Cross Canada Trip in the Turbine Beaver

Well we made it back from our flight across Canada. Steve, Kelly, Riley and Lane have done this one twice now. I was lucky enough to get the time to do the return trip. It was a great experience. Our country is big and I cannot believe how many lakes there are in Quebec and Ontario. Well there are lots in Manitoba too but Ontario was never ending and there always seemed to be more water than land.

The other thing that jumped out was how flat the majority of Canada is between here and Quebec. As we passed by Pincher Creek and entered the Rocky Mountains the change was dramatic. BC is definitely the most beautiful province when viewing from the air. There are many great things about the other provinces but from a pure land feature perspective BC wins easily.

Our trip took 9 stops(10 if you include our final landing) along the way and we travelled approximately 2113 nautical miles. Flying time was 17.8 hours and we sucked back about 810 US gallons of fuel which is 3066 liters. At an average of say $1.40 per liter that is $4300 in fuel. Divide that by 5 people....3 adults and 2 munchkins and that works out to $860 per person. What would you choose? Air Canada or the smelly beaver!? I am leaving that one wide open... :-)

Steve and I flipped a coin at the beginning to see who would fly first and we alternated Pilot In Command from there. I am not sure if we were the well oiled AC two man operation but we did pretty good in the grand scheme. I yelled 4 green from time to time and Riley backed me up with a few confirmations of "gear is up for water landing..."

Riley was digging the map reading thing which was great for the geography skills. Both Lane and Riley seem to really be into the photography stuff so I was helping them a bit with their shooting skills. Many of the photos you see are Riley and Lane practicing perspective, rule of thirds and all those other fun technical photography thing. Kids pick up on things fast. There is also a gallery below with Riley's shots only...I think Lane took some of them.

We stayed in a few lodges along the way and the one in Granitehill Lake was the most remote. Our second lodge was less remote but still fun. The only significant weather we encountered was when we were departing Denaro Beach. In the pictures you can see us packing up on the dock, then a shot of a down pour and then another showing the passing of the storm.

Last stop before Vancouver was Nelson which is always fun. The best part was that we arrived in a $1.5 million dollar airplane yet we were too cheap to get a cab to our hotel which was about a mile and a bit away. You will see us in the pictures walking down the street with our roller bags behind us.

We arrived home on Sept 2 exactly 5 years since brother Gary's death. I could not help remembering that it was exactly 5 years ago to the day that we left Pincher Creek, AB in the airplane after a weekend in Waterton National Park. The cycles of life are strange some times.

Below is a google map of our trip. I was trying to hook the photos into the map points but Google has a bug in their product that I just surfaced. So I am just going to put all the links down below.

Note: the map below is interactive. You can move it around, zoom it etc.


View Larger Map

If you want to look at the photos I have created a bunch of links to Flickr below. The photos are a mix of mine and Steve/Kelly's. I just had my point and shoot with me rather than lugging all the fancy gear. It was probably better anyway.

Cross Canada Trip Photos:

Lac Manitou to Granitehill Lake

Granitehill Lake to Denare Beach(Flin Flon)

Denaro Beach to Nelson

Nelson to Vancouver

Riley the Pro photographer's Shots