Yellowknife (Sep 01/04) - Forty years after it disappeared into the Barrenlands to start one of the North's most enduring mysteries, Chuck McAvoy's plane finally came home last week.

Buffalo Airways' Joe McBryan stands beside the engine of Chuck McAvoy's Fairchild 82 -- retrieved from the barrens last Thursday. The plane went missing for 39 years before it was discovered last year. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Joe McBryan brought the crumpled remains of the legendary bush pilot's Fairchild 82 to the tarmac outside his Buffalo Airways hanger, Thursday evening, but not before paying a small tribute to the man he credits with getting him into the aviation business.

"I just had to buzz over Chuck's old dock for him because I had his airplane on board and it was 40 years, two months and two weeks late," said McBryan.

Interest in McAvoy and his 66-year-old plane has heightened since discovery of the wreck last August by a helicopter pilot and a team of geologists in a remote gully about 585 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, on the Nunavut side of the border.

The plane went missing June 9, 1964 en route to Itchen Lake with two young American geologists on board who worked for Roberts Mining Corporation -- Al Kunes and Doug Torp.

In a week-long operation, the plane was disassembled at the crash site and flown by Great Slave Helicopters to the Ulu mining camp 45 kilometres away. There, it was then loaded into one of McBryan's DC-3s and brought back to town.

Evidence of a catastrophic fire aboard the plane can be seen on the soot-covered engine and charred skis.

Despite damage from the fire and the ravages of time, there were a few surprises.

The badly rusted fire extinguisher still works.

Putting the plane in a museum is one favoured option, but after surveying the old wreck, McBryan figures it might even be possible to rebuild the aircraft and fly it again.

"It's a very simple airplane to build.

"But we don't know right now. My aim and focus over the last year was to get it in, and I achieved that last night, so I'm starting over again."

He said any decisions on the plane will have to involve surviving members of McAvoy's family, and those of the two geologists.

Other options include lending the Fairchild to the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton for a year and then bring it back to Yellowknife for permanent display at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

McBryan said he may also follow up on a six-year-old inquiry he made to the city about setting up a monument in the event that the plane was found on the hill overlooking McAvoy's dock.

'Like raising

the Titanic'

Kris Baker was only 18 months old when Doug Torp, her father, disappeared. She visited the crash site with other family members of the missing men almost a year ago to the day McBryan brought the plane back to Yellowknife.

Baker said she is grateful McBryan retrieved the plane, but would prefer if it wasn't refitted to fly again.

"In our minds and hearts it's almost like raising the Titanic," said Baker.

"I don't know if I want it up in the air. That's something the families need to talk about."

One of the mementos she brought back from the crash site to her home in Haddonfield, New Jersey, was the tackle box her father carried with him in his travels through the North.

She finally received her father's death certificate from the Nunavut government two weeks ago.

"We couldn't cremate the remains until we got that piece of paper," said Baker.

RCMP removed the few remains found at the crash site shortly after its discovery.

She said the other families have agreed to take the cremated remains back up to the crash site as a testament to the men's love for the North.

Jack Everett, who employed the two geologists, was one of the last people to see the three men alive.

He said McAvoy was one of the best pilots he ever knew, but even exceptional skills may not have been a match for the volatile conditions of the North.

"I'm very lucky to still be alive," said the 83-year-old, a survivor of three harrowing plane mishaps himself.

"When you want to know what's over the next hill, or you're excited about being somewhere no one else has been before, they had to have that spirit of adventure."