Can-do farmers save Canso plane

Can-do farmers save Canso plane



Northern rescue mission brings vintage aircraft safely to Fairview



By Keith Gerein, Edmonton JournalJanuary 31, 2010

The Canso vintage airplane marooned by a frozen Arctic lake gets a tow across the tundra.

Photograph by: Supplied by Doug Roy, edmontonjournal.com




At first glance, the assignment must have seemed like something out of a Mission Impossible movie, but one even Tom Cruise would refuse to take on: Trek into the wilderness north of the Arctic Circle, retrieve a broken plane marooned on the edge of a remote, frozen lake, and find a way to drag it out of the bush some 2,500 kilometres back to civilization.
Oh, and do it in early spring when temperatures are still hovering around -40 C.
Sound like a fool's errand?
Not to Don Wieben, a vintage airplane enthusiast who has restored a number of older aircraft and flown them around Canada.
For this project, his prize was an abandoned Canso -- an amphibious plane built during the Second World War to hunt submarines and protect convoys crossing the Atlantic. Just a handful of the aircraft remain in the skies today, which is why Wieben, a farmer from Fairview, Alta., decided to recruit a group of relatives, friends and neighbours for an elaborate rescue mission.
"The idea was to salvage a significant part of Canadian history," Wieben says. "The Canso served a pretty important role during the war, rescuing sailors and airmen, patrolling for submarines. The Spitfire and the bombers got all the glory, but the Canso quietly went about its job."
Wieben's immersion in aviation started in childhood while he was growing up in Northern Ontario. His father worked as an instructor for the Royal Canadian Air Force, served as a test pilot, then started his own airline in Thunder Bay, transporting cargo to northern aboriginal communities.
Wieben caught the piloting bug early, completing his first solo flight when he was 14.
As a young man he started working for his father's company, hauling freight in the summers when he was off from school. It was during these trips that he met his wife Marg in Sioux Lookout, Ont.
"I grew up with airplanes like people on the Prairies grow up around tractors," he says.

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