A Journal, with Pictures

Gary Black, COPA mem­ber and Cir­rus sales exec­u­tive, trav­eled with his daugh­ter in 2014 to Churchill at the top of Man­i­to­ba . He was so impressed he want­ed to share the expe­ri­ence with oth­er COPA mem­bers. Gary con­tact­ed Peter Stor­er, Gov­er­nor of the COPA North Cen­tral Region, and vol­un­teered to be the Event Coor­di­na­tor and lead the trip. Peter did the orga­niz­ing and when the reg­is­tra­tion was open it sold out in a few days. The trip start­ed August fifth with most of the par­tic­i­pants gath­ern­ing in Duluth. Two planes from Cal­gary, Alber­ta choose to fly direct. Cir­rus Air­craft gave a tour of the Jet pro­duc­tion line and spon­sored a din­ner at the Inn on Lake Supe­ri­or, that includ­ed a wel­come by Pat Wad­dick. Cir­rus Pres­i­dent. Every­one appre­ci­at­ed Cir­rus spon­sor­ship and a chance to meet our fel­low adven­tur­ers. Andy Niemy­er, COPA Pres­i­dent, attend­ed the cock­tail recep­tion and pre-trip brief­ing so it was a aus­pi­cious begin­ning to the trip. Joyce and I taveled from Day­ton, Ohio, but we had atten­dees from across North Amer­i­ca as far away as Ari­zona and Texas.

 

The next morn­ing an area of pre­cip­i­ata­tion and imbed­ded thud­er­storms lay between Duluth and our first stop Win­nipeg, where we would clear cus­toms. This called for a new route, west then north. Our arrival in Win­nipeg was at IFR min­i­mums with lots of traf­fic, main­ly us. We land­ed and took a break, then set out for Thomp­son in upper Man­i­to­ba. The weath­er improved as we went north and we saw some big lakes. Lake Win­nipeg and Man­i­tob sur­prised us at their size. There was also lots of des­o­la­tion and small­er lakes, in the end we had to do an approach into Thomp­son. We refu­eled, had lunch and then were off to Churchill. Again, it required an approach, but in this case it was more for traf­fic con­trol. We land­ed, tied down and were off to the Lazy Bear Lodge.