My first picture book launches in 2019!

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that Alis the Aviator: An ABC Aviation Adventure is coming out with Tundra Books in July 2019 (and is now available for pre-order)!

I first drafted the main text in the summer of 2014 after a friend gave me an ABC airplane book for my (then) two-year-old son. It was lovely in a lot of ways, but just didn’t have the bounce, wit and rhyme I love in picture books. And it certainly couldn’t hold the attention of my very active little boy. So I sat on my back porch in Edmonton one day when my son was taking his nap, and started scribbling out ideas by hand, letter by letter.

By then I’d been immersed in the world of airplanes and aviation officially since 2007, when I started work on my first book for adults, For the Love of Flying. But really, I grew up surrounded by plane nuts from day one. So even though I’m not a pilot myself, the aircraft types, their stories, and their quirks, flowed surprisingly easily. There were some letters I just knew right away: A is for Arrow, for example. And B is for Beaver. Those were such important airplanes for the people I’ve interviewed and family members. Others took a bit of research. But as a trained historian and research-addict, that was all part of the fun.

From there it was the usual rollercoaster of rewrites, critiques, convincing my agent at the time that I was a children’s writer too, and shopping the manuscript around.  But no one was ready to publish the book and my son was getting older, so I decided to self publish with an incredible artist/illustrator colleague, Jason Blower, and got my father (a pilot, francophone, and professional translator) to create a French-language version. That was also when Jason wisely suggested a through-line character for the book. I have always tried to highlight hidden stories in aviation, so I knew I wanted that ‘character’ to be a female pioneer (who was less known than, say, Amelia Earhart). I’ve also been dedicated to spotlighting Indigenous voices and reconciliation, so when I learned about Dr. Alis Kennedy and we started chatting, it felt right on so many levels.

Even though all these wonderful pieces came together, Jason and I were incredibly busy with life and work and decided to send Alis the Aviator around on submission once more with my agent. In early 2016, the wonderful Sam Swenson at Tundra Books expressed interest in the text, but had a different vision for the art. Kalpna Patel, whom I’d read about in Chatelaine magazine just a few months earlier, was brought in as the illustrator. I have baseline craft and drawing skills, so I had no idea how her cut-art designs might translate into a picture book, but I knew enough to trust the experts.

I’m so glad I did. When I saw the first proofs, I knew she was on to something special. When I got to look over the final PDF, I was gobsmacked. Tears sprang to my eyes as I saw my text magically brought to life through her vivid scenes, primary colours, and intricate creations. She really ‘got’ the sense of inclusivity and fun and adventure that I yearned for in this book – and for all the readers who come to it. And the scrapbook design at the back of the book where I tell Alis’s story – illustrated by her own photographs – is just gorgeous.

I love that all my son’s friends will see themselves in this book. That the young girls in my life can picture themselves flying, maintaining, and controlling aircraft from the past and present in these pages. It has been a long time coming, but good things come to those who wait. And this is something truly special that I can’t wait to share with my son, with my friends and family, and will all of you!

SKY GIRL takes third place at RWA’s Emily Awards!

Really honoured to have my first (unpublished) young adult book, Sky Girl, place in this contest. I know it’s a tough competition with entries from talented emerging voices from around the world. Thanks to the West Houston chapter of the Romance Writers of America for coordinating all the submissions and judges, and to the first- and second-round judges in my category who provided such useful feedback – and much-needed encouragement!

Off to work on my ninth(!) rewrite of this novel, which I’ve been researching and writing since 2009. The process has been tough but it’s taught me so much about how to merge my love of history with storytelling. And I have loved every minute of deep research into the amazing female bush pilots and ferry pilots from the Second World War. Hopefully version 9.0 will see all those parts click into place and I’ll be able to share this story with all of you soon.

Oh – and before I forget! A big congratulations to my friend and fellow writer, Laura Mitzner, who snagged second place with her darkly funny contemporary YA novel, Because Heaven is Just Hearsay.

Women in Aviation History Talk on March 22nd in Richmond, Texas

In recognition of Women’s History Month in March, George Memorial Library in Richmond will present a special program, “The History of Women in Aviation,” on Thursday, March 22, beginning at 7:00 pm, in the Meeting Room of the library.

In her presentation, local author and aviation historian Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail will showcase some of the famous (and not-so-famous) women from around the world who have made an impact in the aviation industry in times of peace and of war.

“From the earliest days of aviation, there have been women who have wanted to walk on wings, soar in balloons, tinker with engines, and – of course – fly,” says Metcalfe-Chenail, who shares her love for aviation history in her books For the Love of Flying, Polar Winds, and the forthcoming picture book, Alis the Aviator: The ABCs of Flight.

As the former Historian Laureate of Edmonton, Alberta, and the former president of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society, Metcalfe-Chenail was able to combine her graduate degree in history with her passion for writing and aviation history.

This program is made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the George Memorial Library. Proceeds from the Friends of the Library book sales and annual membership dues help to underwrite the costs of special programming and various cultural events at the library.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information, call George Memorial Library at 281-342-4455 or the library system’s Communications Office at 281-633-4734. Richmond is in Fort Bend County outside of Houston, Texas.

If you can’t make it, but you’d like to learn more about women in the history of military aviation in Canada, check out this article I wrote for Legion Magazine last year called “The Job for Me”!

John Bogie to be inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 2018!

Members of Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame are selected for their contributions to Canada’s development through their integral roles in the nation’s aviation history. The inductees in 2018 will join the ranks of the 228 esteemed men and women inducted since the Hall’s formation in 1973, bringing to 232 the total number of individual Members of the Hall. For more on the CAHF and the men and women who are members already, check out www.cahf.ca.

“In 2018 we will again be honouring four Canadians for their outstanding places in Canadian aviation,” says Hall of Fame board chairman, Rod Sheridan. “Their careers over several decades span a wide breadth of both military and civilian aviation. They have contributed to the building of airlines and aviation organizations, leadership in the air force, management of industry, development of aviation systems and establishment of air rescue services.”
Plans for the annual gala dinner event and induction ceremonies are well underway. “We expect another complete sell-out for the celebration in Calgary,” says Rod Sheridan, “and I encourage early purchase of tickets for this premiere celebration of Canadian aviation development.”
The four individuals to be installed as Members of the Hall in 2018 are:

• Gen Paul D. Manson, O.C., CMM, CD
• Dr. John M. Maris
• Dr. Dwight Gregory Powell, O.C.

And, of course…
Mr. John M. Bogie
Born into an aviation family in the United States, John Bogie has made his home in Canada since the early 1950s, following service in the United States Navy, work as an airport operator, and as a very young charter pilot. In Canada, he quickly made a name for his charter and resource exploration work for Laurentian Air Services and Spartan Air Services, including the flight that identified the major iron deposit at Gagnon, Quebec.
Complementing his civilian flying, in 1952 Bogie became, with Margaret Carson, a co-founder of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA), serving as its first President and Chairman. Since that time, he has been an unswerving supporter of COPA, seeing it grow from modest beginnings to some 17,000 members.
He served in most of COPA’s executive capacities and continues as an honorary director and life member. He still attends as many COPA events as he can, now into his 90s. His COPA accomplishments include simplified medicals for pilots and aviation liability group insurance now used by commercial carriers.
John helped to create the Experimental Aircraft Association Canada organization, as well as a civilian pilot group for Search and Rescue as an adjunct to the military. Another entity he helped bring into being was the Canadian Business Aircraft Association (CBAA), first as an arm of COPA and then as a distinct entity. His Laurentian Air Services career ultimately took him to the presidency, to many initiatives to diversify its operations and to embrace the bilingual nature of the environment in which his company operated.
A subsequent stroke of initiative allowed him to buy a large consignment of ex-US Army Beavers which were rebuilt and put onto the Canadian market. This constituted the largest single aircraft purchase of its kind in Canada and made Laurentian the Canadian centre for Beaver activity. John Bogie has continued to support Canadian aviation long after his retirement in 1992. He continues to enjoy the respect and affection of the aviation community to this day.

If you’d like to learn more about John Bogie, Laurentian Air Services, and bush flying, check out my book, For the Love of Flying!

Rod Digney remembers Laurentian Air Services

Rod Digney’s Monday Memories #78

For many years, the north field at Hunt Club and what is now Paul Benoit Driveway was the home base of Canadian aviation pioneer Laurentian Air Services. The founders of LAS began operating at the Hunt Club Field in 1919, incorporated in 1936 and actually owned the entire airport for several months in 1937-38. From the beginning of my time in Ottawa in 1966, the LAS property was a beehive of aviation activity as the company serviced the many bush and survey aircraft flown by it and its subsidiary companies. There were few fences and one had only to ask permission from any of the friendly managers or maintenance personnel to be able to virtually wander and take photographs at will. LAS ceased operations in the late 1990s and today, the only trace of LAS is the iconic metal hangar that formed the background of many a photo and is today part of the Iogen complex.

The Laurentian Air Service (LAS) property at the north field always hosted at least one of the company’s Beaver and Otter aircraft. Nov 1972.

LAS Cessna 180J C-GCAH in front of the iconic LAS hangar. Oct 1974.

The back yard at LAS was always a treasure chest of aircraft parts, floats, skis, you name it. DHC-3 Otter CF-APQ (c/n 201), acquired earlier from Norwegian carrier Wideroe, is seen awaiting repairs at YOW in Oct 1974 following a crash in Newfoundland a few months earlier.

LAS bought, sold and maintained numerous examples of the rugged de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, including many surplus US Army aircraft. Beaver C-GUJV (c/n 1643) is still flying on the west coast today. 3 Nov 1978.

Laurentian’s famous Grumman G-21A Goose CF-BXR hauled VIPs and wealthy fishermen to remote camps from Ottawa and other points for many years. It had previously served the US military and the RCAF during WW II. July 1970.

A rather worn looking DHC-2 Beaver, CF-HOE (c/n 630) in one of LAS’s standard liveries is seen at YOW 31 Aug 1979. Shortly afterwards, it was sold to a Swedish operator as SE-GXX.

The only reminder of Laurentian Air Services at YOW’s north field today is the rebuilt hangar that is now part of the Iogen complex as seen from Avro Jetliner Private.

Airforce Magazine “highly recommends” Polar Winds!

A lot of the podcasts and interviews I’ve listened to about writing lately have centred on the idea of a book lasting for ten years. The question to ask yourself when you embark on a book project is: ten years after it’s been published, will it still be read and be relevant? I always aspire to this, so it’s highly gratifying when – three years after Polar Winds appeared – I received this lovely review in Airforce Magazine by Dr. Richard Goette, a historian and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the publication. I know Richard through the aviation history community and I know how rigorous he is in his own research, so this means even more coming from someone I respect and admire.

“Polar Winds is an excellent synthesis of various stories, accounts, and themes regarding aviation in Canada’s North during the 20th century….Metcalfe-Chenail writes with clarity, refinement, and also with a hint of humour.”

*Apologies for the slightly blurry first image. Tried re-scanning ten times and it just didn’t want to work!

Bob Burns Remembers “Sir” Jim Irvin

Bob Burns recently passed away at the age of 80. In his honour, I am putting these stories about Laurentian Air Services from him up first.

Jim Irvin was always the “nuts and bolts” of LAS and Air Scheff. When I joined LAS the first time in 1970, he was chief pilot and flew everything – including the Grumman Goose. He was extremely conscientious and careful and later became the operations manager. At this point we shared the same office and became very good friends. He would steal things from my house then gift wrap them and give them back as Christmas gifts!

When later I re-joined around 1988 he was managing the company in Schefferville. He was not able to speak French but everyone who knew him, loved him.

 

“Emergency Procedures”

When I arrived in Scheff in January 1988, there was a Beaver on wheel-skis loaded to fly turbo fuel to a remote lake. The flight was delayed 3 days as Castor, the pilot, was busy bulldozing snow on a winter road to Blue Lake. I told Jim that I would do it. Jim declined as I had not yet been checked out on the Beaver. I reminded him that I’d been flying them for 15 years. “Nope, we have “procedures,” he said. 

When Castor flew the load he got stuck in slush on the lake and returned to Scheff by helicopter. That night on our way to the Legion for a beer, Jim said to me that tomorrow we’ll take the Otter and a couple of guys and dig out the Beaver. I would have to fly the Beaver back to Scheff. When I asked him about the “procedures”  he didn’t answer.

 

“Just Another Ordinary Charter”

He was flying a charter for LAS in the Beech Baron. I went along as his cojo. This was way back during the FLQ (Front de Liberation du Quebec) days when Quebec in the early 1970s and there was considerable tension in Canada about how radical things might become.

LAS was chartered by 2 people from the Buckingham, Quebec area to fly them to  Windsor, Ontario to pick up some packages. Arriving in Windsor, the clients asked Jim & I to come along to help get the packages. We all went up to the motel room and gathered up the boxes. Jim & I left the room first. Entering the hallway outside the room, we heard someone say, “put down the packages and put your hands up against the wall” – just like in a movie. We did as instructed and 2 detectives frisked us. We presented our ID and they told us to leave. The packages contained rifles and they had been reported to the police who had been waiting for whoever came to get them. The room contained more guns and our clients were left to explain. It turned out to be ok as the clients gave an adequate explanation to the police.

Anyway we left Windsor and departed for Ottawa with the packages and clients on board. Unknown to us, they had a bottle of Rye going in the back seats. Deplaning at the Ottawa terminal. Jim and I got out to help the paxs out of the aircraft. The  bottle of Rye fell out of their grasp and splintered into a thousand shards of glass on the tarmac. The paxs waddled into the terminal, helping each other along the way and of course Jim & I were left to clean up. Jim thought of it as just another ordinary charter!

Laurentian Air Services Personnel List

When my first book, For the Love of Flying: The Story of Laurentian Air Services, came out in 2009, I created a small do-it-yourself website to host additional ‘living’ information. Recently, I let that domain name lapse, so I am moving the photos and stories and data – like the below – over to this site so that it will still be available to the amazing folks who worked at Laurentian and Air Schefferville, as well as other researchers. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to update anything in this table.

New entries!

“Michel Bouchard: J’ai travaille comme pilote pour Laurentian Air Services durant les annees 1973-1976. 1973 a  Maniwaki et 1974-1976 a  Lachute comme chef instructeur du Cessna Pilote Center.”

“My father, Gordon Norell, flew with Laurentian out of YYZ in 1973/74.”

“Gerry Taillefer was first a Pilot then sales Manager then General Manager until LAS closed its doors around 1982. He was also VP of BM Aviation in Lachute Qc.”

“The Job for Me” for Legion Magazine now up!

“Whiplash is how they described it. In 1980, when captains Nora Bottomley, Deanna (Dee) Brasseur and Leah Mosher walked anywhere in their Canadian air force blue flight suits, heads snapped around. The three women were the first in the country to receive their wings for active duty, and they knew they were under the microscope from their fellow pilots, superiors, the media and Canadian society. As Major Brasseur said later of that time, ‘If one of us burped, Ottawa knew.'” Read the whole article by clicking here.

Liz Muir launches new books about Canadian aviation for kids this month!