One of our most anticipated planned stops was to visit the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa. Kevin Psutka kindly provided transportation and was our personal guide in the museum. Kevin was the previous president of t the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association and for several years provided leadership for that great organization.

Here’s a sampling of the many aircraft on display:

Avro Arrow
I couldn’t resist having a photo since the aircraft carries my initials.

 

Avro Lancaster Bomber
I first saw this aircraft in 1968 when I was here with the Air Cadets.

de Havilland Beaver
Here is a remarkable Canadian aviation icon; the de Havilland Beaver Serial Number 1. I flew this type of aircraft on amphibious floats when I was with Transport Canada in Vancouver.

MacDonald Douglas CF-101 Voodoo
Kevin was in the Canadian Armed Forces as a fighter pilot and he flew this very CF-101 on operations.

Douglas DC-3
When we lived in Ottawa my son, Chris, was in Cubs and for one of their outings we bicycled to the museum along the Ottawa River Parkway. There were various fun activities, we watched an aviation movie then slept overnight in the museum. We could pick any place for our sleeping bags so we chose under the wing of this aircraft. It was a real fun experience for a bunch of little boys.

 

On the way to the Fredericton airport this morning we made a diversion to the Legislature Building for a photo with the Canada Flag. Again, the photo was kindly taken by our taxi driver. There had been a “technical glitch” with one of my SD memory cards so this was a retake.

 

 The weather was marginal VFR with some broken to overcast conditions along the way so we were again IFR at 8,000 feet. The conditions in the Ottawa area were 2,000 feet broken and since Rockcliffe does not have an instrument approach procedure we flew the Ottawa RNAV (GNSS) RWY 32 approach. When we brok out at around 2,000 feet I cancelled IFR and proceeded to Rockcliffe VFR.

 Waiting to greet us was a friend and colleague from my days in Ottawa at Transport Canada and more recently from the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA), Kevin Psutka. Kevin was the previous President of COPA and he became our guide and host for a couple of days. Thanks Kevin.

After lunch with Kevin it was on to the RCMP Stables to see where the horses for the Musical Ride call home.

 

It is likely not well known but there is an interesting museum at the stables.

 

The groomers and riders are regular RCMP officers and most have very little or no horse experience. 

 I couldn’t resist a photo when I saw the name of this horse. 

 All chores are done by the RCMP officers including cleaning the boots after being in horse *&%$. 

 They didn’t want me to take a photo of the horses faces just in case they are used on covert operations and need to remain incognito.

 

The early morning was not too much better than yesterday. Yesterday, the issue was frontal weather and thunder storms, and today the issue was air mass weather with a northeast wind off the Atlantic Ocean giving very low clouds and very limited visibility. 

We had planned to fly north along the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland to St. Anthony then cross the Strait of Belle Isle to Blanc-Sablon in Quebec. From there we planned to fly along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River to Sept-Iles. That routing wasn’t very favorable today. The weather was improving to the south so we decided to return the same way we had come.
(After all, we had “come from away”.)

So, our departure was delayed by several hours.

On the way to the airport we visited the Newfoundland Confederation Building and met with the Honourable Christopher Mitchelmore, Minister of Tourism, Culture, Industry, and Innovation. We had a 09:30 appointment and the Minister greeted us at the main entrance then gave us a VIP in-depth tour of the House of Assembly. 

Our photos of the Canada Flag in the Legislature were kindly taken by our taxi driver.

The Royal Newfound Regiment has been in existence in one form or another for over 200 years. The Regiment fought in World War I at the Battle of the Somme and was all but wiped out.  On July 1, 1916, of the 780 men who went forward only about 110 survived unscathed, of whom only 68 were available for roll call the following day.

The Newfound Legislature was quite impressive and I noted several items recognizing the indigenous people of the land.

 

The weather had improved enough by noon for a safe departure so I filed IFR at 8,000 feet St. John’s to Charlottetown. We were on top by 6,000 feet in the clear blue sky. As we flew westward along the southern shore of Newfoundland the clouds below us began to break up and by Port-aux-Basques the sky was clear.

For the over water portion to Charlottetown it was up to 10,000 feet to give us better “options”.

On the 60 nautical mile leg from Port-aux-Basques to Cape Breton Island we were within gliding distance of St. Paul Island some of the time. About 10 to 15 minutes from either side we were not within gliding distance from land.

There really isn’t much to St. Paul Island; but it does offer an option, only if just to find a dry place rather than being in the cold water.

In Charlottetown we had a quick lunch, refuelled, then departed for an uneventful flight to Fredericton at 8,500 feet in very good smooth VFR conditions.

 

We have been in St. John’s for a few days and have seen lots of interesting things and met a lot of interesting people so it’s time to move on, heading for Ottawa. Today started off with a careful check of the weather; not good. A weather system is moving across Newfoundland so we decided to spend another day in town. This gave us time to take care of some logistics, such as having business cards printed for NavPath and for our Canada 150 Anniversary Flight, and working on the Blog.

 

Valerie and I were sitting in the lounge at the Delta Hotel where we are staying when a nice young man, David, stopped by for a chat. It turned out that David works at the concierge at the hotel.  When he heard our story about flying across the country and our Canada Flag he wrote down our contact information telling us that he would get back to us with some interesting arrangements. Interesting indeed, as he had arranged for a meeting the next day with the Honourable Christopher Mitchelmore, Newfoundland Minister of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation at the Newfoundland legislature, the Confederation Building. Now that’s amazing. But wait, there’s more!

David’s father is a politician in Ottawa, the Speaker of the Senate, the Honourable George J. Furey. Dave informed his father’s office of our planned visit to Ottawa and Parliament Hill on our return westward. His father will not be in Ottawa when we get there, however, his father’s Chief of Staff is expecting us to contact them on arrival in Ottawa in a couple of days.

We had dipped our Canada Flag in the water in Victoria Harbour on July 1st at the beginning of our journey, so now in St. John’s on August 1st at the end of the journey, it was time to dip the flag in the water in St. John’s Harbour. 

David suggested that we should go to a small park on the harbour front to visit the Terry Fox Memorial where we could access the water. This marks the spot where Terry dipped his foot in the Atlantic Ocean and began his run across Canada, The Marathon of Hope, to raise cancer awareness and funds for cancer research. Sadly, Terry never made it to Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean.

We walked to the park but were not able to access the water, however, we had a very pleasant surprise. There was a group of people gathered at the Terry Fox memorial, surounding a young man with a bicycle. This man, Matthew Pike, from Happy Valley-Goose Bay, had just completed a bike ride across Canada, beginning in Vancouver on June 6th. Matthew was riding to raise funds for the Children’s Wish Foundation, in recognition of his cousin, Craig, who lost his battle with  Spina Bifida a few years ago. 

From left: Stan Pike (Craig Pike’s father), Matthew Pike, Lyndon Pike (Matthew’s brother), Murray Pike (Matthew’s father) and in front is Mabel Hancock (Craig’s mother).

Details of his journey are available at: http://www.thelabradorian.ca/living/happy-valley-goose-bay-man-completes-bike-ride-across-country-28259/

We were introduced to Matthew and Craig’s mother and told them of our journey across Canada.

Matthew was very interested about the flying and asked several questions about our airplane. It turns out that his father worked at the Goose Bay airport and Matthew grew up around airplanes.

I was very pleased when Matthew asked to have a photo with our Canada Flag.

Today, August 1st would have been Craig’s birthday. It became somewhat emotional when Craig’s mother began to sing Happy Birthday.

So it was a truly interesting and amazing day indeed.

Tomorrow we fly!

 

We tried to rent a car but there were none available. It seems there are not very many rental cars in St. John’s and they were all booked up for several weeks. Now what do we do?

David at the Delta concierge arranged for a local taxi to drive us around to see the sights and the driver would also be our guide. Sounds good to me.

Our first stop was Cape Spear located on the Avalon Peninsula just a bit south of St. John’s. It is the easternmost point in Canada, and North America.

 

 

 

 

 

A short walk up the hill to the lighthouse keeper’s house

 

Parks Canada has placed a pair of red Muskoka chairs in National Parks across the country. We came across these at Cape Spear.

This is the oldest lighthouse in Newfoundland. I couldn’t imagine being out here in such a remote location but I am glad someone did it. The fog horn still works and there were several signs warning that if the horn sounded it could cause a hearing loss, proceed at your own risk.

Just over the hill from the lighthouse is the remains of a gun emplacement from World War II. There is restoration work taking place to be better display the gun for its historical significance.

St. John’s Harbour – some of the fishing fleet

 Colourful buildings

Terry Fox Memorial at Mile 0

 

 

Harbour entrance

 

Signal Hill

 

Quidi Vidi Bay

 

Confederation Building

 

The Rooms Archive

 

 

 

Delta Hotel

colourful buildings

a long walk through St. John’s

rainy day

 

We ended up at the Colonial Building, which was built in 1850, where we met a nice man on a walk with his two children. He seemed quite pleased when we asked him to take our photograph.  We didn’t have our Canada Flag so a hardy wave had to do.

Government House

 

Valerie signed the guest register at Government House.

This plaque is about the last of the indigenous people based on the island of Newfoundland. The Beothuk people of the land were here before the Europeans arrived around 1500. Their demise is not well known or taught across the country. They lived only on the island of Newfoundland. They are no more.

 

party town

Kitchen Party

Screeched In kiss the cod

 

air traffic controller – Gander Oceanic

 

her cousin, who is a helicopter pilot, arrived a while later and joined the party. He had taken some of his early training at Boundary Bay airport then later advanced helicopter training at Abbotsford.

party time

the family invited us to join them 

 

 

Using my iPad and ForeFlight I had a good appreciation of the weather on our planned route to our final eastbound destination of St. John’s, Newfoundland. A phone call to the Flight Information Centre in St. John’s was in order. With changes in policy and procedures with Nav Canada, my phone call was routed to Ontario and I ended up talking to a briefer in London, Ontario.

The weather was very good for our departure from Charlottetown and our arrival in St. John’s.  There was some weather enroute that wouldn’t likely present a hazard for our flight.

We had planned to stop along the way at a small airport off the south coast of Newfoundland. There are a couple of islands that are part of France; the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. They are officially the Overseas Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and are a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France. So the plan was to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to France!

A check of the NOTAM for Ile-Saint-Pierre airport showed that due to construction on their only runway 08/26, the airport was available only for aircraft based at the airport, Search and Rescue aircraft, and MEDEVAC aircraft.  Since this airport is actually regulated by France, the runway distances and displaced threshold distance is in metres instead of feet.  Well, we were out of luck for this airport and somewhat disappointed since we had hoped that this stop would be one of the many  highlights of the journey.

So a pilot has to assess the risks in aviation at all times.  This leg would be across a significant stretch of cold Atlantic water.  If there was an engine failure near either shore the aircraft could glide to a landing somewhere; probably crash but would still be dry and perhaps reachable by a ground rescue party. If there was an engine failure in the middle of the strait the aircraft could not reach either shore and would crash in the cold Atlantic.

One thing that made the decision a little easier to fly across the strait was the small island about one third the way from Cape Breton to Port aux Basque; St. Paul Island. With that in mind the risk was reduced to about a 10 to 15 minute window where gliding to a dry landing would not be possible.

 

 

We filed an IFR flight plan from Charlottetown to St. John’s at a cruise altitude of 9,000 feet. From Charlottetown it was on Victor airway V300 to a point where the airway met the coast of Cape Breton, then across the Cabot Strait to UMETI intersection near Port aux Basques. From there along the south coast of Newfoundland direct to St. John’s.

After topping up the fuel tanks and a careful pre-flight inspection we were soon airborne climbing to 9, 000 feet for our flight that should take a little over three hours. After passing the northern tip of Cape Breton Island I requested and was cleared to 11,000 feet. That altitude gave us a little better comfort crossing the Cabot Strait.

Here we are in cruise at 11,000 feet over the Cabot Strait.

Along the south coast of Newfoundland there was some cloud cover as anticipated so we climbed to 13,000 feet for a smoother ride.

Newfoundland is noted for its place names sometimes being a little different than the rest of Canada. Our route had us cross the north-west arm of the Avalon Peninsula where Highway 80 passes through the town of Cavendish, with the village of Hearts Delight to the north and the village of Dildo to the south.

The clouds dissipated as we got closer to St. John’s and were cleared for a visual approach to Runway 16, following an Air Canada A320 well in front of us. It was quite turbulent on short final for runway 16, however, we landed, taxied in and parked at PAL Aviation Services, the Shell AeroCentre.

We made it!

July 1st we were on the west coast in Victoria, British Columbia, looking out on the Pacific Ocean and today, July 29th, we were on the east coast in St. John’s, Newfoundland, looking out on the Atlantic Ocean. The trip was safe and successful and went pretty much according to plan.

The staff at the AeroCentre was so very warm and welcoming providing suggestions for taxi and things to see in the local area. We had reservation at the Delta hotel and it wasn’t long we were on our way for a bit of R and R. After having lunch we checked out the ships along side at the harbour.

Valerie taking a break as Bob is taking more photos, again.

My father now has a boat named after him.

This one is named for my niece Tina.

 

 

Our accommodations were in a small boutique hotel in the downtown area of Charlottetown. We had a short walk from our hotel to the legislative building where here the building is known as Province House. The building was constructed in the 1840’s and the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island has met here since 1847.

We had to have our photo with the Canada Flag taken outside of the grounds for Province House. The building has been undergoing major renovations since January 1, 2015, and the Province House National Historic Site will be closed for 3-5 years while this extensive restoration and conservation work takes place.

Since Charlottetown, and this building, is considered the birthplace of Confederation, we had really been looking forward to seeing this National Historic Site. Needless to say we were disappointed, but on the other hand, we were pleased that the work is taking place to ensure that the building will remain safe, accessible and functional for a long time to come.

The Confederation Chamber, the actual room where the Charlottetown Conference took place in 1864,  had been restored several years ago to its original splendor.

During the construction period the temporary Legislative Assembly Chamber is hosed in the Honourable George Coles Building, just a few blocks away.

In the downtown area period actors are walking about playing the roles of folks that may have been in the city 150 years ago. Their conversations stayed in character and they never once had a smile. I guess these presumable university students really loved their job.

The water front on the Hillsborough Heritage River is the site for the 

This nice young lady was conducting walking tours of downtown Charlottetown, including of some of the secrets of the city and the lesser well-known, or less talked about, areas.

Other folks were dressed in period costumes for the tourists (us).

Anne of Green Gables happened to be walking so we just had to have a photo with her. She told us that she was on her way to market to buy wool to knit socks and beeswax to make candles.

 

Now for a little history.

Up until 1867, the United Kingdom had a British colony in North America with several provinces; Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.  A proclamation by Queen Victoria signed on March 29, 1867 established that the three provinces shall form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada. The proclamation is known as the British North America Act, 1867. The existing province of Canada was divided into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, so on Confederation there were now four provinces in the new Dominion of Canada. 

The Dominion of Canada wasn’t born out of revolution, or a sweeping outburst of nationalism. Rather, it was created in a series of conferences and orderly negotiations, culminating in the terms of Confederation on 1 July 1867. Perhaps this is where Canadians established their national politeness. 

Earlier this same year, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. Negotiations between the United States and Russia for the purchase of Alaska had been taking place for several years, prior to the American Civil War (1861-1865). After the war ended negotiations resumed and culminated with the agreement for purchase signed on March 30, 1867, for a price of $7.2 million dollars.

One can only imagine how North America might have developed had the United Kingdom been interested in purchasing Alaska.

History lesson over (there may be a test).

The first flight today was from Halifax to Moncton for a stop to visit the Air Cadets training at Moncton Flying Centre. The Arrow was already fueled so it was a quick walkaround then off we went.

Jon had flown with me when he was a little boy and now he jumped it to check out the Arrow. Many years ago I took him flying in a Piper.

For departure it was Runway 14, the opposite of our landing runway. So it was another long taxi past the terminal for departure.

From this view you can see where we were at the FBO at the very far end of the runway off to the right.

The soil around here is quite red and consequently the river water is red. With the extreme tides in the Bay of Fundy and the red river water, Moses might have wondered what was going on.

After landing at Moncton we taxied to the Moncton Flight Centre. The flying school was as busy here as they were in Fredericton with international students. This school was also training the Air Cadets for their Private Pilot Licence so we met with them for a chat then it was out to the Arrow for a photo.

A short while later we were off on another uneventful flight from Moncton to Charlottetown.  It was another over water flight across the Northumberland Strait. Our route of flight had us passing directly over the Confederation Bridge. Pilots have to be aware of the restricted airspace surrounding the bridge up to 500 feet. You can check out CYR 754.

Charlottetown airport was also under construction; the east-west runway 10/28 was closed for paving. For our arrival it was Runway 21 then a long taxi past the terminal to the Charlottetown Flying Club at the south end of the runway.

We welcomed the taxi ride to the boutique hotel, a good meal, and a good night’s rest.

 

On July 23 I sent an email to the office of the Premier, the Honourable Stephen McNeil to arrange for a meeting at Province House for a photo with our Canada Flag. On July 25 I received a response that the premier was not available, however Mr. Kevin Murphy, Speaker of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly was able to meet with us on the afternoon of July 26. Great! We felt honoured.

Province House is where the Nova Scotia legislative assembly, known officially as the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, has met every year since 1819, making it the longest serving legislative building in Canada. The building is Canada’s oldest house of government