Paula White
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Jun 25/99) - Leon McAllister peered out the window of the small airplane as it came in for a landing.

The young constable, only 22, was trying to catch a glimpse of Iqaluit (known as Frobisher Bay in 1968), where he would be living for the next while.

What he saw made him smile.

"Right away, I knew this is where I should be," said McAllister, 30 years and a couple of promotions later. "There was no doubt in my mind."

McAllister is currently staff sergeant at the Inuvik detachment. On July 2, however, he and his wife Helen are leaving Inuvik for Thunder Bay, Ont. The move ends a 20-year Northern career for McAllister.

"It was not an easy decision," he explained. "I'm getting close to retirement and we felt for economic reasons and family reasons and things like that, that for us, moving back to either Alberta or Ontario would likely be something we would want to try."

But getting back to Frobisher Bay, it was August, 1968, and McAllister had just finished RCMP training in Ottawa. The small but bustling town was his first posting and not even the sight of the building where the detachment was located could keep him from being excited.

"I thought that the barn that we had at home was superior in quality to this detachment," McAllister laughed.

Upon his arrival, McAllister was informed he was working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift that night -- alone.

"Which I never finished until four in the morning," he said and then proceeded to list each of the calls that he had to respond to that evening, which included an assault, theft of a motorcycle and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The highlight of the evening was a call to a building where an intoxicated individual was threatening suicide.

As fate would have it, McAllister was only in Frobisher Bay for three days before being told he was being transferred to Grise Fiord. He couldn't have been happier. Seven days later, he boarded a single-engine Otter and was off. Upon his arrival, McAllister was greeted by the officer he was replacing.

"I went off the plane into the canoe and he got off the canoe into the plane," McAllister remembered. "That was my welcome to Grise Fiord."

McAllister spent a year in Grise Fiord, a picturesque little community on Ellsmere Island. He joined a detachment consisting of NCO (non-commissioned officer) Dick Vitt, two special native constables and about 35 sled dogs. Because it was his first posting, some of his fondest memories take place there.

Many of those memories involve Vitt, who wound up becoming a close, personal friend of McAllister's. He said, in his view, Vitt made the last authentic dog team patrol in the Arctic, travelling from Grise Fiord to Resolute Bay and back again. That was in the spring of 1968. There was a later patrol in 1969 from Old Crow to Fort McPherson, but McAllister said that had been a staged event.

Vitt, McAllister said, met him on the shore that first day and informed him that he would be spending the next couple of days hunting walrus and seal for meat for the dogs.

"I had never done that before (hunted seal and walrus)," McAllister said. "I was used to hunting...but I thought I was in heaven in the sense that here I am fulfilling my dream, doing what I had envisioned or read about in the past."

Another fond memory was of a polar bear cub named Hershey Bear. McAllister came upon the cub one day while out hunting. It was caught in a fox trap and had been abandoned by its mother. McAllister took it back to the detachment to care for it.

"He developed an affinity for chocolate bars and they happened to be Hershey bars so we called him Hershey Bear," McAllister said. "He was quite a character."

Eventually the bear was sent to a game farm in Edmonton.

McAllister's next posting was Whitehorse. He received notice of his transfer in April and was told to catch the next plane out. That didn't occur until June. On his way, McAllister had to stop in Edmonton. He remembered walking through the airport in his sealskin boots and being very uncomfortable because it was about 23 C. He sat down to change into a pair of shoes. Within 15 minutes, his feet were killing him.

"That's the first time that I had worn a pair of shoes in over a year," he said. "I was having a very uncomfortable time."

After three days in Edmonton (where, incidentally, he paid a visit to Hershey Bear), McAllister headed on to Whitehorse. He said at first, working there took some getting used to.

"We had not a single, solitary complaint the whole time I was in Grise Fiord," he said, adding the community was alcohol-free. "Now I'm on a detachment working shift work."

It was in Whitehorse that McAllister met his wife Helen. It was during a night on the town at the Whitehorse Inn. He noticed a very attractive blonde sitting at a table with some other girls, so he thought he'd ask her to dance. She told him her name was Gertrude, and McAllister, knowing she was pulling his leg, didn't ask her again. A few days later, she called and asked him to her staff Christmas party.

"She asked me out," McAllister emphasized. "So that, basically, was how we met."

In all, McAllister spent a year and four months in Whitehorse. While there, he worked in highway patrol, which allowed him to see almost all of the Yukon. This fulfilled another of his dreams. From Whitehorse, McAllister ended up going to Vancouver for two and a half years to do plain-clothes work. He was miserable.

"It was two very difficult years for both of us (he and Helen were married by this time), particularly for me," McAllister pointed out. "I was used to quiet and all of a sudden there was buses and noises and pollution. All I could think about was getting out of there. I just wanted to go back North in the worst way. I was hooked. I mean I got out of the North, I realized this was part of me now. I have to get back."

McAllister endured two years in the city and, in the summer of 1973, he was transferred to Yellowknife. It was here that the McAllisters' daughter, Jenelle, was born. Then, in the summer of 1975, McAllister was promoted to corporal and transferred back to Frobisher Bay. He was there for two years as well.

"When I got back there I was amazed," he said. "There had been a new hotel built, new housing built, a new Northern Store. The community expanded in many ways."

From Frobisher Bay, it was on to Hay River and after three years there he was offered the opportunity to fulfil another dream -- to become an instructor at the RCMP training academy in Regina, Sask. He spent a total of nine years there, before heading North again to Yellowknife, where he was the training NCO for six years. Finally, three years ago, he was transferred to Inuvik.

During his 20 years here, McAllister had the honour of meeting a good many Northern pioneers.

"I had the opportunity of meeting these people...to see and talk to these (Northern pioneers)."

McAllister has been to every community in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, with the exception of Chesterfield Inlet and Kimmirut. Will he miss it?

Without a doubt.

"I've come to grips with that," he said, before quietly listing the things he'll miss most: "The people, the lifestyle, the wide open spaces, the peace, the quiet, the beauty of it all -- the things I've seen, the wildlife, country, the quickness of spring.

"In a nutshell, I consider myself a fortunate, fortunate individual. The force has treated me well."