Alan (Al) Lee Nelson
January 8, 1933 – October 25, 2021
Surrounded by his children, and Clarice, his wife of 67 years, Al peacefully passed away on Monday, October 26th, 2021.
Al was born on January 8th, 1933 and grew up in Winnipeg’s west end. One of the earliest photographs of Al was him sitting in a pedal car airplane on the sidewalk, a premonition of things to come. By the time he was a teenager he was sneaking onto the properties of Johannesson Flying Service at Stevenson and Brandon Avenue Aerodromes to be around the aircraft. Tired of kicking him off the property all the time, the owner, Konnie Johannesson, gave him a broom and hired him to do odd jobs around the flying service. By 17 Al had his pilots license and soared through his life from there, embarking upon his lifelong career as a pilot and flying throughout northern Canada. Al also had a passion for photography and carried his cameras wherever he went. There wasn’t a plane he flew or saw, a lake he landed on or a settlement he visited, that he didn’t take pictures of. His vast collection of photographs and film from northern Canada in the 1950s and 1960s are amazing.
In 1953 dad found a new passion when he met Clarice Baldwinson. They married on July 3, 1954 and soon after the children began to arrive, Eileen, Gary, Donna and Sandra. With one, then two, children in tow, mom followed dad to all the bright spots for a bush pilot, Ilford MB, Hurst ON, and Riverton MB.
With a growing family dad took a job with HC Paul in Winnipeg to be a flying salesman, selling chainsaws, outboard motors and snowmobiles to the residents of northern Canada. His tour would start just after Christmas in Labrador, he’d then cross the arctic in his single engine Cessna 185, with an Autoboggon in the back, finishing his tour in the spring in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT.
With an opportunity to be home more, dad took a job with Midwest Airlines as its Operations Manager, there he attained his helicopter pilots license and again got lured to the north for three long winter months, to work in Canada’s most northerly civilian community, Resolute Bay. Midwest merged with Transair, where dad was called upon to design the brown and yellow colour scheme of their fleet and the logo for the new national airline. Dad wound up his flying career as the corporate pilot for Taillieu Construction, flying a Cessna 402.
Flying, mom and family weren’t dad’s only passion, He was a very intelligent man who was at ease talking and contributing to any discussion. He was an artist, photographer, historian, musician, aircraft restorer and engineer, mechanic, writer, storyteller and joker of the grandest of scale.
His artwork adorns the walls of many homes of family and friends, a hand drawn, life-size moose spent many a winter in Mexico, he spent three months in Iceland creating technical drawings for a commercial fishing supply company parts catalogue, and his pen and ink drawings of planes in the collection of the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, most of which he flew, were an annual feature of the museum for many years.
Al’s skills and knowledge of aircraft were also called upon in the restoration of aircraft. He spent a year in Calgary, singlehandedly doing a ground up restoration of a Piper J3 Cub, he volunteered for many years with the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, restoring the airplanes in its collection.
Dad loved languages and learned new ones easily. He was fluent in Icelandic and Spanish. While working in the north he reasonably new his way around, Inuktitut, Cree and French. When Mom and Dad were invited to spend some time at the Icelandic Consulate in Beijing, Mandarin was added to the list. More recently dad was working on Tagalog with the help of his care workers.
Camping and traveling were always important to dad; tenting at Grand Beach when we were young; the six of us in the 1963 Buick Wildcat, driving to Alberta and BC in the summer; eating hot dogs and Alphagetti along the way that dad had strategically placed in the engine so it was hot for our lunch at the side of the road. Tenting evolved into the luxury of RV traveling around the country and, when dad retired, he and mom would pull their trailer down to Keno Bay, Mexico, for the winter.
Dads humour and jokes were known by all; before the cellphone, he convinced a camping club member that he had a phone in their new trailer. He set up a tape player, in the trailer, to play a phone ringing. She was shocked to here it ringing, and even more surprised when dad went in, stopped the tape, and then yelled out the door, that it was for her. While working in Iceland Al showed colleagues a picture of the Cessna 402 he flew, but first he photoshopped two extra engines onto it, making it a four engine Cessna 402. It looked very real and was soon the talk of the flying community in Iceland.
In the late 1990s dad photoshopped some polar bears onto the neighbour’s driveway. Everyone got a chuckle out of that one and it has since circulated the internet somehow for more than 20 years, usually showing up as “Winter in Saskatchewan”.
Another time Eileen met some Australians online and soon she was inviting them to Canada for a visit. Some thought she was crazy suggesting she didn’t know anything about these people… maybe they were axe murderers! Well dad pounced on the idea and quickly produced a front-page parody of the Trail Daily Times, detailing the failed attempt of the Australian Axe Murderer Gang to dispatch with Eileen and Dave. But why have one joke when you can have two, at the top of the page he put a teaser headline for people to turn to page 14 for a story about his son-in-law Dave signing on as the spokesman for erectile disfunction.
We didn’t realize it when we were young, but dad was kind of a badass MacGyver kind of man. He could, and did, do anything he set his mind to. He rode a motorcycle and traveled the world. He was an arctic exploring, bush pilot, who walked away from two airplane crashes, put out a fire, on his floatplane, while taxing to shore of an isolated lake, and then repairing the burnt wing with a tablecloth from a local trapper’ s cabin. When he was done he flew the plane back out.
Although dad excelled in so many aspects of life, he was a humble and compassionate man. When travelling, he would prefer to befriend the locals, learn their language, become ingrained in their culture and community, rather then hanging with the tourists. He made lifelong friends from Cuba, Iceland, Australia, Mexico and more.
One constant from dad was his public and open display of love and passion for mom; sneaking up and cuddling her in the kitchen, always hugging her or being a little handy when he thought no one was looking, or even if they were, a random kiss; they were always in dad’s repertoire to show mom and everyone else how much he loved his wife.
Al maintained that sense of humour to the end. Why give a straight answer to the doctors and nurses when you can provide a joke. On Sunday, one day before his passing, Mom asked Dad how he was feeling; with a wispy and soft voice, he replied, “with my finger”.
Thank you, Al, our friend, our dad and mom’s husband and love of her life for 67 years. We are sad to see you go but so happy and blessed with the memories and legacy of life you leave with us.
A celebration of Al’s life will occur later, in the spring of 2022. In lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial donation to the place near and dear to dad’s heart, the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.
Expressions of condolence may be left at www.neilbardalinc.com.
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Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Alan Lee Nelson Monday October 25th 2021..
Death notice for the town of: Winnipeg, Province: Manitoba