Northwestern Air Lease celebrates 5 decades in the sky

​An N.W.T. airline is celebrating five decades of flying in the north.

Northwestern Air Lease is based in Fort Smith. The family-run airline grew from a small-scale water bombing operation to transporting thousands of people in the South Slave region.

Terry Harrold, the airline's founder, started flying in the 1950s, training with the air cadets and Royal Canadian Air Force. In the 1960s, he and a partner formed Northwestern Air Lease and started getting work "bombing" forest fires with old Second World War planes.

"In those days we didn't even have GPS," Harrold said. 

The airline's founder says the early days weren't lucrative. Harrold and his partner converted a Second World War Lancaster bomber to fight forest fires in Alberta.

"We'd just show up at different places where we knew the forest fires were and try and get on to get the work," he said. 

Generous customers

Harrold bought the airline's Fort Smith base in 1985. Then he added a couple of Cessnas, and some larger planes as Northwestern Air Lease expanded its charter and scheduled flight service.

The company has since grown its fleet to 14 aircraft, doing medevac contracts, charters and transporting more than 2,000 people each month on scheduled flights. The airline offers compassion fares and donates flights to young people going to sporting events. 

Brian Harrold, Terry's son, says their customers are generous too.

"We've had a flight going out that has been full and I said, 'I need someone to volunteer to get off the airplane. I've got to get this person to Yellowknife. They've got a family member in the hospital,'" he recalled. "And people stand up and say 'Put them on instead of me.' To see support from the community, it bring tears to my eyes."

To say thank you, the airline is offering sight seeing tours on Sunday in Fort Smith for $25 and a fish fry for the community.