On the wings of a Navajo.

Our Bering Air flight was scheduled to depart Kivalina this morning at 8:10a.m. Mark and his Navajo 9 seater passed over-head at 7:48. – We loaded the sleds and bee-lined for the runway.

Mark is the kind of Alaskan Bush pilot you’d imagine straight out of the Gary Paulsen books. He looks old enough to not be flying anymore but looks tough enough that you wouldn’t want to have to arm-wrestle him. He calmly picked apart our luggage and stuffed them accordingly in the wing and nose cone stowage, barely accepting any help. His pre-flight safety brief was ten times the length of any other pilot I’ve flown with but I respect that he takes his job seriously.

There are two types of planes I’ve flown on since landing in Kotzebue and leaving the friendly skies of Alaska Airlines and the world of jets. The Caravan is the larger work mule of both Ravn and Bering Air and both fleets also maintain a slew of small, sleek Navajos. Lately, we’ve been relegated to cramming our plus sized Mixed 6 team in to the comfortable but much more personal, commuter planes.

Our travel itinerary and manifest suggests that we stay below the 1600-pound threshold. This morning I maybe have told a little white lie when Mark asked our travel weight but I really wanted to travel again even if it meant fibbing on a couple of pounds. Mark offered up a seat in the co-pilot’s spot and I jumped at the chance.

I was excited for my first trip riding shotgun since the days of the Warroad Airways. Fuzz LePage and Don Hanson could sometimes be spotted with a carrot-topped co-pilot in the early 80’s and I have dreamt of it ever since. This morning my 40-year-old body was carrying the same youthful enthusiasm of the carrot-topped kid from way back.

When he handed me a headset, I let Mark know that I appreciated his offer. I then asked him where to plug it in.

“The Little One in the little hole and the Big One in the big hole,” he replied. The simplicity of his instructions set me at ease.

“All I need is enough room to do this.” At which point he swung the steering column in and out, left and right and cleared my knees with space to spare. The Kivalina weather radio crackled out the specifics on our taxi towards the runway.

Visibility was measure in miles. The temperature sat comfortably at -14 degrees Celsius. Wind wasn’t an issue. Before we started to accelerate, Mark started talking about the Dew Point and Temperature in Selawik being close enough for us to be concerned about FOG by the time we’d be close enough for our approach.

Although under the cover of darkness,  we were up and into the air without a hitch but definitely with a smile on my face. Today was the first flight I’ve had without all the expansive visuals that Alaska has to offer from elevation. It was a new experience - flying here in the dark and thus I was grateful through my own pre-flight prayers. The lights of Portside were obvious. At first the crackle of early morning radio transmissions were barely recognizable as English. But eventually I heard enough and could discern that the base in Kotzebue and the pilots making the rounds were busy busing the student athletes of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District around to their prospective places of competition. Mark pointed out Red Dog Mine and Noatak. I figured out the metropolis of Kotzebue all on my own.

That broke a long period of silence. Once the gate was open, my Pilot became a fountain of information and I was on a darkened tour of the tundra at 7500 feet. He walked me through the instrument panel discussing the pros and cons of his plane versus the “newer digital displays that younger guys fly with.”

“Kind of what I grew up on…”

I interjected with a “Yep” or  “Un huh” periodically just to keep him on a roll. Before too long the eastern horizon started to cough up enough daylight for me to make out some topography below. The lights of villages dotted the landscape and it almost felt like Mark was quizzing me. I held my own. Kiana, Noorvik, the Kobuk River. Mark spotted Selwaik long before I could.

“Not too bad for almost 60 miles away, eh?” A few minutes later I saw it. "Yep."

He spun through the different radio frequencies and we listened to automated weather reports from the villages within range. Mark relayed the info back to Kotzebue. You could tell by his tone that he was a genuine and helpful guy and that the other pilots appreciated him looking out for the rest of the crew.

Before long we were chatting like old friends, turning off the auto pilot, preparing for decent, lining up the runway and touching down on the northwest runway. Before we took off the headsets, I extended an ungloved handshake and said “Thank You Mark. I really enjoyed myself.”

To which he talked for 3 more minutes about being glad that he got the co-pilot’s headsets replaced so he had someone to visit with… hope to fly with you again my friend.

Safely in Selawik.
Yukon Cornelius - OUT.

Navajo trip of old.

Caravan trip of old.