Gateways: Airports of Canada

A.A. den Otter is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the author of The Philosophy of Railways.

This historical study of Canada’s major airports (curiously omitted is
St. John’s International, which handles more traffic than several of
the airports covered) is nicely illustrated, with a good mix of old and
new photographs, aerial shots of runways, and closeups of buildings and
airplanes. The author’s perspective is decidedly romantic. His book
begins with a nostalgic description of a family picnic at Montreal’s
St. Hubert airport in the late 1920s (parents and children would come to
watch the few landings and takeoffs and find entertainment on the grassy
fields adjoining the gravel runways) and closes with a depressing sketch
of the modern airport, where huge and crowded terminal buildings obscure
runways and airplanes, and where the mood of weary, luggage-laden
travelers, delayed by security measures and harried agents, is anything
but festive.