Gillam weather took its name from pilot Charles “Harold” Gillam. His flights through the foulest weather Alaska could dish out, made him the very first legendary Alaska bush pilot. Old time pilots said that Alaska offered three kinds of weather; clear and unlimited “Pan Am” weather; ordinary weather; and Gillam weather. Becoming a Bush Pilot …
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The last heroic flight for Alcan bush pilot Les Cook came in November 1942. On the north bank of the White River, an enlisted surveyor of the 29th Topo unit suffered abdominal pain. A doctor diagnosed appendicitis. The soldier needed surgery right away. Dropping It In–Les Cook His buddies strapped him to a litter and …
Diphtheria antitoxin expires. In the summer of 1924 Dr. Welch, the only doctor in Nome Alaska, discovered that his batch had done just that, and he immediately ordered more. But anything coming to Nome in 1925 came over oceans; and the Port of Nome, just two degrees shy of the Arctic Circle, closed in November; …
Proud, independent, unique individuals, no two bush pilots in Alaska came to that exalted status by the same route. The job required ingenuity, skill, a certain willingness to bend the rules, and, above all, guts. Training programs don’t turn out pilots like that. Bush Pilots in Canada At fourteen, Oscar Winchell rode a horse away …
Dropping it to the soldiers in the woods, that’s how flying anything to them usually ended. If they happened to work near a lake or river, the incoming plane could land. But more often they worked in deep woods. The flying part worked well, the dropping not so much. Bush pilot Les Cook flew a …
Will Rogers entertained America through the Great Depression—can’t have been easy. He talked on the radio, he wrote newspaper columns, he appeared in movies; and, whatever the venue, he made people laugh. It’s hard to find humor in his brush with Alaska. More about the Comedian Almost as famous, Will’s friend Wiley Post didn’t …
Appendicitis doesn’t normally amount to a major threat—unless you get it on the North Bank of the White River in Northern Yukon in November 1942. The you need bush pilot Les Cook and his Norseman Monoplane. Comrades place the young soldier on a litter and carry him two miles to the river. The bridge …