Gander Street Names Revisited

Visiting Gander recently, it was not difficult to notice the development of a new residential area being constructed just north of the old Navy Radio Station plus a new street being built paralleling Roe Ave. This might be a good time to review our original suggestion of street names that holds some historical value to the airport. To tweak your memory on this subject it was our suggestion to include Group Captain Foss,  Dr. Samuel Martin, and USCG Commander Stew Graham. Mr. Graham was the second pilot ever to fly helicopters, was one of the helicopter pilots who flew out Sabena OO-CBG survivors, and went on to become instrumental in developing SAR helicopter rescue procedures. For any of our readers wanting to also lobby the Town, please feel free to make these suggestions on our behalf.

Commander Gander

For those who attended or tuned in to the Gander Day celebrations, you might have noticed the mascot for the festivities , better known as Commander Gander, is a cartoon character beloved by all and promotes events during this special day. What a lot of people may not be aware, Commander Gander is not a very young bird, in fact he was 'born' during WWII and was the military mascot whose purpose was to boost moral for that time. Evidence of this can be seen on the various crests and patches worn by military personnel serving at Gander during the war. To view these special pages on our website, click on here and here to see the roles Commander Gander played way back then.

Research in Progress

Our main go-to-guy, Bob Pelley, who does the major researching on historical events for Gander Airport, reports that he has a bunch of projects he is working on and we should have lots to read in the next few weeks. After all, we have to give Bob a little holiday once in a awhile. I know that one document will be dealing with the emergency landing of a returning Lancaster bomber at the airport in 1946 which stuck and killed several people who were walking on one of the streets near the approach path to a runway. This was the first fatality at the airport involving civilians due to an aircraft accident/incident.

Festival of Flight

Aaah July. The weather a has been just great here in the Gander area making us all here just a bit lazy and too relaxed but we have not forgotten our viewers out there. A reminder to everyone The Festival of Flight will be celebrated on Gander Day, as usual, on Aug 1st to the 5th. An insert in the Gander Beacon gives a full schedule of events plus some comments from the organizers of this event. Gander Day has been celebrated with aviation as it's principal venue since it's original inception. We are confident that Councillor Gerry Parrott and his group will do a bang up job. Make sure you all get out and enjoy yourselves. Remember, the word 'Aviation' includes Gander in it's history and that is what we celebrate.

Hockey in Gander

Just received an interesting email from Doug Wheeler about the history of senior hockey in Gander . Hockey played a significant role as a source of entertainment during the early years in the airport town. Doug's website also covers the history of senior hockey in Nfld as well and is worth while visiting. One of the hangers on the American Side was converted into an arena with natural ice. We would really like to get some old photos of this building if there are any available out there. For the information of all, we will be making Doug's website available from the GAHS website