When I flew from the town of Churchill over Canada’s Hudson Bay, it was hard to imagine I was in North America, heading north towards the Arctic. The views somehow took me to another place, another continent, one I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
There were six people seated in the small sea plane behind us and I chatted for the majority of the trip with Jim Cockburn, our pilot. He was flying a plane from an outfit who call themselves “Wings over Kississing”.
He says they have 15 planes or so and when it gets colder, many of the planes will use wheel skis for landing. The outfit has bases in Flin Flon (main base), Thompson, Lynn Lake, Churchill, and many strategic fuel caches, where they’ll take you off the beaten path – picking you up where the road, rail, and most other airlines end. The airfares range in price but I heard one reference that they charge roughly $13-14 per mile.
Jim has been flying since 1984, certainly long enough to invoke confidence in this passenger, who frankly has had faith in pilots with only hours of training, not years.
“I wouldn’t be ‘any good’ in a big city,” says Jim, who grew up in a town of farming villages and communities of only 100 people in Manitoba.
He says he’s moving to a larger town – Thompson, which people from the area refer to frequently as its a main town in the area. By main town for this part of the world, it means 12,800 residents.
The beauty of the water and vegetation below me — from land to water and back to land again — was breathtaking.
Hudson Bay drains a large area, roughly 1,490,900 square miles, which includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Montana. It is the second-largest bay in the world after the Bay of Bengal.
Also see my blog post on Canadian Polar Bears on Churchill Wild’s Hudson Bay and Fireweed Island.
Have a look at what I experienced on that very sunny Manitoba day in late August.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
