Watching Beavers, Otters and a Goose from the bar

Of course, if you were expecting wildlife, you'll be disappointed. On the other hand these guys are rarer than many wildlife species, except in certain locations, of which this is one. Rare, but working, and at full airways standard, too.

A carbon-neutral Harbour Air de Havilland Canada Beaver starts up and heads out while another company's Beaver comes in to land.

These birds are fully certified to tough Transport Canada standards, same as your boring Boeing tube, but much more interestingly, are running regular scheduled services ('Skeds') and charters to various West Coast locations, from Vancouver Seaplane Airport. Watching airliners landing and taking off is a dull passtime in general, but seaplanes still have a little something of the romance of flying.

Another Beaver gets going...

And better still these photos were taken from our table at 'The Flying Beaver Bar & Grill' next to the airport, much better than hanging over a fence somewhere.


A big thanks to Dave McIntosh, my driver and guide for the day, and who pressed the magic 'lots of action' button before we arrived. Sometimes it can be quiet here, but not today.

A DHC Turbo Otter touches down. de Havilland Canada really sorted the bushplane market, to a degree de Havilland Australia and Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation in Australia failed to do.

A Seair Beaver passes a Harbour Air Turbo Otter like ships in the night.


And a highlight among all the traffic was a Pacific Coastal Airlines operated Grumman Goose. We'd already seen a US registered Goose at the landplane airport, in a lovely scheme (above) but the example in the sequence below is clearly doing what it was designed and built for. First flown in 1937, this amazing aircraft type is still working for a living 71 years later!

In she comes...


Nose up to decelerate and come off the step...


And bashing through the water. Now for the clever bit...


Lower the wheels (because this is an amphibian, not a flying boat) and taxi up the ramp... Bet they'd not watch a Boeing going by, eh?

After a bit of time we saw the departure. Again, not what you get at any airport.


And when the sign says 'Seaplanes crossing' they aren't kidding...

And our Goose sets off on another trip. Taxi out while a Cessna Caravan comes in to land...


Up onto the step....


...and there she goes...

The Grumman Goose, like all the Grumman seaplanes is a real working classic.

"Envisioned as corporate or private 'flying yachts' for Manhattan millionaires (to get from their up-state homes to downtown Manhattan) initial production models normally carried two to three passengers and had a bar and small toilet installed. As well as being marketed to small air carriers, the G-21 was also promoted as a military transport. A total of only 345 were built, with about 60 still airworthy today, some of them in modified forms, such as the Turbo-Goose."

I've seen Geese on every continent I've visited, some as treasured toys, others, like here, working machines. Many may remember Cutter's Goose from Tales of the Golden Monkey TV series, a sort of similar-to-Indiana Jones show, and these tales and other great Goose stories and facts are remembered at Gneech's Goose Page and Goose Central.

A classy way to travel.

James