Calgary, Alberta, March 2004
This is the story of one man's career in Canadian Aviation. It is my hope that it's told in a worthwhile manner. My employer happened to be the RCMP as that was a career I had previously targeted, and, after the recession had decimated the oil and gas business in Alberta in the early 1980s, there were no other offers on the table.
Life is, however, full of choices. After a while, in pursuit of stability, I chose to stay with it. I made compromises, as anyone who works for a large bureaucracy is apt to. Looking back on it with the benefit of the wisdom that one is supposed to possess after the fifth decade, after having a chance to reflect and digest it all, I am finally able to look at it, and process it, differently. It certainly had its negatives, but it was also an exciting, interesting, and fulfilling career, one that few other helicopter pilots had an opportunity to pursue.
I take pride in my individual service to the many members of the RCMP, and by extension to the people of Canada. Everything you are about to read did in fact happen. I have used my extensive logbooks as a guide and intend to present it chronologically, as it occurred. It is, however, my autobiography, and my perceptions, my attitudes, my individual view of the world and the people in it colour the telling.
Also, much of this happened at least 20 years ago, and my memory is not as sharp as it once was. In "Memory and Creation - The View from Fifty" Paul Theroux states "a nation's literature is a true repository of thought and experience." I would like to make my contribution.
Future generations, and my grandchildren, should be able to look back at these times and these events without having to go through large amounts of formal research, historical data, and technical reports. Those sources offer nothing in regards to the human emotion, the drama and the sacrifices that were made.
I feel the events of the past 20 years that I have been involved in, while minor in historical context, are worth the telling. I would also be proud to be able to place some emhasis on the lives of those six friends and colleagues who paid the ultimate cost for their service to the people of Canada.
So it is relayed as accurately as is possible. The dates are indeed accurate. Most of the geographical references are accurate, and the characters are represented as I saw them. Only one name has been changed. I intend to tell this story in the spirit of the adventurous travel writer, as indeed it was a journey, spiritual as it was physical.