One of our flying club members flew in with his Norseman this week. It is a working plane that is on floats in season, but goes on skis in the winter. This time of the year it hauls freight to the northern Reserves and mining supplies where there are no roads (which is every where not too far north of here). It is one of the few, if not the only Norseman, that is on skis. I stepped off the dimentions of the skis and they are approximately 10 ft long and 3 feet wide. A very interesting piece of bush flying history. Steve

Thanks for the photo.
It gives me something to dream about today

that is so cool! there is another one on wheelskis in reddeer alberta. its all restored looks like new I believe it belongs to a private colector though, doesn't work for a living.

Steve,
What an awesome picture. I love those old planes....any old plane actually. Is that old Morseman still sitting on the ramp up in Baudette?
Glad to hear you are having a fun winter. I should be back to MN within the next month. Will you be down around my area to pick up your plane? If you are give me a shout. There's extra room if you need a place to rest.
WW

It is still hard to grasp that we live on the fringe of true wilderness, where there are no roads or electric lines and that people live in remote communities up there. They still depend a lot on the old workhorse planes, like the Norseman, Beaver and Otter for supplies, until getting some relief, when the ice roads open in mid winter.

Thanks for the offer Keith. I am hoping for good weather (a fast planting season) when I have to go back south in April. I would love to be done planting by the end of May, so I can be back near the beginning of walleye season and before the mushrooms get started. Ice is usually not out until in May sometime; so I will come down to get the plane out of storage, shortly after getting back from planting (late May-early June). Steve

For you Norseman fans, check this out: http://www.norsemanfestival.on.ca/

Tom,

That would be a great destination for you this summer. Ellen and I flew to the festival last year. Red Lake has an airport for wheel planes. Lots of history there, the longest operating gold mine in the world, it was the busiest airspace in Canada back in the gold rush days, great fishing and is the end of the road. From there on north it is by plane only, a few native reserves and then Inuits and polar bear country. Steve

My very first ride in a true Alaskan bush plane was in a Norseman on floats and I'll never forget the experience. Just for perspective, this was over 50 years ago. My dad and I drove to Summit Lake along the Richardson Highway and hired Smitty to fly us to Landmark Gap Lake in his Norseman. Smitty was a rather rotund fellow and I was sitting in the seat behind him. Landmark Gap is a long lake situated between two mountains that are not really very far apart. Smitty's approach was to fly as close the the mountain on the left side, put the plane up on the right wing into a descending right turn of 180 degrees so he would be heading out toward lower ground as he landed and let us out at the North end of the lake. As he was doing this, he was puffing on the cigar that he always had in his mouth and I could smell that plus the strong fumes of gasoline and I was turning greener by the minute. Fortunately, that portion of the flight was short and as soon as we were on the water again, I felt fine, but what an experience. We spent about two weeks there prospecting and teasing the hundreds of lake trout in the gin clear water that would come after our spinners. Eventually, we walked out to the Denali Highway (I don't remember why) that at the time was just in the first stages of construction. I'll never forget that Norseman. I believe it is still sitting in pieces in someone's backyard in Delta Junction after being wrecked.
MontanaPacer

Ahhhh the good ole Noorduyn.