Bent Props and Blow Pots: A Pioneer Remembers Northern Bush Flying (review)

Airplanes changed the lives of people living in the Northwest Territories. The arrival of mail and supplies to remote locations, an annual or semi-annual event via steamboat or dogsled, became much more frequent after the advent of bush flying in the 1920s. While bush pilots, such as Wop May and Punch Dickins, received well-deserved public accolades, air engineers kept the aircraft in flying condition and assisted with every part of flight preparation. Engineers heated the engine and engine oil for cold weather starts, refuelled the aircraft, loaded cargo, and served as an indispensable second pair of eyes scanning the terrain below as the pilots navigated largely by contact flying over trackless wilderness in reduced visibility conditions. When mishaps occurred, air engineers often made repairs on the spot.

Rex Terpening was one of those air engineers. As a young man he assisted with aircraft maintenance at Spence-McDonough Air Transport and Commercial Airways, both based near his home in Fort McMurray, ab. Spence-McDonough offered the author an official job in 1932. His employment lasted only one year because the death of Bill Spence led to the sale of the company to Canadian Airways in early 1933. Terpening toiled as a fireman aboard the steamboat Northland Echo that summer, before Canadian Airways accepted him as an apprentice working toward his air engineer’s licence. Counting the one year he worked at Spence-McDonough, Terpening needed an additional year’s apprenticeship before he was eligible to take the written examination for the licence. His successful apprenticeship included a dunking in icy water when the Fairchild 71 in which he was riding broke through the ice. In the coming years Terpening became intimately acquainted with the rigours of northern bush flying.

This book includes a series of fascinating accounts of notable flights that tested the author’s endurance and resourcefulness. For example, while landing in fog at Good Hope in January 1936, Rex Terpening and pilot Matt Berry crashed into a tent and several barrels of gasoline. They spent the next week repairing the aircraft in temperatures hovering at -65 degrees F. They used dog boards to repair a broken ski, employed a water pipe to fix fuselage tubing, and used the corner of a log building to bend the propeller blades back into position. During a summer flight, again with Matt Berry, the airplane’s motor quit in flight, forcing them to put down near the Slave River cataracts. The two men installed a replacement engine the company delivered via air to the remote location. Terpening confided that he was not sure which he considered worse: working in the severe cold of winter or in the mud surrounded by mosquitoes during summer.

The author worked in aviation until 1978, when he retired from Canadian Pacific Air, where he was responsible for all line maintenance in the Americas, Europe, and the Orient. Over the course of his forty-five year career, he witnessed the transformation of flying from a daring adventure in fragile propeller-driven airplanes to a routine journey in jetliners cruising far above the frozen wilderness. He was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1997.

In addition to the well-crafted text, the accompanying photographs taken by the author himself enrich the historic value of this book. The map of the Northwest Territories and glossary in the appendix are particularly helpful for non-Canadian readers. While the text includes a detailed description of a blow pot, a picture of one would have been a welcome addition. The author’s accurate description of the rigours of northern bush flying is a fitting tribute to the air engineers who played a critical role during the formative years of the 1930s.