieving.

Meanwhile, Fullerton, Derbyshire and Waddell had overhauled DP’s motor, and repaired the damaged skis—the first aircraft repair job ever undertaken in the North. On April 15th, Fullerton adjusted the scarlet-painted, moose-glued sleigh-board prop to G-CADP and climbed into the cockpit. Slowly he opened the throttle until the Junkers was struggling at the restraining ropes, and the new prop swirling fine clouds of snow into the air. With a grim nod, he signalled to us to release the ropes. Again the engine barked out its full power, the staccato detonations from the exhaust shattering the sub-Arctic stillness.

Breathlessly, we watched it roar away, partly obscured by the flying mist of snow, until it appeared in full flight above the sentinel pines.

We stood there, apprehensively watching Fullerton circling for altitude, the sunlight flashing and glinting from the home-made blur in front of the nose. The cadence of its revolutions came down to us in a rising and falling rhythm of sound. Would the prop suddenly disintegrate, and send both ship and pilot crashing to the frozen earth? I glanced at Gorman. Pale and tense, he stood there—the knuckles of his clenched hands white with the force of his grip as he watched the Junkers soar in ever-widening circles.

For nearly an hour, Fullerton put the ship through her paces. Nervous at first, Walter grinned delightedly as the smooth pulsation of the sleigh-board prop continued to purr down from a height of 2,000 feet, or more.

At last the Junkers circled and skimmed in for a landing, this time—not on the bumpy Mission field but on the level ice of the snye behind the fort. Fullerton was exultant. The new prop had responded as though it had been turned out on a factory lathe!

I had repeatedly warned Captain Gorman that the Indians reported the prospect of an early break-up of the Liard River. Lulled, however, into a sense of false security by Sergeant Thorne’s assurance that the Liard never went out till the month of May, it was not till eight days had elapsed that preparations were completed for the take-off for Peace River Crossing, four hundred miles to the southwest. Already the Liard was showing ominous signs of breaking up. The ice was getting black in spots, and there were distant and ominous rumblings. Meanwhile, the ship had been staked out behind the island where the Liard and Mackenzie meet.

Their preparations at last completed, Gorman and Fullerton crawled into their blankets at the Mounted Police barracks, prepared for a good night’s rest. At five o’clock next morning we were awakened at the post by an unholy racket downstairs. Rushing down, we found a half-breed, Henry Lafferty, in a state of wild excitement.

“De Liard Ribber—he’s goin’ out!” he cried. “De ice—he’s pilin’ up. De water’s risin’ fas’!”

Ominous news, indeed. When the swift-flowing Liard River broke up, and hurled its mighty force against the still solid ice of the Mackenzie, it was one of the sights of the North since it was no unusual thing for the river to rise twenty feet in as many minutes, whilst the impact of the crushing, grinding ice against the barrier of the Mackenzie was terrific, and beggared description.

Tearing down to the barracks, we surprised Gorman and his party in bed, awakened them, and all streaked down through the bush to see if the plane was still there, or if it had already been demolished. It was intact—but only about 400 feet of solid ice remained for a take-off—while a foot of muddy water was already swirling above the skis.

With desperate haste we piled the stuff aboard as Fullerton feverishly warmed up the engine. Any moment now might see the ice barrier break, and witness the complete demolition of the plane. Higher and higher crept the turgid flood. Shorter and shorter became the runway. We could hear the deafening roar of the ice as it piled remorselessly into the mouth of the channel.

“Load’s too heavy!” Fullerton started pitching the baggage ashore. “I’ll have to go alone. Bring that stuff out to the little lake just west of here. I’ll wait for you there!”

Next moment he’d given her the gun and was streaking down the snye. To us it seemed that the plane would never rise. She cleared the ice barrier by a scant few inches. Her skis struck open water, sending aloft a shower of glittering spray. Gorman groaned. A slip-up now spelled certain death!

Beneath the ship surged thousands of tons of grinding, roaring ice. Suddenly the plane commenced to climb. We could see a thin, blue line of sky between her and the rising mass of hurtling ice. There arose a choking gasp of relief. She circled, and disappeared above the spiked pines to the westward!

“Look!” cried Walter, his voice tense.

At the foot of the bank, where the ship had been resting but a few brief moments before, roared a mighty, turgid flood, tossing in its grip colossal masses of ice as though they were mere snowballs. Silently, we re-traced our way back to the fort.

Late that evening, when the channel cleared, we ferried Gorman, the two mechanics and Jack Cameron, their guide, across in a canoe and watched them climb the wooded bank with the baggage on their backs. Walter decided to accompany them as far as the little lake where Fullerton intended to set down the plane on solid ice.

Not till late the following day did Cameron and Walter return. They’d found the plane at the appointed spot. The boys had piled aboard, and the ship, with its whirring sleigh-board prop, had disappeared over the silent wilderness, heading into the southwest.

From that time on we speculated and wondered. Had they succeeded in making Peace River Crossing? Or—had they fallen in the unpopulated wilderness across which their route would lie, sacrificing their lives in attempting to introduce the aeroplane to a region which still looked upon the canoe and dog-team as the only practicable modes of travel?

On July 5th, the S.S. Mackenzie River churned into Fort Simpson with fluttering pennants and ringing signal bells. Then, for the first time, we learned the outcome of that epic flight from the sub-Arctic fastnesses. The sleigh-board moose-glue prop had fulfilled Walter Johnson’s brightest expectations. Four hours after leaving Fort Simpson, Fullerton had set his ship down safely on the frozen surface of Bear Lake near the frontier settlement of Peace River Crossing, and, a few days later, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s head office in Winnipeg received the first air mail from the North—which included my official report of Walter’s miraculous feat—mail which I had handed to Gorman on the eve of his departure and which, ordinarily, would not have reached civilization until late the following August!

It was then that I learned, too, of the bitter controversy that had originated, after the party reached Edmonton, as to the construction of the historic propeller.

Hardly had Gorman’s party reached there than they were overwhelmed by enthusiastic reporters who told, with banner headlines, how the marooned fliers had risen nobly to the occasion by “hacking a propeller out of birch trees ... shooting a moose, and converting the skin into glue—and thus mastering a decidedly unpleasant situation.” Not a word was mentioned about Walter Johnson, or the part he and the Hudson’s Bay Company had contributed to the success of the occasion!

Next day the Winnipeg Tribune came out with a totally different story of the events surrounding the construction of the moose-glue prop.

While organizing, and directing, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s 250th Anniversary Pageant in Winnipeg the previous spring, I had suggested to Sir Robert Kindersley, the Governor, the founding of a staff magazine to help restore the Company’s esprit de corps—which had been somewhat adversely affected by the invasion of the million-dollar Lamson and Hubbard Company into the North. As a consequence, The Beaver magazine came into being, under the editorship of Mr. Thomas. As northernmost correspondent for this magazine, I had sent, by Captain Gorman, a detailed account of the entire episode, giving Walter full credit for his ingenuity and brilliance—little thinking of the storm of protest these facts would arouse when Mr. Thomas handed it over to The Tribune as a topical news item, along with my original photographs, taken on the spot, or that Walter’s accomplishment would be stoutly and acrimoniously denied by some who knew better, and should have been only too pleased to acknowledge his help.

In every way, aviation had gotten off to a poor start so far as the Mackenzie River country was concerned. Not until 1928 were aeroplanes again to penetrate these vastnesses. In the meantime, old-timers returned placidly, and with a distinct measure of relief, to the traditional dog-team, snowshoes and canoe.

[1]	The author also made the trip to Fort Norman to stake oil claims.