This is a warm, humorous, and candid look at the helicopter as a bush-flying aircraft, and at the machines and people that opened the North during the post-war years. A first-hand account, it is written by a veteran helicopter bush pilot who flew early Bell 47 helicopters all over the Canadian Arctic in the 1950s and 1960s.

Amid the ribaldry and outrageous images—helicopters cartwheeling down hillsides, white-outs that disorient even the stablest of personalities—is a feast of detail on flying life that raises the book far above mere folksiness.—TOM KOPPEL, CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC

Canadians have always been proud of the daring fixed-wing pilots who opened the north in the 20s and 30s, but few are aware of the tremendous job carried out by helicopter pilots following WWII. Peter Corley-Smith was involved in the building of the Mid-Canada radar line. His helicopter flying took him from Labrador to Baffin Island to the Yukon and British Columbia—a most readable book.—ERNEST LEE, LONDON FREE PRESS

Aviation/Memoir
250 pp, 6 x 9, colour and b/w photos
ISBN 1-55039-059-7, paper, $21.95