Smoke in the Cockpit: The Flying Adventures of Don "Smokey" Patry

Patricia A. Myers is a historian at the Historic Sites and Archives
Service, Alberta Community Development. She is the author of Sky Riders:
An Illustrated History of Aviation in Alberta, 1906–1945 and
Preserving Women’s History.

Don “Smokey” Patry’s flying career has encompassed contract flying
(taking fur trappers into the North, for example), a stint with Peace
River Airways in Alberta in 1938, and work with Yukon Southern Air
Transport, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Canadian Pacific Airlines.

This little gem of a book contains a collection of Patry’s aviation
stories as told to and arranged into prose by H.J. Smith. There are
stories of bush flying, repairing damaged planes in the wild, tramping
runways into the snow so Patry’s Moth could take off, and flying Ferry
Command during World War II, to name but a few of the tales recounted in
the book. Smith’s narrative is enhanced by a generous selection of
candid photographs, including some from the Patry family.

Smoke in the Cockpit reminds us that it’s not just the planes, but
the people that make Canada’s flying history so memorable. The book is
recommended to anyone with an interest in Canadian aviation history.