my friend Matt Bromley died in the crash the other day. Matt's day actually started in my office that day(he flew the sched flight in to simpson the night before), and we were talking about all the accidents that have happened lately, the weather, the usual stuff. he was a good kid.

Air tindi lost a plane today outside of Lutsle Ke. thats on great slave lake east of yellowknife. as you may recall it's one of the places I travel to for work. Two people died in the crash today. I don't know if one of them is the pilot or not yet. But I'm sure I knew someone on board.

A couple of bad days for northern aviation. Yesterday an Arctic Sunwest charters twin otter crashed in yellowknife, killing both pilots aboard. I knew the gal flying right seat. this morning at about 9:00 local a cessna 206 departed fort simpson headed to a remote hunting camp up the root river(they land on a gravel bar in the river) about an hour later the Joint Rescue Co-ordinating Center in trenton phoned me looking for info on a possible downed aircraft in the mountains west of simpson and south of Wrigley. even though this crash was waaay off in the boonies, it might as well have been right at my airport. Wrigley airport was closed, so I was busy all day dealing with it and in this case there was good news as the pilot was rescued and only suffered minor injuries. frickin' stressful though. when I took my training they told me in school that you go a whole career and never have to deal with a crash-kinda like a cop who goes a whole career and never draws his gun. today was my sixth crash. I'm exhausted.

it's a bird! it's a plane! it's not superman that's a local fella with his death machine. I don't think that's the name they market them under, but just the same...it's a snowmobile motor hooked to a propellor that you wear on your back hmmm

went fishing with the family the other day-charlie brown got her first catch of the year. coleman did too but his was on a hookless lure, so eventually the fish got away. miranda caught a nice pickeral but it was post-spawn mangy so she released it. one more time the empire strikes back! frickin' jackfish lunged at me and got my arm. it's actually a picture of a poster, not an actual flightdeck, and the poster is a print of a painting, but it still made a nice shot.

coleman just couldn't stay awake another second! too funny.

yeah cathy, I see the ice pilots on a fairly regular basis, the cameras weren't there in fort good hope. (we can tell when the plane is on final approach if the camera crews are aboard-with binocs you can see the little camera mounted high on the tail) I should say that those guys are pretty much the same on camera and off and pretty decent folks to boot.

always a frickin' bear...every airport has a bear...how cliche'. that's in YVQ, it's a small griz.

what else we got- view from the tower in YVQ this is a kick ass all digital touch screen futuristic bunch of coolness, way different than my museum of aviation. buffalo airways on the ramp in YGH- doing the run-up the big DC4 was generating some nice little dust devils.

I have to say when I'm flying over the mountains in a Twin Otter on my way to a remote little place, and i'm looking out at the mountains going by, river in the distance it's like wow man and I'm getting paid for this shit! if life is a game-no more calls-we have a winner!