Jenny is not a pilot. She doesn't wear a white shirt, a blazer, or a cap every morning. She pulls a woolen hat over her long blond hair, bundles herself up in a puffy jacket with a high-vis vest, and laces up her winter boots. Being a bush pilot is casual.
The photo was taken by Jenny Petersen.
A Canadian airline that specializes in flying cargo and passengers to remote locations, including the Arctic and Antarctica, has a worker by the name of Petersen. It is her dream job.
When she was a child, her desire to fly was fueled by the stories of her pilot uncle.
I always wanted to be a bush pilot. It was my dream. She tells Matador in a phone interview that her uncle was a bush pilot in Africa for most of his career.
At 22, after saving some money, she started working on her Private Pilot License, followed by her Commercial Pilot License and her night rating. She completed her training in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.
After completing her flight training, she got her first job at Kenn Borek Air.
I was very excited when I got my first job. The kind of work they do is amazing. I wanted to work for them because I get to go to all the remote places.
The photo was taken by Jenny Petersen.
As a bush pilot with Kenn Borek Air, she gets plenty of adventure. At the end of September, she spent five months in Antarctica with the airline, flying scientists and their gear, including American scientists at the South Pole, to new ground to set up camps for research.
Flying in the South Pole has its own set of challenges. The little information that pilots get about the weather and other flying conditions is what makes them pilots. Rescue is very limited in this region when problems arise.
During her time on the seventh continent, she worked as a flight attendant, fueling and loading the aircraft, and taking care of the special passengers on board.
As long as she gets to fly and have fun, nothing will deter her from doing so.
Five months was a long time to be there, but you get to see a lot of cool places. We saw a volcano and a valley without snow.
In the fall, he hopes to go back to flying airplanes.
The photo was taken by Jenny Petersen.
While she had a good time in the frozen wastelands of the South Pole, nothing compares to the frozen wastelands of the North Pole. She said that she loved the North and that it was her favorite place to fly to.
Three weeks off and three weeks on is what the person is based in. She stays in Inuvik, a town 125 miles above the Arctic Circle, when she is at work. Iqaluit and Resolute Bay are two of the most remote places in the north.
When we talked to her, she had been in Inuvik for two weeks, flying food, mail, supplies, and passengers into and between small communities every day. She was on medevac duty to get people living in remote hamlets the urgent medical care they need.
Check the flight schedule is the first thing a bush pilot does in the morning. After waking up in the crew house, she and her colleagues check the weather forecast and study it before planning the flight and filling in the necessary paperwork. They head to the airport where they pull the airplane from the hangar and do a walk-around to make sure they have everything they need for the flight. They load the aircraft with the passengers and cargo they need to leave.
After landing at their destination, they drop off the cargo and passengers before returning. They stop at a few communities along the way back. The bush pilots in the north stop everywhere on their way.
On Tuesdays, she and her colleagues fly a run called The Triangle. Cargo and passengers are flown from Inuvik to the Hamlet of Sachs Harbour. After dropping off passengers and cargo in Sachs Harbour, they fly to the remote hamlet of Ulukhaktok where they pick up more passengers and mail before returning to Inuvik.
Flying to remote communities that rely on the roads in the fall is much more busy than in the spring. Up to four flights a day can be scheduled to accommodate members of those communities who need to get groceries, supplies, mail, etc.
The people from Inuvik will not be flying from there to their homes this summer. She is taking the summer off to fly float planes with South Nahanni Air in Fort Simpson, also in the Northwest Territories. She will accumulate some flying hours by training on a new type of aircraft. She plans to move from the First Officer's seat to the Captain's seat as soon as she can, and nothing will stop her.
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