The Canadian Airways Fokker Standard Universal G-CAJD was flying north from Winnipeg carrying a cargo of supplies for a party of gold prospectors at Island Lake, when it ran into snow squalls and decreasing visibility.

Finding the conditions too threatening, pilot Stuart McRorie decided to land on the ice at Charron and wait out the storm. Coming to a stop, the plane went through the ice without warning. McRorie climbed out dry from the open cockpit but air engineer 'Slim' Forrest who was in the cargo section 'got a soaking'. The two camped by the plane the first night, and then walked to shore where they set up camp waiting rescue.

The search for them by company pilots in Super Universals was hampered by the weather and miscommunication as to route taken, which led them further east along the Ontario border.

The stranded airmen spent many days waiting for rescue which never appeared. Their proactive attempts to be noticed - keeping fires burning on two islands and placing a large ring of spruce saplings out on the ice - went for naught. However, their fires were seen by a native trapper, Tom Boulanger who was returning from trapping on the north end of the lake to his southern camp. By the time Boulanger came upon them, McRorie and Forrest were trapping rabbits to keep alive; their meager supplies rescued from the aircraft had been exhausted.

Boulanger took them to his camp, and after negotiating in broken English for payment of $50 to guide them to the nearest Hudson's Bay Post, managed to cobble together two dog teams and another native for the 60-mile trip.

The men walked out, and were spotted by Westergaard in his Fokker Super Universal just as they ventured out on to the ice near Little Grand Rapids. Within minutes, the company plane skied in and later that day, the airmen arrived safely in Winnipeg.

McRorie filed his report of the incident and documented the loss. The insurance company made good on the loss.

Likely in May 1932, G-CAJD with its tail in the air and nose underwater, slowly, silently slipped below the surface during spring break-up. It likely leveled off and 'flew' its last flight, coming to rest on the bottom where the 2005 search team found her. How far she flew has not been calculated, but it could have been a kilometre or more.

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Tales from the sky

Canadian Airways Limited was created by James A. Richardson by amalgamating Western Canada Airways with five eastern air services in 1930. The airline operated through the 'Dirty Thirties' and into the 40s, delivering passengers and cargo to northern communities and outposts.

In 1942, the Richardson?Äôs gave in to federal government competition with and interference in commercial aviation and sold CAL. They went on to invest and develop other businesses that helped underpin the economic prosperity of not only Manitoba and western Canada, but the whole nation as well.