Northern Flyer
How CALM Air became an airline

By Ritchie Gage

 The romantic images of aviation in Canada’s north are of small fixed winged planes banking like giant moths over glassy lakes ringed by dark pine forests which can swallow a plane whole.

  It is in this rugged country that CALM Air started ferrying passengers 46 years ago and now serves the people of northern Manitoba and the central Arctic.

  Gail Morberg can tell you about that world. She and her late husband Arnold Morberg were pioneers of flying into keyhole communities in the early 1960s.

  Today, at 68, Morberg is chairman, surviving founder and sole owner of 46-year-old established aviation company, CALM Air International, whose logo dominates Manitoba’s north and the central Arctic. Arnold died in 2005 at age 69 leaving the company to his wife who knew it intimately and was there in the beginning in 1962 when Arnold bought his first pontooned Cessna 180. 

 “My husband was a wonderful man who never took no for an answer,” she says. “He was my plumber, electrician, carpenter, pilot and the father of my four children.”

 Soft-spoken with a disarming sense of humor garnered from her life in the north  Gail Morberg is gregarious and charming.

 “You have to know what you’re doing or the north will beat you. It can be a difficult place to fly but our pilots and planes are the best there is. We know what we’re doing,” she says proudly. “We have made this airline a specialty in its knowledge of the north.”

 Northern Manitoba and Nunavut are an unforgiving wilderness land of muskeg, tundra, moose, wolves, bears, whales, ice and extreme cold for seven months of the year.

 It is home to isolated indigenous settlements whose residential history in this part of the world is thousands of years old.

 At one time a canoe or dog sled was the way of travel. Now air travel connects isolated communities as an essential part of daily living.

  Calm Air’s logo is tattooed on the mind of anyone who has flown into the north.  Flights go to and from of settlements several times a day providing regular scheduled service, a far cry from the days of expensive charter flights as the only alternative. 
The Thompson-based CALM Air has sustained  a business of scheduled aircraft travel into isolated northern settlements.  Inuit hamlets huddled along the east coast of Hudson Bay like  Arviat, Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake, Whale Cove and Repulse Bay are all accessible through maintained landing strips.

 Other flights routes serve aboriginal reserves like Shamattawa which is east of Thompson and South Indian Lake northwest of Thompson and more populated locations like The Pas and Flin Flon.

 There are six flights each weekday from Thompson to Winnipeg, or three flights per weekday to Churchill and north from Winnipeg.  Calm Air flies from Winnipeg to the Arctic circle every weekday. 

 Today their planes have a larger capacity and are more sophisticated but the reason for flying remains the same; serving the transportation needs of northern peoples.

  Being a multi-million dollar enterprise means employing about 450 people, including 60 pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and cargo ground crews from Winnipeg to its headquarters in Thompson plus a large base in Churchill with additional smaller bases in the high north. Winnipeg also has a major cargo center and maintenance building.

All this from one plane – a pontooned Cessna 180 purchased by Arnold and Gail in 1962 to transport fishermen and hunters from Stony Rapids. He was familiar with the north as his parents ran a fishing lodge there , just south of the North West Territories.

 The Gail and Arnold Morberg’s story is a romance like flying itself. Wilderness boy – Arnold Morberg – meets country girl – Gail Tratch – from Wakaw Saskatchewan who was working in the Saskatoon Dodge truck dealership. Boy wins girl after a short courtship and they marry and return to a tiny settlement in northern Saskatchewan.

 That’s the beginning of CALM Air, named after Arnold’s full name – Carl Arnold Lawrence  Morberg.

  With vivid and fond recall Gail says,  “In the early 60s Arnold started work as a salesman at a truck dealership – Early Motor Company – in Saskatoon. He was 25 and he wanted to find a wife and make some money selling trucks so he could get his pilot’s licence. ”

 Arnold, the son of a Swedish immigrant helped his dad in the summer at the family’s fishing lodge at the historic Stony Rapids, 90 kilometres south of the North West Territories border.  

 Gail says, “Arnold was quite tall, good looking and had a few good ideas, but, I though he was a bit forward so I held him off for awhile. I had never been in the wilderness except for a few summers picking berries, so this was all new to me.”

 They were married in November of the next year, 1961, in Saskatoon and moved to Stony Rapids. It’s a spectacular place on the fur trading route of early Canadian explorers Samuel Hearne, Alexander MacKenzie and cartographer David Thompson. Hearne in fact mentioned in his diary that he had caught four 48 inch lake trout. The land is rich in pine forest, deep wide lakes and indigenous people shaped by its rugged beauty. The panorama is emblematic of Canada’s wilderness identity.

 After marrying Gail, Arnold built a small cabin in Stony Rapids. Summer was wonderful, she recalls, but winter was a  challenge but it was all new to her at 21. 
Gail describes their first home as simple.

 “The walls were covered with tar paper and the snow blew through the cracks in winter. “There were no windows, no phone or television. We had a five gallon galvanized can for a toilet – it had a seat – and we used an air tight heater to warm us with a little tin stove to cook on,” she recalls.
 But they did have a shower.

 A plastic curtain hung in a circle from a hoola hoop for privacy. First they had to melt the snow and strain all the birch seeds out of the water then it drained from a heavy plastic bag overhead.

 “We were young and I was too stupid to know better, love made me crazy and for me it was adventure.

 She says Arnold was very sociable and there company was always handy.
 “We had lots of fun, we had ‘cook overs’ and played cards. There were only about 26 people – including a Hudson Bay store employee, an RCMP officer and a public health nurse in a two bed hospital and a small school. There was no telephone, only radio contact Arnold’s parents ran a general store in the settlements and rented out several rooms to pilots and guests.

 Arnold’s father traded furs with the Chipawayan Indians who still lived off the land.
 Gail sewed her own clothing and baked bread, which she says were ‘bricks’ at first. 

 “I was absolutely fascinated with the whole way of life. We were a great group and always got together,” she says. “We often had weiner roasts in the middle of the week. It was absolutely an entertaining life.”

 Arnold got a pilot’s licence in 1961 at 25 and he purchased a pontoon Cessna 180 to fly fisherman to outer lakes. He also had a charter licence which meant he could move people and freight among communities in the area.

 “I had my share of bad take-offs and bad landings and I learned a lot about travel,” she says. “Arnold and often I traveled.”

 Now she herself is a world traveler.  With the benefits of owning an airline she taken advantage of the opportunities to visit other countries, especially parts of Britain – which she finds charming. She still lives in their final home at Paint Lake on the outskirts 20 minutes outside of Thompson a goes to the office most days.

  She looks back on the company’s progress and says the climb into real commercial service was in 1969 when the Morbergs bought out a small air service out of the mining town of Lynn Lake and with their children moved their operations to the larger settlement.

 In 1973 a Twin Otter was purchased and in and Arnold asked the federal government for permission to ‘schedule’ his settlement flights to save people money on charters. He was able to do this with smaller planes, Gail says, with the help of former prime minister John Diefenbaker. Mr. Diefenbaker had fished with Arnold and understood the needs of the people in isolated settlements so he had the transport department push the application through.

 The move to Lynn Lake started a 16 year period of growth. The north was an active place in the seventies with the construction of a hydro-electric dam on the Nelson River and continual mining exploration.

 The company grew with the needs of the north. By 1985 CALM Air had grown large enough to be relocated again. There was a suggestion that the office move to Winnipeg, but Gail says her husband wouldn’t leave the north.

 “He was adamant about staying in the north so that was that, we stayed,” she recalls.

 So Thompson became the company’s headquarters.
Today, CALM Air has an fleet of million dollar aircraft plying the northern skies moving people and freight.

 Calm Air provides frequent daily flights throughout Manitoba and Nunavut serviced by three SAAB 340 B aircraft with a 34 seat capacity. Three SAAB 340B+ aircraft modified to 25 seats with an extended cargo bay. Three ATR-42 passenger aircraft in a 42-seat configuration with the ability of expanding the passenger seats to 52.
 In addition, they fly two Cessna Grand Caravan 208, 9 passenger aircraft.  The two extra large doors in the Hawker Siddeley 748  are unique to aviation in that they allow for over sized freight to be flown like Generators, boats and mining equipment . There is one combi Hawker Siddeley 748  which can fly 40 passengers, passengers with freight or strictly freight.  Charter industry?
 CALM Air’s is a lifeline for the people whose lives have evolved from family to family for hundreds of years in isolation from the larger world.

 These are indigenous people like the Cree, Ojibway and Dene and Inuit who are survivors in world where few people understand their needs.   In their communities on traditional lands they forego a lot of conveniences taken for granted in the south but they cannot do without air services.  The Morberg’s have a significant presence in the company with three daughters working in the three main bases. Marion, 45, is manager of marketing in Thompson Margo, 39, is the Cargo Manager runs the cargo facility  in Winnipeg and Monica, 35, in Churchill has a Flying License and has been a captain and is  Churchill Station Manager. She also works her own trapline. Nelson Morberg, 44, is a well-known guide based in Churchill and  owns Webers Lodges.

Gary Beaurivage is Calm Air’s president and as such is the chief operating officer. He started with the company May 6th 1974 when he was 17.

 “I started working when Gail and Arnold were getting things going and I would say the company’s main job from day to day and season to season is simple enough: ensure that we move people and freight as efficiently and as safely as possible,” he says.

 Beaurivage says the airline flies in two major weather conditions; southern Manitoba from Thompson to Winnipeg and in the Arctic north of Churchill. 

 “The Arctic has to be respected and you have to know it well,” he says. “With our 45 years in the business, we pretty well know what we’re up against. There can be a blue sky above but wind can cause a ‘whiteout’ on the ground and that can cause problems.”

Top of mind at the moment is the steep increase in aviation fuel.
“You can’t pass the costs on to passengers or people will stop flying.  There has to be accommodation and efficiency within the operation in order to keep fares reasonable."
 Beaurivage says one of the key elements in the success of the airline is its staff.
 “You can buy planes but you have to retain flying talent and the people to maintain your equipment which operates under extreme weather conditions. We have 60 well-trained pilots to fly our planes.  We have a six-person management group that ensures the direction of about 400 people throughout the system with another 50-70 under contract in the north,” he says. “We are in a competitive business and we have to be sharp to retain our leadership role in the north.”

 With the company well into the next generation of Morbergs and with its 50th anniversary coming in five year, the north itself is growing.

 Gary says that Nunavut, though a small region, has the highest growth rate of young people in Canada. In addition the mining industry and new damn projects are in the mix the future is full of growth.