and gone away. At that time there was no railway within a few hundred miles, as now, nor was the airplane a means of transportation. A trail which led over hills, portages and lakes, through heavy bush in a black-fly-infested country, there was little likelihood of those claims being worked. The cost of getting materials in would have been far in excess of the output. So the claims were unworked.
Then, in 1926, came news of a gold strike in the Red Lake country. Prospectors from every part of the continent and even from other continents left home and set out for the frozen north. They arrived at Hudson and Sioux Lookout on the railway in thousands, old-timers and newcomers. Dogs were at a premium, and food sold at unheard of prices, eggs bringing $1 apiece. This in the latter part of the winter.
Airplanes soon made their appearance, as several companies decided to make a clean-up, if possible, from these men who were so anxious to get into the rich unearthed gold fields. There was rivalry in the air as to which plane could cover that trip, which took twelve days by land, in the fastest time. They did a thriving business. $200 for each passenger and $1 a pound for baggage.
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The prospector is not the only one who uses the plane to get into rough inaccessible territory in Canada's north. Two young New York stockbrokers flew into Quebec early in July for the purpose of looking over some claims. They flew their own plane, making their way over a rather wild section of Quebec. They were forced down by engine trouble on Lake David, some 200 miles northeast of Quebec city. A Canadian plane came to their rescue, and they continued their work.
As a means of fast freight transportation, the airplane is unequaled in the northland. There came one day a letter to the office of the Western Canada airways at Winnipeg. Would the company make an offer to transport thirty-five tons of machinery, diamond drills, food, gasoline and similar material as well as forty men? Yes, the company would, and so started one of the most remarkable feats of modern airplane transportation into the forbidding wilds.
The mine was located at Cold Lake, northern Manitoba, 400 miles northwest from Winnipeg as the crow flies, near The Pas, well-known jumping-off point and winter-resort center, famous for its dog races. By air, it is a matter of 150 miles from The Pas to Cold Lake, One Fokker Wright-Whirlwind-equipped universal was allotted to the job. It made its trips between The Pas and Cold Lake with regUlarity of the Twentieth Century. In record time that order which had seemed so big to the mining people, was safely delivered, enabling one of the largest camps of Manitoba to get under way.
Patricia Airways and Exploration limited is another concern which flies from Sioux Lookout, Ont., about 1,000 miles north of Chicago, to the Red Lake mining country. They have operated there since early in 1926. Capt. D. S. Bondurant, a native of Cairo, Ill., and now one of the best-known of the Canadian transport pilots, states that flying in that north country is by no means child's play.
Last winter he was en route with a load of supplies for one of the camps at Red Lake. The thermometer hovered around forty-eight degrees below
