Good morning from Kuujjuaq, Quebec! My name is Alex,
and I’m about to spend a couple hours on an Air Inuit Twin Otter.
Air Inuit has one of the largest operations of any Quebec-based regional airline,
and mainly serves the northern region of the province, known as Nunavik.
Located in the far northeast of the province,
Kuujjuaq is the largest town in this region, home to over 2,600 people. Because of that,
it’s an important hub for Air Inuit and for the communities along the Ungava Bay coast.
After a couple nights here exploring, taking in the scenery,
and obviously doing some plane spotting with my good friend Mark, it was time to head back south.
For a couple of reasons, the best way for us to get back to Montreal involved a connection in
another northern community - the village of Puvirnituq, on the Hudson Bay coast.
I’ll admit, this routing was… not our first choice, considering the
experience we had there last year being stranded for 3 days thanks to a windstorm.
Ultimately though, it’s not every day you get to fly an incredibly obscure route like this one,
so I had a feeling it’d be worth it just for the added adventure!
When we booked the flight originally,
this was supposed to be on one of Air Inuit’s three Beechcraft King Airs,
and would’ve been a nice way to finally cross off every single type that they fly!
Unfortunately, it got swapped to this De Havilland Canada Twin Otter at one point,
a 49-year-old -300 model registered as Charlie Foxtrot Alpha India Yankee.
Don’t get me wrong - the Twin Otter is 100% a marvel of Canadian ingenuity,
and is easily one of the most versatile planes ever. It’s just that we kind of already flew
on one the previous day by taking a short round trip flight to another village called Tasiujaq.
Alpha India Yankee first flew in 1973 and was delivered to Bradley Air Services,
which became First Air and is now Canadian North. It flew with them as
well as a few American operators until it joined Air Inuit’s fleet in 2004.
The Twin Otters seat a few more people than the King Airs do anyway, so operationally,
it wasn’t that big a change. However, Twin Otters do fly… Substantially slower,
so the flight time was bound to increase a bit.
An interesting thing about Northern Canadian aviation is that a lot of
these regional routes with smaller planes don’t actually have any security screening,
and in Kuujjuaq, they only screen people for the 737 flights.
For us, it was just another boarding pass and
ID check and out the door to our ride for the next couple of hours!
For Air Inuit’s northern flights, seats are pretty much first-come-first serve,
and having already sat up front on my previous Twin Otter flight,
I decided to pick this exit row seat in the very back of the plane.
As you can see, there’s not a ton to these seats,
but at least the last row has some extra legroom, which I knew would come in handy.
In total, there were just 5 passengers on board,
so with a few words from our crew, we were off to Puvirnituq!
Here’s our departure from Kuujjuaq, off of runway 31.
Like our last Twin Otter flight, we quickly reached a fairly low cruising altitude of just
2000 feet, and settled in for the next two hours.
One thing I like about the Twin Otter is just how big the windows are,
and I can pretty easily lean over and look out the other side!
In the seatback pocket, Air Inuit had their Twin Otter safety card,
and a couple air sickness bags. The flight was pretty smooth though considering this was April
and still decently cold, plus this area of high pressure, so those bags thankfully weren’t needed.
I do have to imagine that summertime flying up here can be quite a bit bumpier though,
what with all the different changes in terrain down below.
As far as inflight service goes, that was self-supplied with only the best from the
Northern store in Kuujjuaq! For what it’s worth, Air Inuit has some seriously impressive
catering on their 737 flights, but obviously there’s not much you can do on these planes!
Air Inuit’s Twin Otters all have these air vents and some reading lights at each seat.
Now, with 99% of all airline flights in Canada, you’re usually on a pressurized aircraft,
which is why seeing light through the cracks in the door is not something I’m used to!
Other than that though, it was just a matter of keeping myself occupied for the next little
while as we continued to fly through what can only be described as barely VFR conditions.
The flight between Kuujjuaq and Puvirnituq covers a distance of 298 nautical miles,
or 551 kilometres. The thing about this route is that Nunavik’s communities are all located
along the coast. Although there are tons and tons of little lakes and rivers that
make up the interior of Northern Quebec, there is pretty much zero human presence.
As we broke out of the fog and into some clear skies,
that gave us a front-row seat to the beauty of the landscape below.
There is something about the majesty of, just hundreds and hundreds of kilometres
of unspoiled wilderness, and the fact that we’re only a thousand feet above it, at some points.
That contrast of sitting in something as technologically advanced as the Twin Otter
while looking out at this beautifully empty sight is something that I can’t quite put into words.
For me personally, I grew up in a city and I’ve always known that particular lifestyle,
but there’s something about Northern Canada that just fascinates me. Needless to say,
I was well occupied for the rest of the flight!
Eventually, the first sign of civilization since
we left Kuujjuaq came into view as we approached the town of Puvirnituq.
Puvirnituq is the second largest community in Nunavik, with a population of 2100. It also
serves as a hub of sorts for the other communities along the Hudson Bay coast.
As you can tell, it also has one of the longer gravel runways, and has direct flights
to Montreal with Air Inuit’s 737-200s. That should be a hint as to where I’m headed next.
Here’s the approach and landing on runway 19.
Well, I never thought I’d find myself here again!
I think this was easily one of the most unique flights I’ll ever take.
It’s not every day you get to fly across Northern Quebec at 2,000 feet! That said,
I was glad to be standing upright again, and now had to figure out what
to do with a couple hours in Puvirnituq. That’s a video for another time though.
Thank you so much for watching this special flight with Air Inuit, and I’ll see you in the next one.