Canadian Shield

First day back in the saddle after a few days off. Just en route to Barrie, Ontario as we pass under this shield of clouds. Its like passing the night day line over the ground. The air was smooth considering the 80 kt wind at 16,000 feet. Again with the theme of previous post's winter tends to bring with it much lower, and stronger jet streams.

Looking south west towards the Kawartha Lakes. Just on the southern edge of the Canadian Shield and you can see all the work here that has been done by glaciers. Truly amazing the view we get up here. Much better then reading about it in a text book :)

On final to RWY 23 in Thompson ? Nope, but it sure does look like it though. This is on approach to RWY 03 in Timmins, Ontario former home to Shania Twain (born: Eilleen Regina Edwards). Its a mining town just like Thompson and its in the Canadian Shield so you get the Boreal forest giving it the same look along with rocky outcrops. Its only around the same latitude as Vancouver though and isn't too north (relatively).

FL250 southeast bound. Just passing to the west of Lake Nipissing. In the bottom right hand of the picture is where I spent many summers in my youth at friends of the family's cottage. It's a great fishing destination and the French River which can be seen stemming from the right of Lake Nipissing is fuel of great fishing spots for Pickerel (walleye) and Bass.

Now Fes what is happening here to make these circular patterns ? This is just off the coast of Georgian Bay west of Muskoka and near Parry Sound. The whole area is scared well from glaciers and you can get to see some interesting designs.

These photo's are not quite in sequence because of the issues I had with Blogger but this is the sunset the evening we flew to Blanc Sablon, Quebec. It had been a 1160 nautical mile flight of sky clear with just a few higher clouds in sections caused by a bit of moisture and the jet stream being located in the area. This is just at Land's End (native name: Gaspe'). I have done this trip about 4 times and even though its usually 4 hours of sitting its well worth it.

In a single engine airplane you must maintain gliding distance to shore when over water and also be within 50 miles of it at a maximum if your glide range is greater. From 30,000 feet in a PC12 using the rule of thumb of 2 miles traveled for every 1000 feet of altitude you would safely be able to make land 60 miles away. But staying with 50 miles and in a no wind condition you would easily make it. Add a 20 knot headwind into the equation you might have wished you had two engines especially when faced at what lies below. In this picture the wind on the surface is howling and the waves as seen from 27,000 feet look pretty mean. If I plan to travel over water that would be near the maximum glide for the plane I plan to make my route into wind so that in most cases gliding to shore will be with the wind. This is just off the coast of the Gaspe peninsula over Honguedo Strait between Anticosti Island.

Another sunset at 27,000 feet. We are coming over the north shore of the Strait of Belle Isle. I believe we are just passing Natashquan, Quebec. The little specks in the upper left of the image was the ice crystals which formed on the window flying through the -53 Celsius air. Because of the cold air mass lying below us we were flying right at the tropopause from this point on. It started as high as 37,000 feet near Toronto and dropped to 27,000 around Natash.

Here is the area of the northward extension of the Appalachian Mountains in the interior of the Gaspe Peninsula. This shot is by the co-pilot who caught the last rays of the sun as we passed over the first rugged terrain since the Quebec City area. You can see these snow covered hills for quite some distance as the surrounding area is flat shoreline and water. One of my favourite areas to fly over.

12X zoom comes in handy at times. The sky was so clear and dry that I was able to capture the craters on the moon. You can see how dark the sky was but yet there was still some sun out so the moon looked amazing.

Again same area on the Peninsula taken again by the co-pilot. He seems to always do a wicked job at capturing the photo's.

570 nautical miles to go. From the last photo's we have about 200 miles to go to get to the rugged interior of the Gaspe Peninsula. Since air traffic was light heading our way we got direct to the destination from Montreal Center.

Gaspe Peninsula

Gaspe again co-pilot photo.

This river valley could be seen from about 70 miles away. The area is just north of Quebec City and is rugged and must have been torn up by Glaciers. Fresh snow made for such a great view.

Zoomed in on the valley from FL270.

What looks to be like some clear cutting in the same area.

Washboard appearance here NE of Quebec City. You can see off in the distance the deeply gouged out river valley that is seen in previous shots.


A closer view of the same area.


River Valley on Google Maps

We had to bank pretty good at FL270 to get in this shot. We are directly over Ottawa Airport in this picture. Kinda looks like a sat shot because the camera is shooting straight down. This was panned out as I any zoom would not fit the whole airport in. This is the first snow cover in awhile.


Canada's Capital: Ottawa, Ontario. In the middle of the shot you can see the Rideau Canal which when frozen is the largest skating rink in the world. The canal was built in the 1800's because of the threat of American attacks on ships traveling the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Kingston. Parliament hill sits right beside the canal and backs on the Ottawa River looking across at Quebec (Hull).



Ski hills just north of Montreal. Photo by co-pilot.

Approaching Ottawa from the west at FL270. From this picture you can see how far horizontally the city is spread out.