"FLY TO FORT NORMAN" is the bold headline of a startling advertisement
in Western newspapers, "... in absolute safety and comfort; flying time
about eight hours each way," continues this epochal announcement.
Commercial enterprise has brought the air-boat to its aid in
penetrating the fastnesses of the Northland where, reports say, oil
will soon be gushing. But yesterday, this thousand-mile journey from
McMurray down toward the Arctic Ocean was achieved only by toilsome
weeks of tedious travel. What must the astonishment of leather-hued
rivermen be to view these winged canoes darting from civilization to
Norman almost "between meals." How that great wilderness shrinks and
becomes smaller. The terror and loneliness of it, the hardships of it
begin already to pass away.
There are men living who labored over Chillkoot and spent months on the
ghastly Klondike trail, and they must marvel at the advantages given by
science and invention to the prospectors of 1921.