In June, I had a once in a lifetime experience – I flew on a de Havilland Beaver from Vancouver Airport to Galiano Island, one of the gulf islands between Vancouver and Victoria.

I was invited by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo to attend Fireworks Factory, a gathering a smart, progressive marketers. I wanted very much to attend. However, I was scheduled to be in Austin the day prior to Fireworks Factory and there was no way I could get to Vancouver in time to catch the last ferry of the day destined for Galiano. As it turned out, both Sherrilynne Starkie and Nora Young also were booked on flights that arrived too late for the ferry.

We had three people in search of a solution. And that solution: charter a floatplane  that would take us from the airport to Galiano. So off we went on our excellent adventure. And I recorded it on video to share with my friends. Sadly, I lost almost all of the video I produced. I backup my hard drive to Dropbox. However, the Internet connnection on Galiano Island was iffy and slow. So, the video files were trickling up to Dropbox. And wouldn’t you know it, this would be the time that my computer would pick to fail! After numerous calls to Dell support, my hard drive was wiped and everything but a few still photos and a couple video outtakes were lost. A frustrating experience because I really wanted to capture and hold on to this experience. And a lesson in the ephemeral nature of all media.

So, here’s the little bit of video I could salvage. The rest will play only in the memories of Nora, Sherrilynne and me. 🙁

In case you aren’t aware, the DeHavilland Beaver is an aviation icon. Over 1600 Beavers were manufactured in its 20 year production run beginning in 1947. And although the final Beaver came off the assembly line over 45 years ago, in 1967, many are still in service.   It is the quintessential bush plane, used widely in Canada’s north. It is a true Canadian icon that has inspired legions of fans. One fan, Neil Aird has established a Website, DHC-2.com, where he is attempting to compile a pictorial history of every individual Beaver.

Other sources of information about the DeHavilland Beaver:

DHC-2.com, with histories of individual Beavers

The de Havilland Beaver entry on Wikipedia

The Beaver page on Bush-planes.com