TIMELINE OF CANSO

1943: Canso 11094 is built in Quebec, and put into service by the Royal Canadian Air Force hunting submarines and protecting naval convoys in the North Atlantic.

Postwar, 1945-2000: The aircraft is repurposed for other duties in Canada, including installing radar sites in B.C. and Alberta, hauling fish in northern Manitoba and fighting forest fires in Newfoundland.

2001: In use as a water bomber in the North, the Canso crashes into a lake near Inuvik during a training exercise. Though no one is killed, the plane suffers damage and sinks. The aircraft’s owner, Buffalo Airways, later pulls the plane out of the lake and leaves it after removing its engines and instruments.

2006: Fairview farmer and vintage airplane enthusiast Don Wieben learns about the abandoned Canso, and buys it “as is, where is”.

April 2008: Wieben, along with five friends from Fairview — Joe Gans, Brian Wilson, Norbert Luken, Henry Dechant and Doug Roy — stage a rescue mission to the Arctic. Working in -35 C cold and limited daylight for three weeks, the group mounts the plane on a pair of handmade skis, drags it across the tundra and through Inuvik to put it on a Mackenzie River barge.

October 2008: The Canso is transported south to Hay River, N.W.T., from where Wieben’s group drives it back to Fairview.

2008-2013: In between farming duties, the “Canso crew” works on restoring the aircraft.

May 2013: St. Anthony, N.L.’s memorial Canso on display has a pair of working engines. In exchange, the farmers give the memorial a set of inoperative display engines.

June 18, 2017: The first official flight of the restored Canso takes place.