Not a whole lot of activity on the ramp
The FBO was small and sparse, with not much activity on the ramp. Everyone was friendly, and after a quick immigration and customs visit, our passengers were loaded onto the King Airs to continue their adventure.
I have flown around the world many times. Mostly East to West, but sometimes West to East, such as Dubai to Amsterdam. I had never been to the Arctic Circle or any farther North than Anchorage, Alaska, though. Until last month, when I was provided that opportunity. The Arctic Circle is the latitude (66.34’ N) that is so far North that the sun never sets in the summer and never rises in the winter. This certainly makes for some long winters. Wikipedia offers a much longer definition.
We were assigned a charter flight to the most northern paved runway in North
America, which happens to be Iqaluit, NU, Canada (CYFB). My mind immediately went to international flight planning and high-frequency radio communications, as my airplane does not have CPDLC. I still do a lot of international flying, but most of it is to the islands. In addition to the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and St. Marten, we also wander down to the Grenadines, near Grenada, as well as Panama and Costa Rica. But this was in the opposite direction.
My uncertainties were quickly laid to rest as Ops (Flight Operations) advised me that we would be using Universal International Trip Support Services for our flight support. A “Handler” such as Universal is a hired third party that will file flight plans, prepare weather briefings, complete customs paperwork, complete Gen Decs, and notify the country that we are coming. They did a great job with flight planning, weather, and ground handling. While talking to our passengers, I learned that they were going on an arctic cruise. We would fly them to Iqaluit, and then they would jump on a couple of smaller Beech King Air turboprop airplanes, fly farther North to a gravel runway, and meet up with their designated cruise ship. Sounds like a great adventure!
My company has a flight operations department that takes care of most logistical details, but our pilots perform the actual flight planning except for some unusual circumstances, such as flying over Cuba, and this trip. Even though the flight department provides a list of all passengers, passport numbers, and DOBs to Canada’s CANPASS. CANPASS (Canadian Passenger Accelerated Service System) is a program that speeds up customs and immigration clearance for travelers entering Canada by air. CANPASS is run by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). I am not sure about the “speeds up” portion of that statement. Every time I call CANPASS, as I am required to do before takeoff, I must read, very slowly, each passenger’s full name, passport number, and DOB to the agent. After spending forty minutes on hold and slowly reading the above information, the gruff agent advised me that it was a weekend, and no immigration agents were working, so we could not depart to Iqaluit.
I was not very excited about having to relay this information to my passengers. So, I contacted my flight dispatch department first. This is when I learned I had missed an important piece of information. Our company or Universal Trip Support, had made special arrangements for a Canadian Immigration and Customs Agent to work overtime and meet our flight upon arrival. We were not using CANPASS but were using standard immigration procedures. We were eventually able to depart for our destination, and upon arrival, the agent who met us in person was kind and helpful.
Most of the weather enroute consisted of undercast clouds, so we could not see the ground. As we descended through the clouds, we were able to see the Earth’s surface again. It was very wet with light rain and less snow than I expected, with a terrain that had an abandoned tundra appearance.
Iqaluit’s runways 16 – 34 are 8,605 feet in length. Runway 34 is serviced by an ILS, and Runway 16 has an RNAV (GNSS) Approach. The runway was in good condition, although wet with a gusting crosswind. There was no parallel taxiway, so we had to back taxi on Runway 34. Iqaluit does not have an ATC Control Tower.
According to Google: “Iqaluit is the capital city of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It sits on vast Baffin Island in Frobisher Bay. The island is known for its ice-capped mountains and tundra valleys. Near the city, Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park is home to caribou and Arctic foxes.”
The route back to Texas
The FBO was small and sparse, with not much activity on the ramp. Everyone was friendly, and after a quick immigration and customs visit, our passengers were loaded onto the King Airs to continue their adventure. Our crew was originally scheduled to remain overnight, and I was looking forward to this to do some local sightseeing. But the company had fortuitous timing and picked up another revenue trip from Iqaluit to Texas.
Our routing involved using latitude and longitude waypoints, which took us over Goose Bay and Lake Superior. While flying over Lake Superior, we flew over Isle Royale National Park. Isle Royale is only accessible by boat or seaplane. It has excellent fishing, historic lighthouses, shipwrecks, ancient copper mining sites, and plenty of spots to observe wildlife, including wolves. Flying over Lake Superior was another first for me. I have flown over all the other great lakes, but not Lake Superior.
We arrived in Texas many hours later. I am pretty sure my passengers had a great trip, as upon departing from the airplane, I was tipped, hugged, and even kissed. That should be the way to end every flight.
