With the purchase of Canadian Helicopters, Okanagan added six Bell machines and a Sikorsky S-55 to the fleet as well as bases at Toronto Island Airport, Fort William (Thunder Bay), and Gander, Newfoundland, along with a branch office in Calgary. Okanagan Helicopters’ fleet now totalled 22 Bell 47s and 8 Sikorsky S-55s, making it the largest commercial helicopter operator in North America. Alf Stringer was appointed general manager and moved to Toronto to run the operation.
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Meanwhile, in the field the year had begun with a setback for the Alcan project when power lines were knocked down by snow slides. Two Bell 47s were required to perform emergency repairs, which took two months—from January 26 to March 28—and about 160 flight hours to complete.
About the same time Okanagan was awarded a new federal government contract for two S-55s to support a survey of the Arctic Islands from June through September. Pilot Fred Snell and engineer George Chamberlain were in charge for the company while the government team was headed by Dr. Y.O. Fortier, chief of operations, with Dr. E.F. Roots, deputy chief responsible for air movements. This survey was to cover the Queen Elizabeth, Somerset and Prince of Wales islands and the northwest part of Baffin Island with the objectives of completing the mapping of the area and carrying out geological and wildlife surveys of the coastal inlets. A challenging project of this size and in this area required careful planning for the number and placement of base camps and fuel caches. Base Camp One was established at Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island with a fuel cache 110 miles (177 kilometres) to the northeast on Devon Island. Base Camp Two was at Oksey Bay on Ellesmere Island with a sub-station at the Eureka weather station and a fuel cache on Cornwallis Island. Base Camp Three was on Ellef Ringnes Island with fuel caches on Axel Heiberg and Lougheed islands, and Number Four was on Melville Island with a fuel cache on Bathurst Island.
On June 7 the two S-55s, CF-HHU and CF-HVR, were loaded onto an RCAF C-119 freighter at Toronto’s Malton Airport and flown to Resolute Bay where they were reassembled and test flown. It was arranged that the RCAF would fly in spares as needed. Fred Snell, who arrived on an Arctic Air DC-3, checked the fuel caches and carried out a general reconnaissance of the terrain they would be flying over, and by the following week the operation was underway with flights to Somerset and Devon islands. Each field party consisted of a geologist and an assistant who embarked with enough food and equipment for 14 days; the combined weight was about 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms). Each flight, with the geologists acting as navigators, required careful pre-flight planning and absolutely no deviation from the flight plan. The helicopters cruised about 70 mph (112 km/h) and carried one hour’s reserve fuel.
The base radio in Resolute was in continuous contact, providing up-to-date weather conditions, and the helicopters were equipped with new high frequency (HF) radios for long-range communication, directional gyro compasses and automatic direction finding equipment. George Chamberlain modified the HF antennas to increase their range to 200 miles (322 kilometres) for voice transmit and receive functions. CW (Morse code) keys were also installed to provide an additional range of up to 300 miles (483 kilometres). Although the G-2 compasses were not much use in the area, the pilots used them as directional gyros; navigation over the pack ice was often by dead reckoning and directional gyro, and whenever the weather deteriorated, the patterns created by blowing snow and ice packs plotted on maps helped the flight crew. Emergency equipment on board consisted of sleeping bags, one tent per person, ten days food supply, gasoline for cooking, a shotgun plus shells and blade and hub covers. On a number of occasions, the crews had to spend three or four days in the helicopter waiting for the weather to improve. When one of the pilots was taken ill, an RCAF Lancaster was dispatched from Resolute to fly him to Churchill for treatment.
With work at Base Camp One completed by mid-July, the crews moved on to Base Camp Two on Ellesmere Island, which has peaks up to 8,500 feet (2,590 metres) high and numerous snowfields and glaciers. During their stay at Eureka, just 250 miles (400 kilometres) from the geographic North Pole, American and Canadian military personnel stationed there provided the crews with food and accommodation. Most of the scheduled work in that area was completed by July 24 but continued on Axel Heiberg and Amund Ringnes islands.
During August the weather deteriorated with snow, drizzle, fog and low stratus clouds, grounding the helicopters for days at a time. Although the ice in the area was still solid, it was breaking up along the shoreline, and as a result, Dr. Fortier decided to abandon Base Camp Four. On August 26 the crews and equipment on Axel Heiberg Island were flown back to Base Camp Three to consolidate operations and reduce the number of flights. In spite of the weather, surveys continued at Lougheed, Cameron and Bathurst islands, which are relatively flat; as Bathurst’s highest point is approximately 2,000 feet (610 metres), it proved ideal for helicopter operations.
In September, with the inclement weather and ice fog persisting for days on end, the last crews were flown back to Resolute Bay from Bathurst Island. On September 15 CF-HVR flew a circuit around Cornwallis Island to clean up expedition sites from previous years, while CF-HHU flew around the Resolute area taking local people for short flights to thank them for all their help during the summer. Two days later an RCAF North Star transported most of the personnel out of Resolute to Ottawa, but as the C-119 was not available to airlift the S-55s until 10 days later, George Chamberlain and another engineer remained behind to fly home with the machines.
The operation was declared a success in spite of weather delays caused by the worst summer on record. By the end of the project CF-HHU had flown 292.45 hours and CF-HVR 263.40 hours. In its final review, the company decided that the Arctic was a suitable place to operate helicopters, but the crews recommended the addition of directional gyros with less precision because of the distortion caused by the magnetic field, an attitude direction indicator (ADI) and emergency flotation gear, essential over open water. This equipment would become standard in all future offshore and IFR operations. Later the pilots agreed that the geologists had been excellent navigators.
During the summer the geologists had made a count of wildlife, identifying approximately 600 musk oxen ranging from the Grinnell Peninsula on Ellesmere, over Axel Heiberg, Graham, Bathurst and Cornwallis islands. Caribou were plentiful on these same islands as were arctic wolves, polar bears, walrus and seals. The bird life included large numbers of snow geese, brant geese and ptarmigan. A few bumblebees were seen on Ellesmere even though the vegetation was very sparse with only inch-high pussy willows, Arctic poppies, some coarse grasses and lichens.
Okanagan Helicopters’ other contracts during 1955 included a forestry inventory of the area between Kitimat and Prince Rupert, a distance of 134 miles (215 kilometres), and geological surveys in the Pelly Lake area, 230 miles (368 kilometres) north of Prince George, and in the Fort Simpson and the Mackenzie delta area for Shell Oil. Another operation that summer was a contract for CF-GZJ with Northwest Exploration ferrying prospectors in the Watson Lake area. Operations like these raised the company’s profile because they demonstrated how much more work could be achieved during the summer months by using a helicopter.
In another major development, Okanagan’s management began negotiating with the federal government for a construction and maintenance services contract on the Mid-Canada Line, part of the radar system set up to defend North America against nuclear attacks. The government, however, gave the contract for construction and maintenance to other operators who flew the RCAF’s Vertol 42s and 44s. Okanagan’s consolation prize was a contract to train 24 RCAF pilots to fly the S-55, which became a story covered by reporter Mac Reynolds of the Vancouver Sun in November 1955. It appeared under the headline: “Air Force Fliers Learn How to Manoeuvre Flying Whales.”
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