Margo and Marilyn, Rally Coordinators	The Group at Yorkton	Twin otter water bomber in Atikokan
Mollie and her airplane	Mollie and Sue, rally winners	Susan wins spot landing
Rachelle, Corrine and Sue Kime	Welcoming cake

Working hard to complete the qualifications for my Private Pilot’s License, I was approached one day by Sue Kime, CFI at the St. Thomas Flight Centre, asking if I’d be interested in going on an air rally. The rally would take place in three weeks time and most exciting of all, would take us across the country to Meadow Lake in northern Saskatchewan. “No pressure” she said, “ it’s a great time and lots of fun.” I could imagine learning and having fun at the same time, but first (no pressure), I had to prepare for, and pass my flight test, then get checked out on the 172! Ten days before departure I was a licensed pilot. Mollie and GXMF

June 26 th was departure day. After a goodbye lunch with our husbands we were wheels up for Buttonville, the starting point of our journey. My husband Geoff was very excited for me. The flight to Buttonville provided a superb view of Lake Ontario, the city, the C. N. Tower, the Sky Dome (it was open) and the Island Airport. The morning of the rally, tension began to build when it looked like we might be late for the briefing. We arrived along with Suzanne Wiltshire who shared our hotel, a few minutes past 7:30am, to find the lounge at the airport was full of estrogen…. women eating muffins, drinking juice and talking up a storm. One of many things I learned: no or very, very little coffee when you fly. The rally members and their planes were an interesting and eclectic mix of women pilots which included a senior flight instructor, a CFI, an airplane broker, a new 24-year old instructor and her pilot mother, a 53 year old pilot of less than two weeks (me) and Dee in her sixties, who achieved her dream by becoming a pilot in her later years. Aircraft were equally varied and ranged from Cessna 172’s, a 172 RG, 182’s, a Mooney, a Grumman to the leader of the pack, a twin Beech Baron.

Once Marilyn Dickson, who coordinated the rally along with Margo McCutcheon, completed the briefing, the teams got down to the serious work of planning a multi phase route that would take us north from Toronto to Owen Sound, Wiarton, Tobermory, Gore Bay, Manitoulin Island, Sault St. Marie then along the shore of Lake Superior to Wawa where we would have lunch.  

Finally, all eighteen rally participants were ready.  As we left to board our aircraft, Marilyn distributed sealed envelopes which contained aerial photographs which we were to locate along the route. We would receive these envelopes with varying contents before starting each leg.

Wheels up at 10:30am, we were on our way in partly cloudy skies, good visibility, warm

temperatures and, unfortunately, headwinds that we would fight all the way to Saskatchewan. Sue frequently bemoaned our status as one of the slowest aircraft but this was not a contest of speed, as we would discover, and, besides, we had more time to look for the photos.

A quick stop in Gore Bay and we were on our way to Wawa arriving at 3 p.m. to a lunch of slightly soggy submarine sandwiches that tasted fantastic! Then it was back to flight planning, this time to Thunder Bay. Another three hours of flight time was ahead of us so we quickly completed our paper work, called in our flight plan (we filed on each leg), collected our sealed envelopes and set off. The pace was getting grueling!

Flying along the north shore of Lake Superior with its many islands and bays gave me a new perspective since Geoff and I anchored along the shore of Superior last year with our sailboat. The skies gradually clouded over at Terrace Bay and then came the words pilots don’t want hear…. “towering cumulus in the Thunder Bay area”. We could already see patchy rain developing along our route. It was 7:00pm by the time we began our descent into Thunder Bay along a high cliff from the south east, which obscured the runway on our left base approach.

After a long (we had been up since five thirty) and tiring day, we were both glad to be landing soon. “What was that you said about a relaxing trip Sue?”

Monday morning, June 28, election day, we had a quick breakfast then headed back to the airport where Sue recovered her Visa card left inadvertently the night before. See what fatigue does to your thought processes?

Today was a major challenge that would take us to Yorkton, Saskatchewan across Manitoba via Winnipeg International Airport, a very busy site.

We made a stop for fuel en route to Winnipeg at the small isolated strip at Atikokan, 94 nautical miles west of Thunder Bay. It wasn’t until after we were wheels down and back tracking the runway that I noticed I had landed downwind on an up sloped runway! The place was deserted but a quick call at the small terminal building produced a service person within minutes. No cash or credit card accepted…. we would receive a bill in the mail!

From Atikokan our track took us over Lake of the Woods across miles and miles of water, so we pulled on our inflatable vest lifejackets for the leg before we proceeded on to Winnipeg. We were late for lunch again. The second leg of the day took us to Yorkton and we had to calculate fuel usage as well as answer questions on politics such as who were the leaders of the parties, who would win the election, and who in each team had voted at the advance poll. Someone lost our team points on that one!

Approaching Meadow Lake, Sue made a brisk descent to line up for the spot landing which we decided she would do. She chastised herself for coming in high and fast and landed 125’ past the marker. Sue then did a touch and go so that I could try landing from the right hand seat, a skill I plan to achieve, which I discovered is not as easy as it sounds. (Sue had to take over).

Rally pilots were greeted by the Mayor of the town, a reporter and several other people including Dee Birchmore’s cousins Jean and Jim (who would treat us like family) making us all feel special and welcome. This was only the beginning of an amazing day and a half of hospitality, relaxation, fabulous food, and camaraderie that none of us will soon forget.

Upon arrival at Yorkton, we were met by other team members who had scouted out a new hotel, since where we were booked to stay smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. Briefing at breakfast the next morning was short and simple – route of our choice to Meadow Lake, calculate the amount of fuel used, estimate time to fly leg and do a spot landing on arrival.

Later, we drove half an hour to a cottage on Greig Lake where we would spend time relaxing and having fun. Sue and I decided to sleep on the deck since 18 women in one cottage seemed a bit crowded. We each had a sleeping bag and Sue added a couple of pot lids to our tent gear in case a bear came sniffing around in the night. This was not an unreasonable plan since two of the pilots had encountered a mother bear with cubs on one of their walks.

At this point, day three of our flight across Canada, Sue and I became skeptical about our chances of winning and became lackadaisical in our approach, even doing some sight seeing, checking out a small campsite, dam and ski hill along the way.

Finally she announced “And the winner of the Gold Cup Rally 2004 is…any guesses? Team 8!” Team 8! That’s us! I just about fell off my chair as I attempted to walk to the front of the room to accept the award with my intrepid partner Sue! For hours afterwards I think I drove Sue a little crazy when I just could not stop bursting into giggles for the rest of the evening.

Some of the pilots went off to take part in a wake for a local fellow and had a rousing time drinking and dancing polkas. Some of us (Sue and I and others) stayed at the cottage, retiring early. In the morning the weather fairy, which had provided us with spectacular conditions to this point, took a break, as we woke to the sound of rain on the tent at gray dawn. Everyone rushed around packing up gear, cleaning the cottage, packing the vehicles, doing last minute weather briefings and flight planning while saying hasty goodbyes to our wonderful hosts and new friends.

Thursday night it was off to the banquet at a small town nearby. The old style hotel restaurant in Dorintosh had set aside a room for us. We started with a couple of interesting appetizers, including deep fried chunks of sausage and deep-fried macaroni and cheese. The egg rolls were tasty. After a mouth-watering dinner of marinated BBQ buffalo steak and trimmings, Marilyn reviewed the answers to the questions during the various legs of the rally.

Susan Begg won the spot landing contest, then Marilyn presented the awards for third place and second place.

As our wheels left the ground heading east toward clearing weather and home, all I could think of was “I’m hooked on cross-country flying!”

Mollie Richards started her flight training on January 15, 2004 and became a licensed pilot June 15 th . Mollie and Geoff have been actively flying since her return and hope to cross Canada next summer. Susan Begg being presented with her prize by Marilyn Dickson

Photos courtesy of Mollie Richards and Susan Begg

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