Polar Bears, Dog Sleds, and Aviation History in the Arctic: An Ode to Dad

Clyde Walker Pierce, Jr. at Baffin Island

Two months ago, my father, Clyde Walker Pierce, Jr. passed away. I am indebted to him for a fair amount of my love for history. Had my mother known about the grisly tales he told me at bedtime about his adventures as a WWII pilot, she surely would have stopped him. In other posts, I have written about Maine's military history - Revolutionary War, Civil War, and WWII. Here, I share just a slice of my father's memoir - a peek into the life of a Maine pilot flying into the Arctic, a world of polar bears, dog sleds, and endless ice.

Written by Clyde Walker Pierce, Jr. in 2005

"This is a typical trip to Greenland from Presque Isle, Maine via Goose Bay Labrador. We usually used C47 Douglass Aircraft, or C46 Curtiss aircraft. This particular trip we elected to use the C46 because of its superior speed, cargo capacity, and range without refueling. The crew consisted of pilot, copilot, radio operator, and crew chief.

We took off with a ground temperature around 20 degrees below zero and climbed to 6000 feet above sea level. The upper air was crisp and outside temperature gauge reading 32 below zero. We crossed the Saint Lawrence River, near Anticosta Island, where the distance to cross it was 92 miles, and since the weather was mostly free of clouds we could see our checkpoint the Mirigan, PQ airstrip.

Clyde Walker Pierce, Jr.

From now on all the way to Goose Bay, Labrador everything looks the same - snow and pretty pointed green evergreen trees and so after multiple small lakes hidden by the snow we arrived at Goose Bay airport after three hours of flight time for the 400 miles. The airport was jointly operated by the U.S. on south side and Canadian on the north side.

I should have pointed out we were actually civilians flying Army Air Corp planes but employees of the Northeast Airlines. We were greeted by Colonel Fisk Haskoll the Base Commander. We went to the dining hall and had a meal while plane had fuel tanks topped off.

C46 courtesy of ww2.wwarii.com

A new flight plan was filed and we were off to Greenland some 800+ miles across the cold and stormy Atlantic. We were flying between cloud layers most of the way but about 200 miles from destination we broke out clear above and also below. Soon we were able to hear the beacon at entrance to the Ungliavik Fjord and the needle on the ADF radio homed on the beach almost right on the nose. These signals, beam, or whatever project further and stronger over water than land areas. However before we reached the beacon we encountered lower clouds so we let down over the water and go below the clouds around 500 feet. Anyway we started up the Fjord with high mountain ridges on both sides. The passage is narrow and once you get to this point there is no way you have room to do a 180 degree turn. Yes you are then committed to keep going and if visibility disappears you land in the water. I might add at this point that all the land is not covered by snow as the howling winds see to that. Now multiple ship masts ride out of the water, any sailing vessels that found their graves here. I sort of wondered what the history of these ships would reveal. On the high spots on either side of the Fjord were pointed rock cairns in abundance and I later was informed that Eskimo fishermen were buried in them in a standing position so they could look at their favorite fishing area through a slit that was in the cairn.

This day we were lucky as the cloud ceiling did not lower and we broke out into a valley bowl made a hard turn of 40 degrees and there was the rock and dirt strip. We went into a good sized wooden shack, closed the flight plan, and ate some chow. Since we had a large amount of cargo to be unloaded we decided to do a little sight-seeing. At the end of the valley bowl a huge glacier rose and at its base was some clear water - we could look down in the water and see huge salmon. I thought the salmon were 3-4 feet down but the Eskimo who was showing us around explained in very good English that the fish were down over 30 feet - the water was so clear and free of any and all contamination it would fool one.

Walker at 96 with his Greenlandic model kayak

The Eskimo wore muckalucks [sic] on his feet and legs, a beauty of a parka made from seal skin and animal furs with attached headpiece that would protect him from wind and cold. He told us that when we left and reached the ocean that some of his people would be far out at sea fishing and it turned out to be true - they were out in their kayaks 20 or more miles out to sea.

The trip back was uneventful but there would be more trips to Greenland and beyond but that is another story."

Indeed, and many more stories there were. Thanks, Dad.

(Not) Hearing History at Governor Baxter School for the Deaf

Governor Percival Baxter

Quakers enjoy a very long history in Maine, reaching back to the days when our state was still part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thanks to my family's new relationship with Friends Camp in China, Maine, my life's path has crossed with that of Quaker history. For that reason, I found myself on Mackworth Island in Falmouth yesterday, attending a Friends Camp Committee meeting. The Quaker school presence on Mackworth is recent, made possible, I was told, by the shrinking enrollment at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf. In the 1950s, Baxter deeded his summer island home to the state of Maine and eventually hosted the school that now bears his name.

1922 Portland Press Herald Glass Negative, Maine Memory

By coincidence, yesterday was the day of the Deaf Culture Festival, the 135th anniversary of deaf education in Maine, and the grand reopening of the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf Museum. I confess I didn't know this museum existed; it opened in 1995 to exhibit an array of school memorabilia, as well as teletype technology.

Baxter School for Deaf Museum Exhibit

During a break from my Committee meeting I dashed into the museum. Having no personal experience with the deaf community, I was fascinated by Bill Nye's collection of deaf communication devices. Their diverse forms paralleled the innovations in television, radio, phone, and telegram technologies.

Teletype Machine - exhibit at deaf culture museum

Sadly, the museum tentatively represented a more sober aspect of deaf student experience, one that I had not heard of previously. Apparently, like many other residential educational institutions (including those for Wabanaki peoples), the school for the deaf has a history of staff sexually abusing the children. While some apologies and public healing have taken place, many lives have been scarred, even lost.

I returned to the Quaker meeting, finding members in the process of discussing the quest for peace and acceptance in a broken world. Broken world. That was well said. If there's anything that history teaches us, it's that this struggle across centuries has been constant. It remains a quest worth pursuing.