had caught up to him, he was alive but se-
verely frostbitten and in poor shape.
Another intensely difficult rescue mission
involved five people who had been strand-
ed on pieces of ice after a boating accident
in the bay. The problem was that there was
no place to land the helicopter. Duncan
had to bring the aircraft close enough to
allow the boaters, who were hypothermic
by that point, to climb aboard.
Sometimes even though all measures are
taken to ensure that fuel deficiency doesn’t
become a problem, nature calls without
warning. In the case of Inuit whale hunters
who had gone out to sea, unexpected de-
lays like a storm forced them to stay adrift
for longer than anticipated. Here, Nunavik
Rotors was charged with the task of deliv-
ering essential items to the hunters.
Tourists tend to be less aware of the haz-
ards of the environment than locals and
are especially prone to sticky situations.
When the company dropped off hikers in
the Torngat Mountains area, the plan was
to make the return trip via ski. Unfortu-
nately, these hikers got caught in a severe
storm. Although the weather was terrible,
as soon as there was a window of oppor-
tunity, Nunavik Rotors sent out a rescue
team.
There is no other helicopter company in
Kuujjuaq. “The service that we provide,
it’s a specialized form of transportation,”
Duncan said. “Being available for search
and rescue, that to me is one of the most
important aspects of our service.”
SECRET TO SUCCESS IN
THE ARCTIC
In the 1970s and 1980s, helicopter com-
panies were not rare in Kuujjuaq, but the
period following it saw a decline. In re-
sponse to this disparity, Nunavik Rotors
was founded in 1998 as a joint venture
with Air Inuit, which remains to this day
as the parent company. As part owner of
the company, Duncan has been part of the
team since its founding, and the beginning
humbly consisted of a man-machine trio,
Duncan, one engineer and one helicopter.
“It was a tight start, but that was the only
way to go,” Duncan said.
Now there are two helicopters based in
Kuujjuaq full time, operated by four pi-
lots and three engineers. In 2010, a sister
“Themajority of our clientele is themineral exploration division and themarkets
are way down, which affects them and in turn it affects us. If they don’t have
money, they won’t go to work and they won’t have use for us.”
SEPTEMBER 2016
H
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