Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 25/02) - Old Town can be a pretty quiet place come late October.

Rarely a minute goes by during the summer without a float plane buzzing overhead, landing or taking off.

Air Tindi pilot/dispatcher Steve Radvak takes a longing glance over the thin layer of ice forming on Yellowknife Bay. It'll likely be another month before the planes can fly out on skis. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

But twice a year that all changes bush plane operators wait for Mother Nature to take her course during freeze-up and break-up.

The planes will be back on the bay -- this time with skis instead of floats -- by December, but for now what's a bush pilot to do?

Air Tindi still offers its regularly scheduled flights and medevac services from the airport, but it will be a while before we again see Beavers and Twin Otters over Back Bay and Yellowknife Bay.

"It's definitely boring," lamented Air Tindi co-owner Teri Arychuk.

"We're at full throttle all summer, and down here at the float base things come to a grinding halt."

Arychuk said the last flight to come in on floats was on Oct. 14. -- a return trip out from Blachford Lake.

Timing is essential. Arychuk said the litmus test is Long Lake.

Once ice begins to form there, it's time to take the floats off for the winter.

After that, the waiting begins.

"Basically, it's time for administration to get caught up with some paperwork, except for the pilots and those guys to take a bit of a breather," said Arychuk.

She said they need at least six inches of ice before they can begin flying Cessna 185s -- the smallest plane in their fleet -- from the floatbase again.

Twin Otters, the largest, need a couple of feet.

Boyd Warner, who operates Arctic Excursions across the causeway from Air Tindi, said it seems like freeze-up is coming earlier every year.

"I remember in Yellowknife we never used to deal with snow until Halloween time," said Warner.

When the big freeze does come, however, it can be drastic.

Warner remembers one year when the ice froze so fast they were able to land a couple small aircraft on Yellowknife Bay with skis only six days after they were on floats.

"We told the tower we were landing on the bay, and there was this long pause, and then they kind of said 'Well, land on the bay at your own discretion,' " laughed Warner.

"Somebody's got to do the first trips every year to every place."