Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 22/01) - Every second year Buffalo Joe McBryan brings in what he calls the "geritol group" to relive the old days of Yellowknife's bush pilot past.
The bi-annual Float Plane Fly-In has been a guaranteed crowd pleaser since it began in 1995, and bringing in the old-timers is an integral part of the event, McBryan said.
"They talk about when they were up here in those days," says McBryan. "When they were fire proof, bullet proof and water proof."
"They wander around and shake hands and have a good ol' time flying around on the Norseman (McBryan's float plane)."
According to McBryan, the most interested parties listening to their stories are the new generation of pilots, who remember little of what it was like to fly the North country without a GPS and signal beacons.
And 40 to 50 years ago the cliental differed significantly from the passengers of today. Crusty, old pioneers with little more than a pick axe and a compass have long since given way to corporate flyers and fishing lodge guests.
"There's so many young people in the business, and they like to question the old-timers what it was like when gold was king," says McBryan.
"There's not a whole lot of changes in the airplanes, but there have been with regulations and technology. Communications is the biggest change.
"You used to deal with gold seekers, one-on-one with individual prospectors, but that's not the way it is any more. There were no sports fishermen back then either. It seemed a waste of time, but that's changed too."
Besides the stories they tell, McBryan says it is simply fun to have the old-timer pilots and mechanics around.
"I like flying the old gentlemen and the ladies best," McBryan laughs. "I'm starting to take lessons from the old-timers for when I grow old."
