Ed Zaruk's Archives

Jim Spilsbury originally started in the radio business, building small radio telephones for the small communities and logging camps along British Columbia’s rugged coast. Finding boat travel too slow, he was granted permission to fly to these places during WW II, when no other civil air traffic was allowed. After the war he expanded the air operations under the name Queen Charlotte Airlines.

Norseman aircraft became the mainstay of his single engine fleet, serving the fog bound inlets from Vancouver to Prince Rupert. CF-EJB was the first Norseman purchased. A pre-war Mark IV, it had served with the RCAF at wireless schools across Canada. Crashing once and being rebuilt by Noorduyn Aviation in 1941. In 1946 it was put up for sale and QCA bought it for $15,000. No sooner was in on the west coast than Jim Spilsbury had it flown north with a pilot named Hughie Hughs to Whitesail Lake where he spent the summer flying for Northern Construction and BC Engineering, doing preliminary survey work on the Alcan project. The season netted QCA fifteen thousand dollars.

Sadly, three years later after faithfully serving the west coast, CF-EJB would be taken into the hangar, stripped down for overhaul, and found so badly corroded, that she was deemed uneconomical to put back in service. So ended QCA’s first Norseman’s days.

Seventeen more would follow, bringing freight and passengers to places on Jarvis Inlet, Seymor Inlet, Kingcome Inlet, Knight Inlet and others on the west coast until QCA was sold to Pacific Western Airlines in a political deal that saw the demise of The Accidental Airline.

 I recommend this book as an excellent read about Canada's west  coast air services during the year the Norseman reigned as king.