August 7, 1919
Ernest Charles Hoy (1895-1982), who had recently distinguished himself as a Royal Air Force fighter pilot during World War I, achieved a major aviation milestone when he flew a Curtiss JN-4 biplane across the Canadian Rockies. This marked the first-ever crossing of that steep mountain range by air.
In an account of this flight that he wrote 20 years later, Hoy noted that “the late John Nelson, who was editor of the Vancouver World, in cooperation with Mr. Buchanan of the Lethbridge Herald and Mr. Woods of the Calgary Herald,, was striving towards inauguration of an air mail service across Canada.” Hoy further explained, “As a preliminary, a demonstration flight across the most difficult part of the territory – the Rocky Mountains – was considered highly desirable.”
For this historic flight, Hoy took off from Minoru Park Race Track on Lulu Island in British Columbia at 4:13 a.m. on August 7, 1919. (Lulu is located in the estuary of the Fraser River and south of the city of Vancouver.) The cargo that Hoy had on board his plane included 45 specially marked letters and several copies of the Vancouver Daily World. After making a few fuel stops en route and managing to clear the towering peaks of the Canadian Rockies, he landed at Bowness Park in the city of Calgary in Alberta at 8:55 that night. Hoy’s pioneering airborne trip took 16 hours and 42 minutes to complete.
The next day’s edition of the Leader-Post, a newspaper based in the city of Regina in Saskatchewan, reported on Hoy’s arrival in Calgary. “Hoy made a perfect landing and is none the worse for his trip,” the Leader-Post confirmed. “He states that his trip was most enjoyable and successful in every way.”
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on Ernest Charles Hoy’s trailblazing 1919 flight across the Canadian Rockies, please check out https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/ernest-charles-hoy/
Additional information on Hoy is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Charles_Hoy
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