by Janet Smellie
Northern News Services

NNSL (June 11/97) - "Bush pilots don't live on food, they live on love and borrowed time."

Drawn from more than 40 years of hitching rides with some of the greatest "frontier busters" operating in the North, the latest work from Yellowknife playwright and author Eric Watt is about to hit the stage.

Watt's stories of Max Ward, Duncan Grant, Jim MacAvoy, Rocky Parsons and others is the latest production of Stuck in a Snowbank Theatre and stars Peter Hall, Lindsay Rocher, Murray Utas and Karen Johnson.

Watt's Bushpilot is a work that not only recognizes those he considers the "famous five" through stories, poems and insights, but it will make theatre history because the performances will be outdoors on the actual dock of an Old Town float base starting tomorrow night.

Watt himself took his first Northern plane ride in 1956, during a time, he's quick to describe, "when flying was pretty damn different than today."

While he's had many "moments of terror" and "been scared too many times to have a favorite story," Watt did offer up one tale where the bravery of his pilot was unforgettable.

Watt was touring with the Department of Health via a Single Otter in the Central Arctic when the pilot was forced down in the Bellot Strait on the Boothia Peninsula.

"It was 33 below, winds gusting to 65. But he landed it. It was so cold you could hear your face freeze," Watt says. Luckily, the charter was transporting two Inuit hunters, who were able to build an igloo, where they spent the night until the wind settled.

Watt also grew up hearing plenty of stories about the first generation of bush pilots from his dad, Frederick B. Watt.

"He was the first reporter with the xxxEdmonton Journal to fly around with these guys in the early days -- he went on the manhunt looking for the Mad Trapper, trips like that."

Watt says while he's seen "bits and pieces" and the odd article recognizing some of the great pilots, there's never been a proper tribute paid to these men.

"These pilots were absolutely essential to the North. We're hoping to really pay these guys a tribute, give them some decent appreciation ... they did such an incredible job," Watt says adding that he's currently finishing a book using the "mountains of material" he's gathered during the last 40 years.

Bushpilot is being directed by Ben Nind.