Aviation plays a vital role in Northern Ontario—connecting remote communities, supporting forest-fire operations, transporting workers and supplies, and opening doors to exciting careers.
In this episode of Love the North, Eric Chaudry sits down with Michelle from True North Airways and Trevor, a young pilot and passionate ambassador for Northern aviation.
Michelle shares the unexpected story of how a simple conversation about owning a Beaver aircraft led her family to Sudbury and into the aviation industry. She also explains how True North Airways operates helicopters, charter aircraft, float planes and an aircraft-maintenance facility while supporting clients throughout Northern Ontario and beyond.
Trevor discusses growing up around airplanes, beginning his flight training at just 14 years old and earning his pilot’s licence at 17. Today, he helps run a nonprofit flying club dedicated to making aviation more accessible and inspiring the next generation of pilots and aviation professionals.
The conversation also explores the recent Discover Aviation event at the Greater Sudbury Airport, where local pilots gave 105 children short flights over the city—many of whom had never been inside an airplane before.
From float planes and remote gravel airstrips to aircraft maintenance, air-traffic control and commercial flying, this episode reveals just how many opportunities exist within Canada’s aviation industry.
For one young person, seeing an aircraft up close or taking that first flight could be the beginning of an entirely new future.
Taking Flight in Northern Ontario: Aviation, Opportunity and the Next Generation
Explore more Northern Ontario video podcasts. Read this episode's transcript.
Description
Transcript ~1,989 words · ~10 min read
hi,
my name's Eric Chaudry. I'm here with Love the North. And today we have two guests. We have Michelle from True North Airways. Morning. Morning. And we have Trevor. Trevor's sort of an ambassador for aviation in the North. Trevor, good to see you.
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All right. So let's start, Michelle with True North Aviation. How did you get started in the aviation world? Not by any stroke of luck, I don't think, or any like predestined plan.
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My husband was always into aviation or more so got into it as, as we grew together and
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flying up here into Sudbury and getting fuel one day. He saw a beaver take off at the lake and kind of as a joke asked one of the, one of the guys working on the dock, like, how can I justify having a beaver? And one of the guys came off the cuff and said, well, you should buy Sudbury Aviation. They've got two beavers. Like, that's what a way to justify it. So the rest of the flight for us was very quiet and the wheels were turning and Ian's head. And yeah, it was less than a year later and we were moving to Sudbury and starting, starting a business. Oh, wow. Continuing on, I guess, the legacy of a business and the dirty thing going. So were you two from the North already? So my husband's originally from Espinola. So for him it was like coming home, but we had both been living just in southwestern Ontario for the last 10 years leading up to it. So yeah, it was a bit of an eye opener for me because besides coming with a family, like on a family trip to Sudbury, I had never, I had no reason to really pop up here. Okay.
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So you're from Southern Ontario, but now you're a Northerner? I am. Okay. We go outside when it's cold. Oh yeah. It's to the outside, whereas in Southern Ontario nobody does that. Okay.
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Trevor, what's your background? How did you get into the aviation world? Yeah. So I mean, I was very fortunate to be exposed to it at a young age. My father is a pilot, just a private pilot, but I grew up in a backseat of an airplane in that regard.
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So I always kind of knew, once you get the hook, you're not getting away from it. So I had an interest in it from a very young age.(...) I started working on my pilot's license when I was 14 and then finished off my license at 17, which I think is the youngest you can do it. I finished that off and then just kind of rolled it from there.
worked for a maintenance company for a few years where we took care of aircraft maintenance and logistics and that kind of stuff. So I gained a lot of experience there. And then eventually I just kind of rolled into what I'm doing now, which is running an off-profit flying club to try to expose more youth to aviation and provide a platform for people to get their pilot's license and separate and just kind of show the general public what it's all about.
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Interesting.
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Michelle, on a daily basis,(...) what does True North do on a daily basis? Like what's your typical day or even a week look like? Yeah. So it goes in every direction possible. So we have a small fleet of helicopters that are based out of Muskoka. So for the most of the summer, they're on fire duty with the Ministry of Natural Resources. And then we've got charter planes that operate out of here in Sudbury. And then we also have another one positioned just outside of the GTA for more executive-based travel. And then we have a fleet of float planes as well. So in the summer, it's probably one of the nicest kind of views at a workplace you could have is looking out at the lake and watching a plane take off. Yeah. I know that whenever I've been out to True North,(...) there's always--True North is on Whitewater in Azilda. There's always planes coming and going. And it's always something that even since I've been 10, my first jet plane ride over to Europe, I've always been fascinated. And, you know, anytime there's a plane baseball with my friends or soccer, I'd see a plane go and I'd be looking up and everyone would be getting mad at me, get back in the game, that sort of thing. It kind of never leaves you.
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So Trevor, you starting out in a young age,(...) where did your father take you? And what did you actually do in order to--in order for the bug to hit you? Oh, I don't know. I couldn't point it down to one thing. We travel all the time to little places close by, you know, whether it be going for breakfast in Lindsay was a good spot just outside of Peterborough.(...) We'd go to Killarney for fish and chips, just a little traveling here and there. I've got family in Southern Ontario, so we fly down there and we'll visit them.
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You know, just that kind of stuff. So just being exposed to it so much and traveling with general aviation has been great. And I think that's just kind of what did it for me. And it runs in my family a little bit. I got uncles that fly as well and all that stuff. So I don't think there's an expectation. It might have been on my dad's head. I never felt the expectation to pursue something in climb, but it's just so peaceful out there, you know, who couldn't want to be out there, right? Yeah, when you're up and playing, it's just a total different experience. It's totally different than driving a car.
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It's just, you know, I've been fortunate enough to be up and with a few friends up and just flying
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True North,(...) do they do, are they into aircraft repair? So yeah, we do have a shop as well. I guess that's still part of the multi-direction.
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But yeah, we work out of the shop. So the hangar is on Whitewater Lake, like you said. So we do a lot of general aviation maintenance there.
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I think you did a lot of your hours at Sub-Re aviation when you first started, no? I did a few hours there, yeah. So it's just kind of cool because to be a little piece of something, and obviously now what Trevor's doing is so impactful to the community, especially kids. I maybe don't see it on the same level because we're doing a corporate side, but it is cool to see all of those requests that I'm getting for flight training here in town, or how do I get into it, or how do I go to events. Trevor's the one organizing them. So it's cool because they did one at our shop. And yeah, just to see the turnout was really cool.(...) I forget about how vast the general aviation community is because we are more on the customer side of things. But yeah, the maintenance shop, it's great. It's very family-oriented in the sense that guys will come in with coffee for the guys working in the shop. Yeah, it's just like a camaraderie. It's an industry that's very small. And I know we've used the word niche a few times, but yeah, everybody's very like-minded when it comes to the aviation community, I think. Yeah, definitely.(...) I know, Trevor, you said that you were part of an aviation event at the Sudbury Airport last Saturday.
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Can you tell us a little bit about it? Absolutely.
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So I'm one of the organizers behind our local chapter, the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association. We have a local group here with, I think, about 70 pilots or so. So that accounts for most of the general aviation pilots in the area. And we just try and promote general aviation to the community.(...) I mean, on the national level, the organization, they work on advocacy, but whether it be regulatory changes or stuff like that, but we're just a group of pilots trying to inspire the next generation of aviators. Yeah. So on Saturday, we hosted a Discover Aviation event at the Sudbury Airport where we, I guess the highlight of it would have been taking kids up for plane rides. We took them on a little 10, 15 minute flight around the city.
Yeah.
I think we flew 105 kids, I think is what the number came out to. So for many of them, it was their very, very first flight in
an airplane or even being opposed to an airplane.
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And it's just so rewarding to be able to see their reaction on their faces when, you know, they're like, "I'm just after takeoff." And you get to see the view of the window. And yeah, so we took them up for airplane rides. We had static aircraft displays. Actually, TrueNorth had one of their BC-12s on display. Okay. For people to look at and kind of drill over.
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BC-12, we'll have a picture on the screen, but it's a large aircraft? Yeah, it's large in terms of like general aviation, I guess. Not in terms of like the jet world. It's a single turbo prop aircraft. Okay. So one of the coolest capabilities of the aircraft is that it can go into unprepared surfaces. So like gravel strips, a little Northern Flying, grass strips if you're really-- And here I am thinking that you were going to say you can do a loop or something.
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Probably been done. Maybe by somebody. No, no. Yeah.(...) But yeah, so the aircraft, yeah, were any piece that we can be a part of when Trevor and the rest of the guys put together something to that effect is nice because, yeah, for kids, I think it's so cool. You're just-- you're their first experience in aviation. And for someone like me who joined the industry so late, like I wasn't exposed to flight as a kid and now like not running an operation, but like it's crazy because so many kids like you are like, oh, I saw an airplane or I went on an airplane ride. And that starts a whole trajectory for them that then they come to me as like a pilot with a thousand hours and wanting to get into the PC-12. And yeah, it's like you're where they start. Well, it opens up a door that they didn't know existed, right? For a lot of people.
Yeah.
(...) Just a lot of people don't know what type of opportunities there are, what type of career paths are there, right? I mean, of course, there's pilots, but there's so
many
support staff behind it. Is there a traffic controller? Is there a (Inaudible)
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There's so many opportunities for people to get involved in aviation if it's something they're passionate about. And us being able to kind of showcase a little bit of that and showing what's out there is rewarding and inspiring. I'd be able to pass that along to the next generation. Yeah. And then you'll get the, every kid that at least gets up close to an aircraft, gets to ride an aircraft is really going to open their, it's going to open their world definitely. It does. Well, I want to thank you, Michelle, Trevor, for coming in today and we'll hope to see you again on another episode where we can, you know, expand more on, you know, the specifics in
aviation.
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(Music)
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