Flying On Instinct by L. D. Cross

National Railways, Ward joined the RCAF, receiving his wings at age 20 in 1941. He was promptly assigned to the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan as an instructor. He wasn’t good at following instructions himself, often flying lower than assigned and flying off to meet his sweetheart, Marjorie, in Calgary.
    Max Ward pilots his small CF-DJC de Havilland Fox Moth at Snare River, 90 miles (145 kilometres) west of Yellowknife, in 1947. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA PA-089954
    Following the war, Ward went to Yellowknife and bought a small de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane to fly passengers and freight as Polaris Charter Company Ltd. But the plane was small and had a limited range, needing to be refuelled every 130 miles (210 kilometres). On one trip to Edmonton, he had to land on a baseball diamond in Athabasca, interrupting the game in progress. Pulling out a 10-gallon (45-litre) drum he carried with him in the cockpit, he proceeded to refuel his plane, taxi and lift off, waving to the surprised players as he flew away. Ward next purchased a de Havilland Fox Moth. It held three passengers and up to 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of cargo and would be a step up for his business. He took the train to Toronto to pick it up. Flying back from Toronto, he landed at Kenora, Ontario, for the night. It wasn’t until he hit the pile of gravel on the airstrip that he knew he should have looked more closely. The runway was being graded and the work crew hadleft a pile just where he came in. Ward walked away with cuts and bruises, but his smashed-up plane took five weeks to repair.
    Ward’s next adventure occurred when his engine quit while he was flying into Arsenault Lake. After making a perfect landing, he found the problem: there was no oil. Somehow the oil-pan drain valve had opened, and he had been leaking oil throughout the trip. Now the Fox Moth needed a new engine. Ward hiked to a nearby drilling camp, hitched a ride back to Yellowknife, ordered a new engine from de Havilland on credit, went to Edmonton by train to take delivery, hitched a ride back to the drilling camp with another pilot and then walked four miles to and fromthe lake every day while he installed the new engine. Then he flew back to Yellowknife and another nasty encounter. Unable to show Air Transport Board bureaucrats that he had the required commercial flying licence on his own, he acquired a partner who did have such a commodity, and they established Yellowknife Airways Ltd.
    Ward left the company in 1949 over operating differences and moved his family from Yellowknife to Lethbridge, where he earned a living as a construction worker with Marjorie’s father and flew for Associated Airways just to keep his skills sharp. In 1951, after just six months with the company, he crashed while taking an HBC manager to Bathurst Inlet in the high Arctic. His departure had been delayed, his compass was useless so close to the north magnetic pole, and the sun was setting faster than his plane could fly, so navigating by sight was impossible. Then the fog came in. Ward knew he had to get down and tried to see a suitable spot. What looked like a lake turned out to be a high hill. He slammed the skis into it and ricocheted down the other side. He radioed for rescue, then waited five days for help to arrive. The first rescue plane got lost and had to refuel, but finally an RCMP plane spotted them and radioed in their position.
    Ward finally got his own Class 4B Charter licence to operate a commercial air service. He bought the first de Havilland Otter used in Western Canada for $100,000, twice the cost of the average bush plane of the day, but theOtter was bigger and faster and had a range of 600 miles (965 kilometres), three times that of his little Fox Moth. The plane credited with developing the North, the Otter could handle an impressive payload while gliding onto and off lakes. With the same overall configuration as the Beaver, but longer and heavier, with a wider