During the construction years, boat and airplane were the primary means to transport workers to various job sites along the Project. A junker flew workers and equipment into West Tahtsa Lake camp, and Sikorsky and Bell helicopters were put into constant service wherever needed, especially for moving equipment, men, and materials into the tunnel camps and along the transmission line. When a tubular aluminum tower failed, a Sikorsky was there as Adam Charneski recalls:
“The helicopters played a very key role at tower 123 when we had two can sections fail, one up above and one at ground level and it was winter time. I don’t recall exactly how I discovered this problem but I used to make my little sorties and visit these critical towers on my own. I think I went up there and I saw this one-inch gap at the bottom of the leg… So the first thing we did was tie the tower down so it didn’t open up wider and get pushed or pulled over in a high wind situation. So we changed those two cans in the middle of the winter –and I’ll never forget…using the S55 helicopter. It was a Sikorsky. It has a lift of 1,000 pounds. Pilots never slung too much material with those helicopters… So on this 123 job, we lifted these aluminum cans up there, which weighed about 800 to 900 pounds, and flying underneath the wire – the helicopter pilot at that time was Don Jakes, a very good pilot – brought in all the material to us on this little ledge and it was sunny every day for about the 30 days it took us to do this job. I still look back on how lucky we were to have a sunny, frosty day every day. The weather didn’t come in and then as soon as we were finished the job it did come in and we had to abandon our material and get it out the next summer. (Adam Charneski)
Adam also reminisced about one helicopter ride he will never forget:
The first replacement pilot that we got…I guess 1955/56, came off our aircraft carrier the Bonaventure. The pilot’s name was Dave Copley… In those days those navy pilots came in well equipped. They had their big knife on the side of their arm, and all their emergency gear strapped onto them, including a 357 Magnum revolver on their leg, and that’s how they were flying. “This is wild country,” they’d say. They were daredevil pilots. Dave said to me, “Were you every afraid to fly in a helicopter?” And I said, “No.” Well as we’re flying over Kildala Pass he just brings that helicopter and points that nose down. I said, “There’s the catenary.” And he went under the right hand side of the catenary system, down into Camp 9 – glacier creek bowl – and hit the Kemano River and then flew along the Kemano River at about five feet above the water. The river doesn’t flow in a straight line, It zigzags all over the place, and there are trees sticking out of the banks that are undermined, and I could see these trees coming up and he just jumps over them and keeps on going at about 80 miles an hour and by this time I’m hanging on, my feet are just about going through the floorboards, and well, you’re afraid now – that was a great ride.
The Union Steamships Limited, Queen Charlotte Airlines Limited later Pacific Western Airlines, and the Canadian Pacific steamships Princess Norah and Princess Patricia all included Kitimat in their regular runs up and down the B.C. coast. Kitimat Constructors purchased the MV Nechako in 1952 for transporting construction personnel between Butedale, Prince Rupert, and Kitimat. In 1954 the motor vessel, skippered by Captain Bill Cogswell, began regular trips ferrying construction personnel and freight between Kitimat, Kemano, and Kildala:
…we used the Nechako on a couple of occasions in the dead of night to get into Kildala with a crew, so that was another experience. Of course Captain Bill Cogswell who was running the Nechako at that time had a tugboat in Kitimat. I made quite a few night trips on the tug boat and barges crashing through ice and didn’t really know where I was going. (Adam Charneski)