Bill Mason & "Blake"

It's interesting how things fit together.

As I mentioned in another thread last spring, although I've been paddling off and on for sixty years, I had never heard of Canadian style paddling, or freestyle until finding this site a couple of years ago. But it made perfect sense to me, both as an engineer (basic physics, force-mass-acceleration), and as a pilot (where the propeller pulls, and the control surfaces rotate the airplane around its center of mass). Seeing a couple of Bill Mason videos (I'd never heard of him before either) made it click for me, and I've been really enjoying that style of paddling, and I commented about the similarity between freestyle paddling and airplane aerobatics.

I fly an old single seat biplane, a 1930s design but mine is a homebuilt replica built in 1993. Some time ago somebody on a flying forum posted a link to a short video about an eccentric guy who works as a draftsman, lives in a cabin in the woods, and flies an old homebuilt biplane searching for freedom. It naturally resonated with me; I too live in a cabin in the woods, at least part of the year, as an engineer I've spent a fair amount of time driving a drafting board, and I've been accused of being eccentric (to be charitable).

But the reason I'm posting this is, I'd forgotten the film until the other day, when I came across a reference to a film made by Bill Mason about a friend of his who... lives in a cabin in the woods and flies an old homebuilt biplane. Yup, the same film. It's called "Blake" and can be seen on the National Film Board of Canada website, who also host Mason's "Path of the Paddle" and other videos.

Enjoy.

I have had two uncles that flew bush planes for a living. Both are now deceased. They flew in Alaska for years.
One of them gave up bush flying and moved to the Seattle area flying commuters with a Cessna on floats. Uncle Ray took off in bad weather a little overloaded flying to Bremerton. I just heard the story from my cousin this spring. He went in upside down and died along all of the passengers.

Alaska Bob was a non-commercial pilot on the Kenai. He flew a lot of hunting trips and spent some time in the Arcitc. He had stories of cracking up his plane a long way from help.

Bush pilots are out of the performance envelope more than they want to admit. They usually have to have ground contact but fly in bad weather. They have weight limitations but clients always have a lot of stuff like moose meat and canoes strapped to the landing gear. Fuel can be hard to find.. They have great skill but sometimes get unlucky.