Winter was making one last dying effort as Ginny stepped down from the commercial propjet at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. The falling snow was so thick she couldn't see the hangar as she made her way toward the charter line headquarters, falling in huge wet snowflakes that stuck to her like glue. She was soaked to the skin when she finally reached the shelter of the hangar, and the tiny office of Northern Lines Charter Service.
"I'm Mrs. Dennison," she said hopefully, "I think my brother-in-law made arrangements for a flight with your company. Have I got the right place?"
A young-looking man wearing a ski jacket looked up from the pile of charts on the large table, "Yes, ma'am… you've come to the right place, all right. I'm Rick Scovill, your pilot."
Ginny's first thought was that he looked much too young to be flying a plane. "Oh… Well, I guess I'm ready anytime you are," she smiled.
"That might be quite a while, ma'am," replied the pilot, "I guess you didn't notice all that snow coming down out there."
Ginny looked out the window, as if she was seeing the near-blizzard for the first time. "Gee I guess I wasn't thinking," she said, a little embarrassed. "I just never thought about it, I suppose. But don't the planes take off in rain and snow and such…? I thought I remembered flying in the snow one time, coming home to California from Indiana."
The young pilot laughed, "Wait till you see the plane we'll be using. It's not much like those big jets you're used to."
"Oh, I flew up here in one… A small one, I mean. It only seated about twenty-five or thirty people."
Rick stepped back and opened a narrow door to the hangar behind the office; a cold gust swept through like a winter storm. "That plane over there… that's what I meant when I said small." He pointed his index finger toward a well-maintained L-16, a World War II spotter plane.
"That thing?" shrieked Ginny. "You must be kidding! It looks like a toy!"
Rick motioned her through the doorway into the hangar, and Ginny followed close behind, shivering in the unheated immenseness of the old building. They passed a dozen or more larger planes; she'd seen photographs of similar ones in magazines. Even those looked small after the commercial liner she'd flown to Whitehorse on, but this tiny thing was too much!
"Well, here she is," said Rick proudly, opening the flimsy door on the pilot's side. Inside were two seats, one in front, one in back. "What'ya think of her? Quite a cute little number isn't she?"
Ginny shook her head incredulously. "Cute, yes… but can it fly?"
"Sh-h-h-h," whispered Rick, "don't let Nancy hear you talk like that."
"Nancy?" Ginny looked around for another face, but they were apparently alone in the huge hangar.
"Yeah… That's her name. Nancy, meet Mrs. Dennison from California."
Ginny felt rather awkward, never having been introduced to an airplane before, and she didn't know quite what to reply. "Uh… could we go back inside your office, Mr. Scovill? I'm freezing to death."
"Sure," answered Rick. "This was terribly inconsiderate of me. I forgot you aren't used to our Canadian weather yet. But you will be if you stay up on the Mackenzie very long."
Ginny had to think for a moment before her memory told her that was the name of the big river Arnie and Florence lived on. It flowed north, to the Arctic Ocean, she remembered from one of Arnie's old letters.
"I don't think I'll be up there too long," said Ginny. "Maybe just for the summer."
Rick smiled, "If that's the case, you might not see any real north country weather at all. It'll be more like California in the summer… maybe even a little hotter."
"Hotter? I thought it was up close to the North Pole or something."
"You haven't done your homework, ma'am," said Rick, stifling a laugh. "Norman Wells is one helluva way from the North Pole… if you'll pardon my language, ma'am."
Ginny could tell already she had a lot to learn about this strange part of the world. Strange at least to a small-town girl from Indiana. Cold weather and snow she'd come prepared for, but not for a California climate. "Just how warm is it up there in the summer?"
Rick thought for a moment. "Well, it depends on what part of the summer, such as it is. There's really only about two months of what you'd call summer. But sometimes it gets up in the nineties in the middle of the day… though it might drop below freezing that same night."
"Ninety? I brought all my winter clothes!"
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it," laughed Rick. "Remember – it drops down awfully low sometimes at night. And you never know when a real cold wave is going to come through. Once in a while they get some awfully cold storms off the Arctic ice whistling up the Mackenzie."
Ginny was beginning to wonder if she'd made the right move in coming up here at all. But that had never crossed her mind back in Los Angeles; just the chance to get away from all her troubles and spend some time with relatives, even if they were in-laws, was all the incentive she needed to make up her mind. She hoped Fred wouldn't be too terribly angry when he got her letter. She hadn't had time to write him for his permission and wait for an answer. With the way he wrote letters, she might have been standing around for months waiting for Fred to say yes.
It was mid-afternoon when the freak snowstorm blew over, leaving in its wake a beautiful, cloudless blue sky that stretched from horizon to horizon. Ginny could make out the hazy shapes of distant mountains, far off to the north, ringed with cloud-like fog and squatting like watchdogs of the untamed Northwest Territories beyond, blocking out the influx of civilization from the warmer, less awesome south.
"Is that where we're going?" asked Ginny, peering out the misty window of Scovill's office. "It looks awfully rugged. Is there any chance… I mean, is it dangerous?"
Rick was pulling on his insulated heavy jacket. "No, not terribly… But it will be cold. Is that the only coat you have?"
Ginny was wearing the heaviest jacket she owned, one she never got a chance to wear in Los Angeles. "Yeah… but I've got a sweater in my suitcase. I could put that on under my coat, if you think I'll need it."
"Don't bother," answered Rick, opening a locker behind the desk. "I think I can find something in here you can wear. Your brother-in-law should be able to get a real coat for you when you get to Norman Wells."
Rick picked up her suitcase from the combination baggage agent-ticket clerk in the tiny terminal building across the wide landing apron from the charter hangar and strapped it down in the back of the L-16 and Ginny climbed in, feeling more than a little embarrassed as she bent far over to maneuver into the back seat, revealing her thighs way up past the bottom of her white panties. No time for modesty, she told herself, and strapped the broad safety belt around her waist. Her elbow bumped the inside of the fuselage wall, and to her amazement, it gave like cloth!
"Rick! What's this plane made of?" she asked, almost hoping it had been her imagination.
"Oh, if you mean the fuselage covering, it's fabric… a lot cheaper than metal, and a helluva lot lighter."
"Fabric! You mean like cloth… cotton or something like that?" she asked.
"Yeah, something like that. But don't worry," he assured her. "It's airworthy. This little baby's been flying since 1943, and I don't think she's gonna quit on us now."
Ginny shook her head, unable to believe what she was about to do. Halfway across the Northwest Territories in a cloth-covered plane! I must be out of my mind!
The tiny L-16 leaped into the air almost before Ginny realized they were even moving down the runway, and before she could catch her breath, they were high over the Whitehorse airport, banking steeply as they left the pattern. The scurrying airport workers grew smaller and smaller, and soon they were just a dozen or so ants zipping back and forth between the six-inch airplanes scattered around the terminal.
"How high are we, Rick?" she shouted over the high-pitched whine of the single engine, leaning as far forward as her safety strap would allow.
"Not very high yet! About twenty-eight hundred feet! We'll climb to four thousand for the rest of the trip!"
The tree cover grew denser as they left the paved streets and houses of Whitehorse far behind, and the only break in the thick forest was an occasional logging road winding through the trees to a logged-over section. Animal life seemed everywhere; white-tailed deer leaped and bounded along beneath them, as if chasing the tiny shadow of their plane. She thought she spotted a huge brown bear, but she couldn't be sure, and Rick was using the radio, trying to reach the airstrip at Norman Wells.
They flew on for hours, seemingly in a straight line, and the excitement of flying soon became a monotonous bore, as they passed over miles of identical terrain, each mile no different from the dozens of others they'd left behind.
Rick started to spiral down, and Ginny readied herself for her reunion with Arnie and Flo, only to be disappointed when Rick leaned over the seat to let her know this stop was only for gas, and that she wouldn't even leave the plane. He cut the throttle and coasted in to a muddy landing strip – without a name, and only a couple of Quonset huts to identify it. They taxied over to an enormous red-painted tank, and a young boy, not more than twelve or thirteen obligingly filled their tank and wiped the dirt and grime from the plane's windscreen. Ginny stayed in her seat while Rick checked over all the fittings and the landing gear, and in a few minutes, they were back in the air, continuing their persistent northward course.
The constant whine of the airplane's engine soon lulled Ginny to sleep, and she dozed for over an hour, her head against the plastic window at her side. She might have slept all the way to Norman Wells, had the plane's course not suddenly shifted.
She blinked her eyes open groggily as the plane banked gently and began to head in a slightly altered direction.
"Are we almost there?" she asked. "I thought I felt the plane change course."
"Not quite!" shouted Rick. "But we're following one of the Mackenzie's tributaries. You'll be able to see the Mackenzie River pretty soon!"
Ginny anxiously searched the forest below, but could only catch an occasional flash of silver from the tiny stream beneath them. Tributary, indeed, she thought, why it looks more like a drainage ditch!
She looked away long enough to adjust her seat belt, and to maneuver her legs around a bit to ease the muscle cramps, and when she gazed out the window again, there was a long, widening giant of a river across their path, disappearing in the distance in the flat, treeless plain of the Arctic.
"There it is! You'll be in Norman Wells in about fifteen minutes!"
Ginny felt her stomach suddenly tighten, and for the first time, she was afraid of what she might find in Norman Wells – after all, she hadn't ever really gotten to know either of these people, even though they were Fred's relatives.
Oh, I hope they'll like me… I hope everything works out all right…