30,000 hours in the air and counting
Fort Simpson pilot reflects on his career flying people to Nahanni National Park
Dave Bidini
Northern News Services
Saturday, July 4, 2015
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Even though pilot Ted Grant might not look the part in his worn baseball cap and button-down windowpane shirt tucked into pressed jeans, you can still squint and imagine the 66-year-old as the dashing young bush pilot who took his first flight from Fort Simpson into Nahanni National Park in 1976.
Ted Grant flies into Nahanni National Park from Fort Simpson two times per day on average. He estimates he's been to the park at least 3,000 times.
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Almost 40 years later, Ted is president of the charter and sightseeing airline Simpson Air and he still spends most days flying tourists in and out of Nahanni.
"I've put in over 30,000 hours in the air," he said from his office on June 28, a thin dark moustache the last vestige of his 50s airman look.
"And those hours were all spent flying; none of this," he continued, pretending to use a joystick in front of a flight simulator.
Ted is a legend in these parts of the Deh Cho, having come to Fort Simpson via his tenure with the RCMP, with whom he enlisted on his 19th birthday.
"When I was a kid, my dad brought an old fighter plane (a bomber) to the farm and I used to sit in the cockpit and pretend. I guess it's always been in there," he said, tapping at his temple.
Ted's life in the skies is also part of his greater family's legacy. His grandfather's cousin was the famous bush pilot Wop May, and his bloodlines include Frederick Banting, who helped invent insulin, as well as decorated CFL and NFL coaching legend, Bud Grant.
"We used to have Bud out to Little Doctor Lake (the Nahanni property owned by Grant), and he'd come out and fish and have a good time. I'd like to spend more time there myself," he said, sighing.
"But it seems I'm always in the air."
Grant flies multiple times a day into Nahanni National Park, taking visitors on daylong trips around the park as well as getting firefighters near the front line of the many blazes happening here (as of June 29, there was talk of having to close the park due to the proximity of the fires).
Despite having visited Nahanni more than 3,000 times, Grant said, "It never gets old for me. I think it's the greatest place on Earth, and I'm not alone. It was the first UNESCO World Heritage Site because of all there is to see: the mountains, the tufo mounds, the rivers, and Virginia Falls, to name just a few."
Grant sees himself as a kind of guardian, as well as a spokesperson, for the park, to say nothing of his conviction as a dyed-in-the-wool citizen of NWT. He was the lone representative from the Northwest Territories during a recent national tourism gathering in Ottawa, and it was there that he presented his case to Stephen Harper for greater support for the region.
"I told the Prime Minister that our land mass, between Yukon, NWT and Iqaluit, represents 45 per cent of our country, and yet we have the poorest infrastructure in all the Western Hemisphere. I told him about the roads - the Dempster, the Liard and the Mackenzie - all of which were closed at one point before our meeting," he said.
"Two weeks later, I got a call from the Minister of (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development), who told me, 'Well, you certainly made an impression on the Prime Minister.' Eventually, they pledged $78 million more to us and over the last few years, where do you think that money has gone? Well, not here," he said, shaking his head.
"But I'll keep trying. One of these days they've got to listen to me."
