The best-kept secret treasure on Vancouver Island: BC´s Aviation Museum - well hidden - but worth the effort to find it. The number of planes that were either built or flown in Canada, from civilian airline planes and helicopters to war planes, bush and float planes, and firefighting bombers is astonishing.
During guided tours and in displays the museum also shows the important role that women and female pilots played in aviation. For example, the first female pilots who flew new airplanes to the front, or the first female Aeronautical Engineer, Elizabeth Gregory-MacGill (born 1905). She was listed into the International Pioneer Hall of Fame, among many other awards she won. From 1938 to 1943 she was Chief Aeronautical Engineer and oversaw the building of Hawker Hurricanes during World War II. She was nicknamed the ¨Queen of Hurricanes¨ and the first woman in the world to earn an Aeronautical Engineer degree. But that´s not all: she also became the first woman ever to become an Electrical Engineer. One of the Canadian dollar coins also shows her achievements. Read more about her:
https://alumni.engineering.utoronto.ca/alumni-bios/macgill-elizabeth-muriel-gregory/
https://elsiefund.org/who-is-elsie-eifund/
https://www.vintagewings.ca/stories/queen-of-the-hurricanes
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Female ferry pilots picked up new airplanes from the factories and flew them to Eastern Canada. From here, they were shipped to the fronts in Europe. For example, in April 1942, Helen Harrison became the first female Canadian ferry pilot with the ATA—known as Atta-Girls. Returning from leave in Canada, she was one of the few women to co-pilot a Mitchell bomber across the Atlantic. Read more:
https://legionmagazine.com/airwomen
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Where History Takes Flight
1910 Norseman Road, North Saanich
Open daily 10 am to 4 pm
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