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BACK ROADS BILL: Little airports in the north

To begin 2025 Bill looks at how many small airfields evolved and vanished along Highway 11, a story suggested by a reader

Driving along Highway 11 you often see the rectangular, reflective highway-green signs with the white iconic fixed-wing plane.

It represents a small plane as you can see the two wheels and the single propeller. At other locations, there are no signs as to what has vanished.

These small aircraft airfield signs have a significant history related to the Great Depression a tumultuous economic decade prior to WWII. Who knew?

At the highway sign, there is usually a perpendicular community/township side road. Not far from the asphalted highway, it leads to a small open airfield – some might say an airstrip or aerodrome. It is quiet.

The gates are open. There’s perimeter border fencing, but there is usually no one around. Sometimes there are some small buildings and Transportation Canada red and yellow aeronautical directions and safety signs for pilots. On the edges, there’s an array of small aircraft tightly tethered to the ground, some with partial protective weather covers.

You might have to wait for quite some time, as in many hours or days for a plane to take off or land, happenstance occurrences.

These are the small airfields that were created and survived. The word field is apropos to what was and what remains.

This 2025 story comes from a reader’s suggestion. A leftover from 2024 because there were a number of site visits on the back roads.

At the same time if you scan this Google Earth map along the Highway 11 corridor or look at a local 1:50 000 topo map you will see a distinctive “X” pattern of the airfield runways. Discernible on the active and abandoned airfields, take a look.

At the locations where there are no highway airport signs, you discover the remains of these patterned earthen runways now overgrown. These are the ones that nature took back over time.

(We learn as we go with the story. An airfield is a basic landing and takeoff area whereas an airport is a fully equipped facility for commercial and public aviation. Airport highway signs have a jet icon.)

Relief setting

There was nothing great about the Great Depression except its length from 1929 to 1939.

The stock market crash that began in 1929 wiped out personal investments, businesses and jobs. Prices, wages, immigration and the birth rate decreased. It is now hard to fathom why Canada's gross national expenditure dropped by 42 per cent. The national unemployment rate hovered around 30 per cent.

Starting in 1933, the federal government set up labour camps in Northern Ontario for single, unemployed, homeless Canadian males. The camps were also known as unemployment relief camps. The men were housed, fed, clothed, received basic medical care, and given twenty cents per day for discretionary spending.

Under the direction of The Defence Department, they worked on clearing and building roads (Highways 11 and 17) planting trees, defence buildings and airfields. These Highway 11 airfields were constructed during this era using enormous numbers of unemployed housed in canvas tent work camps.

Highway 11 became a provincial highway in 1920 but only extended from Toronto to north of Orillia. In 1937 the route was extended to Hearst, northwest and in 1943 the highway was extended to Nipigon

It was also during this relief time period two organizations were created sharing the TCA acronym - Trans-Canada Air Lines and the Trans-Canada Airway system. The latter organization was set up to improve airport facilities across Canada, which, in turn, facilitated the formation of the airline and ultimately a transcontinental mail and passenger service.

To cover this immense distance a system of main airports, which would be regular stops, combined with intermediate fields having radio beacons for guidance and numerous rudimentary fields in between for emergency purposes was envisioned. This would include all the identified airfields along Highway 11.

Airport improvements and, in some cases, airport construction began as early as 1929 in western Canada where terrain conditions were less of a hindrance. Northern Ontario's Canadian Shield presented the largest stumbling block in completing a country-wide network.

The airfields were aligned about a hundred miles apart along the railway tracks north from Toronto to Cochrane where the route turned west along what was originally the National Transcontinental Railway (CNR) track to Winnipeg but, by this time. taken over by the Canadian National Railway (CNR).

By September 1938 the system was complete and airmail service began March 1, 1939. On April 1, passenger service began.

History guru

Doug Newman is a retired Captain, and former Wing Heritage Officer for 22 Wing/Canadian Forces Base North Bay. He knows about Canadian military history, particularly aviation.

He is much better than a book and there are no videos to explain this unusual evolution of airfields across the north.

He said, “All of the fields were built under Department of National Defence (DND) command, organization and supervision, but anybody could use them.

“As for military airfields in the 1930s, some belonging to the RCAF and used solely by the RCAF were indeed upgraded under the Unemployment Relief Projects program--taking advantage of the money and manpower availed under the scheme.”

“In fact, one impetus to building the airfields across the country was the looming birth of Trans-Canada Air Lines (now Air Canada) - our first national airline. There was a fear within Parliament and without that, if a national airline wasn't created, the Americans would move in and set up shop on our turf, as it were.” (I started thinking of Donald Trump and his 51st state comments.)

The dotting of these airfields from the Atlantic to the Pacific was meant to provide spots where Trans-Canada Air Lines airplanes could land if they ran into bad weather they couldn't fly through or suffered mechanical or electrical problems.

Doug said for reference the North Bay Airport was built specifically for Trans-Canada Air Lines.

“That said, anyone was permitted to use the airport's airfield, military or civilian, private pilots or aviation companies. The guiding principle behind distance was that each emergency/intermediate airfield should be about 100 miles separated from the former and from the next, or from an already existing airport.

Runway configuration

Whether you are looking at a historic aerial photo, Google Earth or exploring what’s left of one on the airfields you will see a distinctive earthen runway pattern

Using the abandoned Diver airfield east of North Bay, as an example, Doug explained about the patterns of the runway and why they were designed this way.

”Diver was A-shaped, having room for three runways. Many were cross-like. The L appearance may be deceiving, the runways may actually have been a cross as well.

“When pilots were landing then (as today), especially in an emergency, they wanted to do it into the wind. They wanted to catch as much if not all of the wind with their wings, to slow their speed, which made for an easier touchdown. Think of how a bird lands. Hence, they would line up on the runway which gave them the most wind.

“They wanted the same for take-off: by heading into the wind, the latter would grab their wings, giving the best lift.”

Diver sidebar

Dr. Jonathan Pitt is indigenous and has a close connection with the land in which one of these mysterious abandoned airfields is located. Along with his family, he has travelled the forests and lakes in the Diver- McConnell Lake Road area for half a century. This entire airfield story was his suggestion.

Diver is a different example of an abandoned airfield with an extended story. This is a bit of a sidebar to the main theme as each airfield has its own heritage.

As a summary between 1933 to 1936, the RCAF cleared forest and built an emergency airfield at Diver, 11 miles (17.6 km) north of North Bay, for the Trans-Canada Airway System.

Back to retired Captain Newman, he explains “Diver was a DND project, one of eight emergency airfields hacked out of the Northern Ontario wilderness between 1933 and 1936, in the Ottawa to Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) portion of the Trans-Canada Airway system.

He said, “Think of the Trans-Canada Highway but in the sky.”

On 1 January 1923, the Department of National Defence (DND) took over control over all civil as well as military aviation in Canada, under a plan instituted by the federal government to organize aviation in the country. “Everything from charting new air routes across the country, to the certification of private pilots, to the locating and building of new airports fell within its domain.

“Specifically, the Canadian Air Force (“Royal” added in 1924) ran this for DND up to 1927.”

He said it was a bit of a ‘sawed off.’ “Civilians vociferously unhappy at being governed and told what to do by the military, and the RCAF, unhappy at having to look after the civilian side of aviation instead of concentrating solely on its air force needs, the DND removed control from the RCAF.

"DND however continued to oversee the civilian end of things, creating two new branches within its body that dealt strictly with civil aviation.

“But because the air force had the most experience of any entity in Canada with respect to aviation--in particular from its aircrew, ground crew, administrators, etc., participation in the First World War (in British flying services) -RCAF personnel filled a wide, sweeping array of posts in the civil part of DND. In fact, RCAF officers filled many of the key and influential positions.”

One of these was Squadron Leader John Henry Tudhope, a South African-born First World War fighter ace, who emigrated to Canada after the war. (squadron leader = major in the army.)

Doug stated, “Tudhope almost single-handedly laid down the entire brand-new network of aviation in the Atlantic to Winnipeg half of Canada, exploring and surveying the urban, rural and wild bits of the country, for the establishment of air routes and construction of aero-dromes for the Trans-Canada Airway system--essentially a national air highway network.

In 1928, Tudhope stopped twice at North Bay, and again in 1931 and 1932. “Based on his exploration and survey work in the Northern Ontario region, the first week of June 1933, the Civil Aviation Branch of DND announced that it had chosen the city as the nerve centre for construction of a string of emergency landing fields in the Ottawa to Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) portion of the Trans-Canada Airway system.”

There was a real need for these airfields.

“These were places a flying crew could land if confronted by weather too dangerous to fly through, or, especially, if their airplane was suffering a mechanical or electrical crisis. During the 1930s the latter were all too common, the reliability of flying machines in that age far from 100 per cent. Without the emergency fields, the only alternatives were to try and set down on water, on ice (if the winter), a farmer’s field or some open area of the wilderness—all of these choices offering the very likely prospect of demolition of the aircraft and death and/or injury of its humans.”

Leaving North Bay the Trans-Canada Air Lines' passenger planes followed the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway tracks (later re-named Ontario Northland in 1946) north towards Cochrane. The first emergency airfield they encountered on this leg was Diver, located east of Diver Siding, hence its name where men and equipment to build the airfield were off- and on-loaded.

Diver eventually assumed another purpose. Fast forward to September 1952, a year after the North Bay air base was formed, the Diver site was inspected for an air gunnery range.

“Diver didn't become DND property until the early 1950s.” examination by RCAF officers showed it would make an ideal gunnery range for North Bay's jet fighters,” said Doug Newman.

“Then it was scooped up by the federal government. Even then, if an airplane--civilian or military--had a problem it could land at Diver. Naturally, some allowance and care had to be made if shooting was in progress.”

In 1953 the site began use by CF-100s for target practice. The CF-100 was a Canadian twinjet interceptor/fighter designed and produced by aircraft manufacturer Avro Canada during the Cold War.

It has the distinction of being the only Canadian-designed fighter to enter mass production (1946). Each jet had eight .50 calibre guns. You can easily find shell casings today in and around the Diver landscape. A CF-100 can be seen, mounted, at Lee Park part of the North Bay waterfront.

It is known that over time tens of thousands of rounds and the metal linkages that joined bullets into belts were sprayed in the area.

Early in 1962, the air base’s CF-100s were replaced by CF-101 Voodoos, which carried missiles and nuclear-tipped rockets.

The Diver airfield reverted provincial Crown land in 1958 through the Lands and Forests (now the MNR).

Epilogue

The list of airfields follow Highway 11 North and then veered westward at Cochrane, at Hearst (Highway 11 was not yet finished in the 1930s) the airfields begin to follow the CNR rail line around the top of Lake Nipigon.

It would seem the only facility (original hangar) remaining from the 1930s is found at Emsdale, south of Burk’s Falls and just west (2 km) of Highway 11 – take the # 518 secondary highway. This airfield has been managed by a local incorporated group (Emsdale Airport Authority Inc.).

The South River has a highway sign and is easily found on Highway 11-B between Sundridge and South River consists of two well-maintained turf strips in a wide X-configuration and is known as South River-Sunridge District Airport (Airpark).

To visit the abandoned Diver emergency airfield and gunnery range head east of North Bay on Highway 63 towards Quebec until you come to McConnell Lake Road (just before Eldee). You turn left or north onto McConnell Lake Road. Drive to the end “T” in the road just past Blue Lake Campground. Turn left (south) at the “T” (right or north takes you to Maclaren’s Bay) and continue towards Boland Lake, you will see the road into the airfield there. Diver gives you the feel of what was.

The remains of the Gillies (Cobalt) abandoned airfield can be found behind the Coleman Township municipal office and work centre on the east side of Highway 11 just before the Highway 11-B turnoff for Cobalt. Or drive along the adjacent Airport Rd, which was this airfield’s northern border, now with homes all along the way.

The Ramore airfield is discernible and its history is related to the former nearby radar base.

Some of the early airfields became airports such as Earlton, Iroquois Falls (Porquis Jct. – you can see the abandoned “X” on the landscape, along with the new runway of 1955 then paved in the late1970’s) and Kapuskasing (where the original crossover was retained).

With buddy Brian Emblin of Timmins, we visited as many airfields as possible along the Highway 11 corridor. He said, “When we first started looking at these airports a few thoughts came to mind - how did they house and feed all these men in these labour camps

“Clearing the land and making a runway with no modern equipment must have been a ton of work, the number of men needs must have been massive.” And a comment on the Great Depression. “How bad would your life have been that you went to work on these mobile work camps?”

Go back to the map link most of the airfields are along, and close to Highway 11 and the CNR line. If you zoom in on each blue pin you can often see the very distinctive “X” or crossover pattern on some of the active and abandoned airfields. Some of the Highway 11 airfields were abandoned, and others became the small-town airports of today.

Now we know (“Who knew?) the reasons why and where there are airport signs across northern Ontario. There’s a lot to learn on the back roads if you look around.



Bill Steer

About the Author: Bill Steer

Back Roads Bill Steer is an avid outdoorsman and is founder of the Canadian Ecology Centre
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