By Jacques Rivest, MD, Montmagny, Québec
My sister Jocelyne asked me recently to write something about the origins and evolution of my passion for all things aviation, at the heart of my passage through life. I should say first of all, that I am passionate about everything in life, not just flying. That applies to sailing, running, biking, photography, and much more. What has become another of my passions, flying an aircraft, began in my childhood.
I grew up in the small village of Guyenne in Abitibi, situated to the northwest of Amos, in Québec. My parents were some of the first settlers and were people who cleared the land for agriculture in that small village. The families had many children who grew up on the land, with the animals on the farm or in the woods, where there was sawing, logging camps, and the creation, and taking care of, pathways through the forests. I was born in 1956, the third in a family of nine children, and as I grew up learned about responsibility at an early age. From the age of five I participated in caring for the sheep and learned how to drive a tractor.
My parents always reinforced in us how important it was to learn and study at school. We were raised as Catholics, so Sundays were always reserved as a day of rest and family swimming/bathing.
We always cheered when the aircraft of Monsieur Redolf, a German by birth, overflew our village. The airplane was a Cessna 140 which he used to get to his work; he was a driver of heavy machinery. As he flew over, he threw out barley sugar candies to the crowds of children below, attached to little parachutes. This was the joy of sugar coming from the heavens. During these moments my little boy’s heart wanted to learn how to fly an aircraft.
My first university studies were in sporting activities, but then I reorientated myself toward medicine, specifically family medicine. I married my dear wife, Marie, toward the end of the ’80s. She was also a medical student. We had four children. In 2001, my wife offered me, in the form of a birthday present, a flying course: “pilot for a day.” It didn’t take much to rekindle the simmering flame of my childhood, seeing M. Redolf flying overhead.
In 2002, I started my private pilot training, which resulted in a private pilot licence two years later. I soon became the proud owner of a little Cessna 150. We live in Montmagny, a little town in the south side of the St. Lawrence River, northeast of, and about one hour’s drive from Quebec City. The views of the sky, the flow of the St. Lawrence, the archipelago of islands, and the sunsets are just spectacular.
At that time, the Regional Health Centre was looking for a new doctor to travel occasionally to work at the dispensary in l’ile aux Grues (the island of Cranes). The island has about 130 permanent residents, but that number increases dramatically in the warmer weather with holiday makers and seasonal folk. The principal activity is making artisanal cheese, the most important of its type in Canada.
Since then, I have been flying once a month with Air Montmagny, to keep up the connection with the island, to care for the school children, and to cover emergencies and the winter months.
In parallel with my role as a family doctor, about 20 years ago, I trained to become an aviation medical examination doctor, which seems to be a relatively rare resource. I did more than 160 aviation medical exams on pilots and student pilots in the last year alone. I really love meeting pilots like this, whether it’s business pilots, bush pilots, or water bomber pilots flying Canadair CL-415s as they have been recently, helping out with the disastrous situation around Los Angeles.
Finally, I have to confess to having read and enjoyed Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in my youth which was also a great source of inspiration. Sadly, the author died in an aviation accident near the island of Corsica in July 1944.