Art Booth: Love at First Flight
It’s a page straight out of Boy’s Life magazine: a childhood spent hunting, fishing, swimming and sailing with family and friends in rural Northern Ontario. No TV or radio. Dad flies a floatplane for a local resort. Life is one stimulating adventure to the next.
Born in Orillia, Ontario, pilot Art Booth, 44, grew up in the nearby lakeside community of Hawkstone. “I was very fortunate. I grew up on Carthew Bay,” Art says. “We could ice fish right in front of our house.”
When his father got a seasonal job flying passengers to and from a resort in Nakina, Ontario, Art and his family spent half the year in the true north country above Lake Superior. When they needed a ‘town fix’, they would head into Thunder Bay for a few days, where they could watch a movie or go to the mall. But most days Art made his own entertainment in the great outdoors.
Art Booth at the Coal Harbour Terminal
(photo by Kathy Armstrong)Art took his first ride in a floatplane with his father. It was love at first flight: “I fell in love with flying. I’d been around floatplanes since I was a child.”
He read all his father’s flying magazines and later idolized Max Ward, founder of Wardair. Trained exclusively on floatplanes, Art’s first flying gig was for his father. Later he piloted planes for the Ministry of Natural Resources. One of his more memorable flights was transporting a game warden to arrest illegal moose hunters. Art waited in the plane while the warden stalked into the bush. He came out carrying an armful of rifles, the illegal hunters in tow. Art found the experience exciting and frightening: “There were a lot more of them than there were of us.”
When he moved to the West Coast in 1993, Art changed course for a while and started a landscaping business. He operated the company for seven years but missed flying immensely. His experience in the floatplane industry helped him land a job with Baxter Aviation, flying in and out of Nanaimo, B.C., but he soon set his sights on a position with Harbour Air. With his background flying Turbine Otter aircraft, he knew he had a chance. “Harbour Air’s professionalism always impressed me,” he says.
Art has been with Harbour Air since 2001, flying the Nanaimo-Victoria route daily. He is a training captain, a member of the safety committee and a pilot representative. “I really like the team spirit here. And Harbour Air has always been ahead of the game with things like frequent flyer cards, ground shuttles, computer terminals and lots of staff perks.”
Being home at night and having weekends off to spend time with his wife, 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter are definite perks. The parallels to his father’s life abound: he lives in Ladysmith, a small seaside community outside Nanaimo, and spends his leisure time camping, fishing, boating, tubing and snowboarding with his family.
Art sees nothing but growth with Harbour Air: “The company is climbing all the time, always moving forward.”
