July 31, 2024 - Alaska Flight
Day 3A: Cut Bank to Whetstone
to Rocky Mountain House, Alberta
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| The pilot and son flying in that Grumman Tiger were returning from AirVenture and heading back home to northern California.. |
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This family flying in this plane was also returning from AirVenture.
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| Ready for takeoff at Cut Bank. |
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Winging my way northwest for a short 30 mile flight to Whetstone/Del Bonita International Airport. The Rocky Mountains are in the distance.
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| And there it is. The border crossing. The U.S. CBP facility is to the left, with the Canadian facility to the right. The turf runway is to the right and with the west end at the road. I had examined the runway via Google Map which helped me know what to look for. |
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From another vantage point. The turf runway stretches out to the right.
The airport has an American name of Whetstone and a Canadian name of Del Bonita. I made sure to call it Del Bonita on the radio since I was entering Canada. There are advantages to crossing the border here. You don't have to file a flight plan, and you don't have to have a transponder code. It is convenient for the CBP officers to clear you here, as opposed to them having to drive to meet you at some airport.
That said, you still have to file the eApis online form with U.S. CBP, and you still have to call Canadian Customs and arrange a time to land. I called them yesterday afternoon; my time was 9:15 AM. You have to arrive within 15 minutes plus or minue of your agreed upon time.
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Turning base to final on runway 27. The big worry was the condition of the turf runway. I had read reports of gopher holes on the runway; not suitable for little 5-inch wheels like my RV has. But I had put out a query on Vans Air Force about the runway condition and gotten some good intel. A working party fills in all the gopher holes in June. So, the runway should be fine. Still, one never knows for sure.
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It turns out the runway was fine. I did see gopher holes but they were all filled in with dirt.
I rolled to the end of the runway and then turned the plane north on ramp. I stayed in the plane like you're supposed to. Within five minutes a Canadian CBP officer came out of the building and walked over. He asked me a few questions like was I carrying firearms, cannibis, or cash over ten grand. Nope. Where are you going, how long, do you have survival equipment, questions like that. Then he just said you're good to go, welcome to Canada, and that was that.
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I haven't been into Canada since we visited Niagara Falls some 20 or so years ago, and never with the plane.
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The wind was too strong to take off to the east so I had to taxi the length of the runway.
Here, I'm passing one of the filled in gopher holes.
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| Another filled in gopher hole. |
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| I took off and continued heading northwest, only now I'm in Canada! |
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Doesn't look a whole lot different from northern Montana.
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| About to cross St. Mary's Reservoir. |
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The Rockies, the Canadian Rockies I mean, are getting closer.
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| P26 |
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| Passing by Fort Macleod. That's the Old Man River. |
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| Lots of agriculture in this area. |
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Looking down at Claresholm Industrial Airport.
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Pine Coulee Reservoir off the right.
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| Angling towards the mountains. |
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| That's Calgary in the distance. |
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| Overhead a private grass strip. |
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A closer look at Calgary.
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| At the time I thought it was snow on the mountains, but on my return trip I saw that it was just gray rock. |
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Looking west down Elbow River.
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Looking down at the Trans-Canada Highway - Highway One.
The Trans-Canada Highway is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast. The main route spans 4,645 miiles across the country, one of the longest routes of its type in the world. The highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers,
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| Bow River and Ghost Lake. |
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| Farmland has disappeared and now I'm over woods. |
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With the occasional lake.
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A wide swatch through the woods, for power lines, no doubt.
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Approaching the town of Rocky Mountain House -- at the time I was thinking it was Rocky Mountain Horse -- which has an airport on the north side of town where I will stop for fuel. |
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| Rocky Mountain House Airport with its nice, long runway. |
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| The terminal building. There is no FBO here. |
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But they do have self-service fuel. It's unusual in that to pay for the avgas, you manually fill out a credit card slip and slide it into a drop box. You have to figure out the total cost in Canadian dollars based on how many liters of gas you pump. They even provide a calculator to figure it out!
I called Lynnette on the smartphone to see if it worked in Canada, and was very relieved when it did.
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The inside of the terminal building. They used to have a courtesy car but I'm not sure if its available anymore.
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| This aerobatic Long-EZ pulled up to fuel and I had a short chat with the pilot. I think they do a lot of aerobatics at this airport. |
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| This aerobatic Long-EZ pulled up to fuel and I had a short chat with the pilot. I think they do a lot of aerobatics at this airport. |
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