I am sitting in the Ottawa International Airport (YOW – my favourite airport code!) after a whirlwind trip to my hometown, and am now awaiting a flight to my newly adopted hometown of Edmonton.
Not much would have lured me away from the chaos of my first house and all the accompanying DIY projects, but I can’t turn down an exciting opportunity (by history geek standards). And being interviewed for a documentary on one of the world’s most interesting aircraft trumps tearing down ceramic wall tiles – as fun as that was!
I first heard about this proposed ‘bio-pic’ on Douglas DC-3 “Sister Ann” last June when I was stranded in Regina on my For the Love of Flying book tour. Through the magic of the internet a film production crew from Colorado Springs found my website and contacted me. After all, “Sister Ann” aka CF-POY was registered to Laurentian Air Services from 1971 to 1980.
Since then we have stayed in touch and when it came time to conduct interviews in Ottawa, they asked me to speak to the DC-3’s importance in Canada, the type of work it did with Laurentian, and so on. And while the timing for me wasn’t the greatest – my hairdresser found various colours of paint stuck to my strands yesterday! – it is perfect for the history of the Dakota, Dak or Gooney Bird. This year marks its 75th anniversary and in July 50-odd aircraft will do a mass fly-in at Oshkosh. Gosh!
It will be many months before they wrap up interviews in India and other locations, and piece together the footage they’ve collected. In the end, I’ll be a tiny piece of the puzzle, just one talking head among many in a feature-length documentary. And it’s so cool (in a history geek kind of way).
