CAMBRIDGE BAY, NVT. - Most helicopter pilots in Canada do not have to dodge polar bears while trying to land in some of the most remote corners of the country. For Marie-Lee Roy, that is just part of the job. The 38-year-old flies the helicopter assigned to the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Des Groseilliers, navigating extreme Arctic weather, vast stretches of wilderness and, at times, curious or aggressive polar bears. “There are bears everywhere here. There’s this island we did last year. There were 23 polar bears on this one tiny island. It was crazy, “ Roy says. “Some sites like that, I have to abort the mission.” The Arctic flyer is currently the only female helicopter pilot for the Canadian Coast Guard, though she hopes that changes in the future. “I’m really proud to be a woman in the industry as a pilot for the Canadian Coast Guard,” she says. “I’m actually sad that there’s not more females in the industry as pilots, but we do have a lot of women in the Canadian Coast Guard itself, which is great.” Roy’s fascination with aviation began at a young age. She started flying commercial helicopters in her 20s before joining the coast guard three years ago. Now based aboard an icebreaker, she works in one of the most demanding flying environments in the world, where every mission presents a new challenge. “I did fall in love with the adrenaline of flying helicopters here. It gives me a chill when I am sitting in the machine, the power of the machine,” Roy said. “The scenery and to be close to the ground but also high above water. There are so many different things that just hits you in your guts. That’s the reason why I fell in love with this. Flying in the Arctic is one of the most beautiful places on earth to fly.” The job requires constant preparation and risk assessment, particularly in a region where emergency shelter may be hundreds of kilometres away. Roy has flown in temperatures as cold as -40 C. In conditions like those, she says, every flight requires a backup plan. “Where are you flying? Are there options for shelter or is it no man’s land? It all becomes your personal duty as a pilot, because if an emergency occurs you have to be safe out there,” Roy said. That same caution applies when wildlife gets in the way. One mission to transport a crew to service a remote station ended before it began when a polar bear refused to yield the landing site. “I was flying a crew to work on towers and to replace batteries at a remote station. This bear is refusing to let me land. He’s up on his hind legs. He’s charging me and I’m still in the chopper hovering,” she recalls. “It was not scared, even when I went lower with the machine to try and scare it off. It was not scared of anything. So I called back to the ship and said we had to abort the mission,” Roy adds. ”This bear didn’t want to cooperate with me. There were tonnes of walruses there. He was like ‘that’s my food. Get out of here.’ So, we did.” For Roy, encounters like that are simply part of flying in the Arctic, where breathtaking scenery and stubborn polar bears often go hand in hand. CTV News Ottawa Bureau Chief Graham Richardson is reporting from the Arctic this week while exclusively embedded with the Canadian Coast Guard, as Canada looks to assert its presence in the north.
