Midnight Sun flights in Alaska, the NWT, & the Yukon
Getting into old newspapers has once again sent me on a long wandering path. This time it was a path in the midnight sun, one of the things I love the most about the North.
This little journey began when I stumbled across an ad for Alaskan Airways’ Midnight Sun flights in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner of June 27, 1930. The more impressive ad seen below was published the following year – to read more about those flights between 1930 and 1940, click here.
Once I finished writing about the early midnight sun flights at Fairbanks, my thoughts turned to my own flights in the midnight sun. The first was in 1985. This isn’t quite the midnight sun, but this view from my Cessna 172 crossing the incredible Mackenzie Delta to Inuvik at 10:30 pm on June 20, 1985, gives you an idea of how high the sun stays. We landed at Inuvik about 15 minutes later.
The next day, June 21, 1985, I shot the flags on the terminal at the Inuvik airport lit up by the sun right at midnight, shortly after landing following a flight to Tuktoyaktuk.
I then enjoyed the midnight sun from the ground for many years, but on June 21, 2003, Cathy and I and some friends from out of town booked a midnight sun flight with Yukon Wings. Right at 10:30, we started our takeoff run across Schwatka Lake in their gorgeous 1950 de Havilland Beaver, CF-FHZ.
We flew up the Yukon River a few miles…
…then made a wide loop into the mountains to the east…
At 10:57, we skirted around a bit of rain and were treated to a rainbow.
This is the Yukon River as it nears Lake Laberge.
Coming in over Whitehorse from the north to land.
At 11:18, we were on final to land back at Schwatka Lake.
Disembarking from the Beaver at 11:25. What a superb way to experience the midnight sun!
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