Saturday 3 September 2011

Ottawa to Resolute Bay




Today's entry is brought to you by the words Itinerary (a planned route or journey) and Reality (the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them).

Itinerary: Depart Ottawa at 9:05 am.
Reality: Departed Ottawa at 9:15 am, so far so good!

Itinerary: Arrive Iqaluit at 12:15 pm.
Reality: Arrive at Goose Bay, Labrador at 1:45 pm. In case you are scratching your head, yes, Goose Bay is nowhere near Iqaluit. It turns out that the cross winds at Iqaluit exceeded the safety limit for landing on a wet runway (23 knots). So plan A is to divert to Kuujjuaq ... whoops too windy there as well so off to Goose Bay to fuel up. We sat on the runway for 45 minutes or so while the pilot made some phone calls while the plane was refuelled. In that time the weather at Iqaluit was trending in the correct direction so we headed for Iqaluit ... again. Arrived Iqaluit at 4:00 pm. Of course the real question is, were we 'under carried' or 'over carried' to Goose Bay (see photo above)?

Itinerary: Depart Iqaluit at 2:30 pm.
Reality: Well the good news is that First Air held the Resolute flight for us. Take that Air Canada (and United). Of course, 80% of the Resolute bound passengers were on the flight from Ottawa so it was a probably a pretty easy decision. As soon as First Air got the Ottawa plane turned around we boarded the turbo-prop for Resolute with a very congenial atmosphere developing among the 'guests' (who included a contingent from NRCAN in Ottawa). We chatted amiably while the crew tried in vain to get the left engine started and then cheerfully deplaned and returned to the terminal. Sigh. First Air pulled the plane behind a hanger (our theory is that this was done so we could not see exactly how much duct tape went into the repair) and replaced the starter in the left engine. Departed Iqaluit at 6:00 pm. We are only running 3 1/2 hours late which is not bad by arctic standards.

Itinerary: Arrive Arctic Bay at 5:37 pm.
Reality: Well now we have a another problem: there is no fuel in Arctic Bay so we we need to make an unscheduled detour to Hall Beach (I am sure by this point you have a Google Maps tab open, so I will just wait here while you look that one up). Everyone got off the plane while it was refuelled and then off went again. Arrived Hall Beach at 8:00 pm, departed at 8:30 pm.



Itinerary: Arrive Arctic Bay at 5:37 pm (yeah, I now we already did this one, but we are going to keep doing it until we actually do it!)
Reality: My butt is really starting to hurt. Arrived Arctic Bay at 10:00 pm. We are now 13 hours in 'First Air custody' and counting.

Arctic Bay at Dusk

Itinerary: Arrive Resolute Bay at 6:09 pm.
Reality: Arrived Resolute Bay at 11:30 pm (EST, 10:30 local time). Hey, if you don't want to spend 14.5 hours in transit then don't fly to Resolute Bay! We staggered off the plane with a group sigh of relief. Kendra from Narwhal met me and the first thing she asked was "Why didn't you just take the summer flight from Yellowknife? Today was the last one and it arrived 6 hours ago." Doh! As soon as I got to my room I realized I had left my iPad, Kindle and fancy Sure headphones on the plane (I like gadgets, so sue me). Double doh! However, they were easily retrieved in the morning and I am in Resolute Bay. Piece of cake.



A brief note on flying on First Air two weeks after the crash: while we were busy diverting from Iqaluit to Goose Bay, Canadian North was landing in Iqaluit. I don't know that this is an indicator that First Air is not taking any chances, but one can speculate. And as for the experience of looking out the window at a recent crash site while landing? It was about how you would expect it to be, not great. The plane got very quiet on our final approach into Resolute and the cabin attendant did not look happy at all. Of course it was our fifth landing of the day and it wasn't just our butts that were numb by that point.

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