WHBM

I wasn't sure when the transition was made on this far north route was made from Nordair, to CP in its various incarnations, and now on to First (the current operator); notable that they both competed for a while. First have always made Ottawa their main start point for their northern routes. First Air is the scheduled service operating name for longtime northern operator Bradley Air Services. If you ever saw the BBC television series "Pole to Pole" by Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame), which I believe was also shown in the USA, he started from the North Pole having got there by a Bradley Twin Otter (two operating together, for security), which routed from Resolute to land on the ice at the North Pole, thence to Svalbard on Spitsbergen, north of Norway, over 1,600 miles total, which is quite a haul for a Twin Otter.

Having flown a few times over the years from London to Vancouver BC by what is sometimes called the "polar route" (although it passes well short of the pole), it does typically transit overhead one or more of these far north points, and I have looked down on both Iqaluit (then known as Frobisher, hence the IATA code) and Resolute over time. The first time I ever did the trip with good old Wardair the captain announced them all along the way, nowadays you have to rely on the BA moving map. Just a couple of years ago a December 5.00 pm departure from London meant the entire trip was in the dark, but clear skies and a northern track gave great views of Akureyri in northern Iceland, a handful of dim lights somewhere on the Greenland west coast, Resolute itself, and Yellowknife NWT.