The Barren Lands

The Barren Lands

With our powers to idle we touched down on runway 34 with a puff of dust off our wheels, that was quickly blown away in the light breeze. We taxied off the runway onto the gravel apron and pulled the fuel to idle cutoff, the engines came to a whining stop. I opened the door and the gentle smell of the Canadian North filled my senses, the real far north Canadian North this time, I stepped to the ground and looked around for the first time at Baker Lake, Nunavut. Flat as the eye could see with gentle hills broken up by moss covered rock, the barren lands! One of my favorite books as a youngster was Lost In The Barrens by Farley Mowatt(spelling?), and it talked of two young men getting lost in the northern barrens, and since that book I had always dreamed of seeing them. Alas another one of my dreams fulfilled.

The journey was a 800 nautical mile trip from Saskatoon this morning, it took us about 3hours and 40 minutes to get up here, my longest non-stop flight yet. The thought crossed my mind of do I still want to get into the big jets at the airlines and do 8 - 12 hour flights around the world, cause this sure seemed like a long trip to me. But then I think, well in a big plane I would be able to maybe stand up and stretch my legs and also have a bathroom on board to use. I hadn't drank anything all morning to prepare for this long leg, and it worked good for me thank goodness.

Anyways, it was great to fly up to Nunavut and I look forward to the many other great places I'd like to go one day with my job.
Baker Lake Nunavut is the geological center of Canada
Short Final for Runway 34 with another King Air on the Roll for Departure