Trip to Lac-à-la-Tortue

We were visiting Aero Atelier at Lac-à-la-Tortue to see our Bleriot engine under overhaul, so it seemed a good opportunity to visit the Bush Flying Museum which is on the south side of the lake. The museum was not open, but Anabelle Lacombe was there, and she welcomed us and called in the president, Rejean Pronovost. 

We had come to the museum particularly to see a Clerget rotary engine, said to be on loan to them from another museum, but they weren't sure just who had loaned the engine to them. We had heard of this engine from a M. Bourdage of the Gaspe museum. The engine, see photographs, is a 9-cylinder 140 horsepower Clerget rotary in splendid condition and with all accessories in place. It is, unfortunately, some 40" in diameter so too large to fit into our Bleriot fuselage. This was an engine used in the Sopwith Camel.

A second engine they have on loan, see photographs, is probably a Curtiss OX-5 but I'll do a more positive identification when the photographs have been printed. We only had a short time in the museum, as we had a 1 p.m. appointment at Aero Atelier,
so we took only a cursory tour of the downstairs and a brief visit to the upstairs lounge. They have no aircraft, but some fine photographs, well mounted, and a number of artefacts, skis, rescue equipment, instruments, radios, the core of a PT-6 engine, and a set of postal hammers!

They used to have much larger quarters but got evicted, so are now relocated in smaller premises, see photograph. They are located on the lake, and do boat tours as a fund raiser,
and have a small shop, which we didn't have time to visit. We promised to send them some of our brochures and I will talk to Judith Isherwood about sending some of my books for sale in their shop. They are rather lonely up there, with little support (see below) and are eager to have a connection to our group. We invited them to pay us a visit, and Paul will go there again as it is not too far from Ste. Ursule. Anabelle is, if I understood correctly, an agent for Aviation Mauricie, that runs aerial
tours of the region, including fly-in fishing, using two deHavilland Beavers and two Cessna aircraft. Virtually all aircraft at Lac-à-la-Tortue are on floats, of course. It is their wish to build a one-fifth scale Curtiss HS-2L, as these machines were based on Lac-à-la-Tortue in 1919, so their photographs feature Stuart Graham and his wife. They have a large original double-propeller (4-blades) that probably came off an HS2L. 

Many of their artifacts are not clearly identified. I will see if we have any HS-2L or HS-3L drawings. They are also interested in researching the Beaver, as it is much used on the lake. Lac-à-la-Tortue was also the base for the aircraft of the Fairchild Aerial Surveys Company in 1923.

It seemed to us that there is some difference of opinion between those on the south side of the lake (Musée) and those on the north (Aero Atelier and the operators of the air strip), perhaps because both offer aerial tours, so they are competitors. This must be borne in mind as we have interests in both camps (see Aero Atelier visit report).

 
For those visiting Lac-à-la-Tortue, it is 150 km from the West Island to Trois Rivieres on Highway 40, and then up Highway 55 to Grandmere. Round trip 420 km, 2 hours each way.

Summary: A nice little museum, small but enthusiastic staff. They would be appreciative of any support we could offer.

Patrick J. Campbell
Director of Manufacturing
Canadian Aviation Heritage Centre