Port Hardy (YZT)/Alert Bay

North Vancouver Island did not have an airport until 1943, but that did not dissuade a parade of floatplanes and flying boats from visiting the north coast.  Many made regular stops in the sheltered site in Alert Bay, just south of Port Hardy, for fuel and haven from adverse weather.

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The first air visitor to the North Island, in transit to Prince Rupert, JN-4 on floats �Pathfinder II�, 1920.

Curtiss MF Flying Boat �Northbird� arrived in 1922.

Curtiss HS2Ls from Jericho Beach were frequent visitors to Alert Bay in the 1920s.

One unusual arrival in October, 1929 was a Russian Tupelov ANT-4 that was on a record setting flight from Moscow to New York.  It succeeded in arriving at Long Island, NY, on November 1^st.

Another 1929 arrival consisted of four US Navy Loening OL8A biplanes heading north to Ketchican, Alaska on a survey assignment.  They are shown here on the beach at Alert Bay in May of that year.

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At the beginning of World War II, the RCAF�s Western Air Command needed a site that would support heavy land based aircraft on the coast.  They chose a location southeast of Port Hardy and began construction in early l942.  The first aircraft to use the station were P-40 Kittyhawks of RCAF 14 Sqn., who in March of 1943 were en route from Vancouver to Alaska.  Adverse weather resulted in a four-day unplanned stopover at the still unfinished station.

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The first Lockheed Vega Ventura aircraft of No. 8 (Bomber Reconnaissance) Squadron arrived at the new RCAF station beginning in October 1943, with the rest of the Squadron following on 11 December.  The new base became fully operational on 3 January 1944 and quickly became a key refuelling and transit stop for United States Air Force as well as the RCAF. 

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The base was staffed by several hundred men, many of them married.  Given the lack of family housing, an informal community of cabins and shacks grew on Crown Land near the station.  The official powers turned a blind eye to �Jokerville� in the name of maintaining morale, leaving the dependants to enjoy an active social life and even to elect their own mayor.

 

With the end of the war, RCAF Station Port Hardy was officially disbanded.  The airport was licensed by Ministry of Transport on February 14, 1946 as an approved alternative airport and refueling for commercial aircraft.

 

St. Columba Church,
Port Hardy�formerly the officers� mess!

The former RCAF station facilities provided much raw material for the town�s post-war development.  Barracks were converted to accommodation for staff and contractors.  Several buildings were relocated and repurposed:  the current Port Hardy Legion was originally the Sergeant�s Mess; the Officers� Mess was split into two parts and became the St Columba and St Bonaventure Churches; and, the large barrack hall was dismantled and re-erected as the Avalon School. The hospital located near Glen Lyon Creek was transported by barge to Alert Bay in 1947 and served as their hospital for a number of years.    Return to map

The airport continues to be owned and operated by Transport Canada (2021).  It presently offers full services for transient aircraft; regular scheduled services with Pacific Coastal Airlines; and, charter services with Wilderness Seaplanes.  A new terminal was opened after an indigenous blessing ceremony on May 27, 2022.

 

The Port Hardy seaplane base (CAW5) serves the town from the sheltered Hardy Bay adjacent to the town itself.

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Bad weather and relative isolation have given Port Hardy its share of accidents.  For several years a four-engine Privateer water bomber sat behind the old RCAF hangar.  It arrived August 9, 1975 at Port Hardy with one complete engine failure and problems with the others, overshot the runway and ended up in the salt chuck off the end of Runway 19.  It was dragged back to the airport and eventually dismantled.

The mural:  In 1981, a main wall in the (then) Trans-Provincial Airways pilot�s lounge was in need of some upgrading, thanks to the removal of years� worth of pinups.  A pilot waiting for his assignment, Jack Schofield, got up on a chair and started to draw what would become a 16 x 10 foot mural, showing the history of the Port Hardy operators and incorporating as many of the names of pilots who had flown from the airport as he could find�around 200 in all.  The mural was completed in December 1981 and to Jack�s surprise on his return from a trip home for Christmas, was cut out of the pilots� room and mounted over the baggage carousel in the public terminal. 

With the demolishing of the old terminal and construction of the new one under way, the mural was delivered to the BC Aviation Museum.  It is now displayed in the Museum�s Norseman Room�a monument to Vancouver Island�s coastal aviation history.

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