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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0872.PDF
12 SEPTEMBER 20, 1928 photography has now grown up. In 1925 a Central Aerial Surveying Unit of the Topographical Survey was established to control and co-ordinate all aerial photographic operations. This has prevented overlapping of demands by different departments and has assisted in the proper development of the work. There is no intention of limiting the requests from other departments, but all the photographs taken are available for the use of each department. A set of photo- graphs taken to investigate the water power possibilities of a river may prove of equal value to the forest service or the Department of Alines. By this time aerial photo- graphs covering nearly 200,000 square miles of Canada must be available for the study of any department. The Smuggler and the Seaplane There is no better subject for a boys' story than a taleof smugglers. But for sheer romance the tale of the Smuggler and the Seaplane is not equalled even by the supernaturalhorror of " The Smuggler's Leap " in The Ingoldsby Legends, when " Down they went—o'er that terrible fall— " Horses, Exciseman, Smuggler, and all ! ! ! " The smuggling which takes place at Vancouver is not of barrels of rum, but of packets of opium and cocaine brought The profits of the business, however, are high, and so ingenious brains are to be found in it. Another method was devised for getting the stuff ashore, usually farther up the coast. Sometimes police agents would send in news of such a landing, but unless the receivers were caught red- handed very little could be done. Here again the seaplane could give help. On one occasion news was received in Vancouver of such a landing far up the coast. Horses, trains, motor cars, supposing that any of them could have gone straight to the spot, would have arrived too late. The Customs officer rang up the seaplane station and asked for help. Before the smugglers' agent, a longshoreman, could pass on his precious but dangerous package, a flying-boat landed off the shore and he was arrested. His conviction and imprisonment broke up for a time the organisation of which he was one of the principal parties. It is now not found necessary to escort every incoming steamer by seaplane, but occasional escorting flights are made, and they have rendered the smuggling business so precarious that it has been much circumscribed. " The Keneu, the Great War Eagle " The descendants of Hiawatha and the Mohicans are not sopicturesque or so dangerous to civilisation as they once were, m m w. m m m m Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia. m on steamers from China, and in great demand in the opium dens along the Pacific coast. The lascars and others who bring it are similar in greed but different in methods to the redoubtable Smuggler Bill of the Legend, while the " Excise- man Gill " is mounted, not on a terrible Dun horse with smoking nostrils and blazing eyes, lent by the Devil, but on a flying-boat from Jericho Beach. Truth has truly been said to be stranger than fiction. Customs officers have always been extremely clever at searching a steamer when it reaches port, and have often discovered quite small packets of pernicious drugs which would command a very high price in the proper quarter. The smugglers' method, however, was to drop the packets overboard, wrapped in oiled silk and attached to floats while the vessel was still some distance outside Vancouver harbour. There would be plenty of small boats round about, and in some of them were confederates who would collect the packets and convey them ashore. Even Customs patrol boats could not entirely guard against this. But when a seaplane circled overhead the matter became much more difficult and hazardous. It might be possible to drop the packet over the side without attracting much attention, or running much risk of identificatiop ; but if any boat in the neighbourhood was seen to behave in a suspicious manner, the flying-boat would alight near it and officers would go aboard to investigate. In fact, for a while the smugglers were checkmated. but they still need and receive attention and care from the Government of the Pale Faces. The Dominion Government pays treaty money to the tribes, and a State department looks after their affairs and interests. Officials have to go perio- dically to arranged spots, of which Norway House on Lake Winnipeg is one, to meet the chiefs and pay over the treaty money. Expeditions through the forest always cost money to equip, and they may be unpunctual at arriving at a given spot on a given day. It is undesirable that the Dominion should be late in paying the treaty money. Again time is saved and convenience served by sending these officials out in aircraft. The Indians are educated nowadays, and they probably do not regard the aeroplane as a " great war eagle " or a species of magic, but they must, none the less, be impressed by the white man's conquest of the air. Dusting Crops The use of aircraft for dusting crops in order to destroy pests is rather a recent development. It promises very well, but more experience in carrying it out is required. Last year, two important experiments were carried out by the R.C.A.F. on behalf of the Department of Agriculture. The pests which were attacked were the spruce budworm and the wheat stem rust. A few years previously, an outbreak of spruce budworm in Quebec and the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) killed a very large
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