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These are just a few of the pictures I've taken in my travels around Canada. Most of my travels, and work, in Canada have been in Alberta and the high Arctic although I'm currently living and working in Ontario. I seem to collect a lot of aviation pictures but I'll try and limit those as I know not everyone finds them interesting. Figure 1 is a general map of Canada for those not familiar with the layout. It's not very detailed but if you click on it a more detailed map will open in a new window.

I won't go into all the places I've been in Canada as there are too many of them when I count the places I've been on my job. The places I've spent any significant amount of time in are Calgary, Edmonton,Toronto, Ft. Simpson, Inuvik, Cambridge Bay, Resolute Bay, and Iqaluit.

Fig. 1

Most of the pictures on this page were taken "North of 60". The territories in Northern Canada start at 60� North and go up from there. I'm posting these pictures as Southern Canada is pretty familiar to most people. Here are some interesting facts about Canada's North (for more interesting information on Canada go to Facts About Canada).

There are three Northern territories; Yukon, Nunavut, and Northwest Territories.
Yukon is the smallest territory at 186,661 sq. miles (483,050 sq. km.) and a population of 31,000.
Northwest Territories has an area of 452,480 sq. miles (1,171,918 sq. km.) and a population of 42,000
Nunavut has an area of 733,594 sq. miles (1,900,000 sq. km.) and a population of 22,000
The American states of California, Arizona, Delaware, and West Virginia would fit into the Yukon.
Other than town streets Nunavut's only road is a 13 mile (21 km) stretch of road between Arctic Bay and Nanisivik.

I took this picture while I was working for Simpson Air in Ft. Simpson, Northwest Territories. The hangar we had was too small for the Twin Otter so we had to work on it outside. In cold weather we would drape an old parachute over the area we were working and use a herman nelsen (portable heater) to warm the area under the parachute. This method worked remarkably well so long as there was no wind.

I only lived in Ft. Simpson for six months before moving to Inuvik, also in the Northwest Territories , to work for Aklak Air. While living in Inuvik a friend and I decided to drive to Tuktoyuktuk on the ice road. Tuk only has a road to it during the winter months when the McKenzie river freezes over. The road is about 93 miles (150 km) long and the for the majority of that distance you drive on the river. The trip takes about 3 hours.

These are pingos. The only area that I've seen these are in the Western Arctic in the vicinity of the MacKenzie river delta. These two were near the ice road to Tuk. They are formed in areas of permafrost and their core is made of ice.

This was taken in the Yukon territories in the fall. The company allowed some of us the use of a Twin Otter on floats for a fishing trip just before we were to take the floats off for the season. We decided to go to the Firth River in the Yukon and we landed at this small lake near the river. It was a great, relaxing day after a busy summer of work.

This is a PA18-150 Super Cub that Aklak used to track animals with radio collars. The aircraft had a few problems so I was flown out to this location, near Rat River West of Aklavik, in a helicopter. I took this picture as the pilot was preparing to take off back to Inuvik.

The picture above shows the Arctic Viking unloading in Iqaluit. This ship is 244' (74.4 m) long, 40' (12 m) wide, and 21' (6.5 m) deep. The tide is high enough, high tide is approximately 36 feet (11 m), that they simply anchor the ship during high tide and then it is beached as the tide goes out. Once the tide is out all that is required is to drive the trucks to the ship and unload it. There are several ships that bring supplies to the various remote communities in Canada's North. They have to get in during the very short summer season and even then icebreakers are nearby if they are needed for some of the more northern communities. With most of these communities any supplies that aren't brought by ship have to be flown in and that adds significantly to their costs.

Iqaluit is used quite often for cold weather testing, I've seen a number of new aircraft there being tested. This particular Boeing 720 is an old aircraft but it belongs to Pratt and Whitney and they are testing engines. This aircraft is modified so there are several different locations where they can mount the engines to be tested. The one being tested in the picture is causing the steam. It is a small business jet sized jet engine mounted on the right side of the nose. The funny looking nose on the aircraft is where they would mount a turboprop engine and if they are testing a larger jet engine they remove one of the aircraft's main engines and mount it there.

This is Mount Asgard in Auyuittuq National Park. Mount Asgard was featured in the opening scenes of the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.

This cannon was placed in Pangnirtung by the Hudson's Bay Company in the early 1900's.

Pangnirtung gets some pretty spectacular winds. If you look close to the white ladder leaning against the house in this picture you will see a cable. There are a couple of these and they run over the house and secure it and the roof so it doesn't get blown away.

This was taken at the end of June at the airport in Qikiqtarjuaq (Broughton Island). Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq are at the opposite ends of a very popular hike through Auyuittuq National Park. We would often fly hikers to one of the places and then pick them up at the other several days later. The scenery in the area is spectacular.