ODDS’N’SODS — Jack Elliot, flying ace

Jack V. Elliot Ltd. Air Service of Hamilton, Ont., operated the first commercial air service to Red Lake during the gold rush of 1926.

Elliot, an outstanding pioneer aviator, started the first automobile accessories supply store in Hamilton in 1922. He also sold radios and opened that city’s first radio station, CFCU. In 1922, he sold his racing car and bought his first aircraft, a Curtiss CANUK JN4 war surplus training plane. After learning to fly it, he purchased a total of 10 Curtiss CANUK JN4 aircraft and started a flying school to train future pilots, mechanics and air crews. He built a hanger and office on the Nabb Street waterfront. His automobile supply store and radio station was at 234 King St. West. Elliot got his commercial pilot’s licence in August of 1925, at Trenton Air Base near Toronto. The Curtiss CANUKs were made in Toronto in 1917-1918 to train pilots for the British Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force during the First World War. In 1919-1920, they were declared “war surplus” and sold to the public. His Commercial Air Service in Hamilton took up citizens for an aerial view of the city in 10-minute flights for $10 each in the open-cockpit training planes. He also had a plane at all local county fairs to take up passengers for 5-minute trips at $5 a head.

The Gold Rush to Red Lake started in early January, 1926, and soon was printed in newspapers and broadcast on radios worldwide. Thousands of men took the train to Hudson, near Sioux Lookout, Ont., on the Canadian National Railways, then walked 135 miles in to Red Lake on a chain of frozen lakes and rivers which took them 8-10 days to travel.

Jack Elliot read about this gold rush in the daily papers. He crated three aircraft and shipped them to Sioux Lookout, where they were assembled and flight-tested in March of 1926. They were moved 12 miles west to Hudson Station where all the rush prospectors were leaving on the trail to Red Lake, down the 100-mile-long Lac Suel and stopping to rest at Gold Pines Post of the Hudson’s Bay Co. to buy supplies, then on to Red Lake. Many men had hired or owned dog teams of five or six, and extra food had to be carried to feed the dogs every evening as the men were cooking their own suppers over an open fire.

Jack Elliot and his fellow pilot, A.H. Farrington, made the first commercial flight to Red Lake on March 3, 1926. The 100-mile flight, which carried only one passenger, took more than one hour. The rate was set at $1 per lb. for passenger and light baggage in the open cockpit. The two aircraft flew side by side, following the long line of perhaps a thousand men and some 5,000 sled dogs going north on frozen Lac Suel. Fifteen to 20 men lined up every day at Elliot’s office in Hudson. Many offered $1.50 per lb. to be flown into Red Lake, rather than spend 10 days walking in on the winter trail. Elliot had been appointed the temporary post master of Red Lake in order to fly in the airmail, provided that each letter carried a special air mail stamp of his company’s name.

The Elliot Air Service’s two planes flew on skis until the end of April, when breakup of the winter ice occurred. Elliot then chartered a flying boat for the months of May through October.

Jack Elliot Air Service flew 587 passengers and 1 1/2 tons of airmail and air freight from Hudson to Red Lake in the 1926 season.

Two larger new airways started up and Elliot dropped his fare to $100 per passenger and 50 cents per lb. for air fright. He moved back to his flying school in Hamilton in December, 1926. On June 5, 1929, he moved to Owen Sound, Ont. In 1930, he retired in Texas where he died on Sept. 30, 1964, at the age of 75.

He was one of Canada’s aviation pioneers.

— A regular contributor, Donald Parrott is a retired operating engineer living in Thunder Bay, Ont.