A legendary Gwich’in pilot, broadcaster and politician kept giving back to his hometown until his last days.
Wally Firth died March 2, leaving a long trail of work that improved life, communications and transportation in the North. He was 89 years old.
Inuvik’s first CBC radio broadcaster, one of the early Indigenous pilots to take to the skies and the first Northern Indigenous Member of Parliament, as well as a founding member of the forerunner of the Dene Nation, Firth blazed a trail for thousands of people across the North and Canada as a whole.
A strong voice for Northerners, Firth’s true calling was in the skies. Throughout his life, he dreamed of being a pilot and he earned his wings in 1966 after a few forced landings.
“I carried that dream for quite a number of years and finally in the spring of 1966 I had an opportunity to make that dream come true,” wrote Firth in his memoir. “I joined the fledgling Yellowknife flying club in the spring of 1966 and began to take flying lessons. That did not work out too well because our flight instructor, Johnny Brooks, was only able to teach on his time off from his regular job as a bush pilot…
“Because my flying lessons were too few and far between, I decided to continue my flight training at the Edmonton flying club. That went along quite well and just before I was ready to do my first solo flight I ran out of money, so I went back to Yellowknife and went back to work as a radio announcer at CBC. In October I took a bus back to Edmonton…”
It was there that Firth earned his private pilot’s licence.
Despite the certification, he continued his work on CBC Radio in Yellowknife and went on to invest in a $3,500 Taylorcraft plane with co-worker Ted Wood. After Wood took a posting as a correspondent in Germany, Firth wrote he “somehow received a loan of some money” and bought the remainder of the aircraft, which enabled him to begin logging hours toward his dream of becoming a commercial bush pilot.
“It was a beautiful two-seater aircraft with a 65-horsepower engine which we had to start by hand,” wrote Firth. “The aircraft did not have any electrical system and so therefore no radio or starter.”
Ever determined, he was awarded his commercial pilot’s licence on Jan. 12, 1972.
“Then I managed to receive my flight instructors rating and taught flying at the Rockcliffe flying club for a year, then on to some charter work out of Fort Liard with Simpson Air,” Firth wrote.
“During those 17 years that I flew pretty well over most of Canada but mostly in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. I only had a few scares and fell out of the skies only once. That episode occurred just a few miles south of Norman Wells at Halfway Island. For some unknown reason the 185 used up all of the fuel from one of the wing tanks and did not use the other full fuel tank. Fortunately, I was on floats at the time and landed safely on the Mackenzie River.”
Move into politics
Born in Fort McPherson on Jan. 25, 1935, to William and Mary Firth, Wally was one of 15 siblings between his father’s two marriages and two adoptions. His grandfather, John, first came to the region from the Orkney Islands in Scotland in 1870s to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). He married a Gwich’in woman and settled down along the Peel River, taking over the post in 1867 at age 23.
After leaving school, Wally joined HBC and began working his way up the chain, eventually being named a manager. This eventually led him to a job with the NWT Housing Corporation, which he then left to join the CHAK, Inuvik’s CBC station. He later took a shot at working as a game officer in Fort Smith, but returned to the airwaves by personal request from the head office in Ottawa.
He was with CBC Yellowknife until 1968, when he accepted a position as executive secretary of the Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada (IEAC), now the Canadian Association in Support of Native Peoples. He would also serve a key role in the founding of the Indian Brotherhood of the NWT.
In this position, Firth was not only able to finally complete his commercial pilot’s licence, he was also instrumental in securing funding from OXFAM for the ‘talking bird’ — a second-hand aircraft purchased in Inuvik and outfitted with skis, floats and Northern survival gear.
His experience as a bush pilot and broadcaster allowed him to take to the skies to improve communication across the North, transporting Indigenous social and education workers to remote areas, conducting medical surveys, coordinating housing initiatives in remote areas, assessing hunting grounds destroyed by forest fires, distributing educational films and evaluating timber reserves.
In 1972, Firth joined the New Democratic Party and ran for the House of Commons in the Western Arctic riding, becoming the first Indigenous MP from the North. From 1972 until stepping down in 1978, Firth served in the opposition, helping launch the Berger (Mackenzie Valley Pipeline) Inquiry. After his time in Ottawa, Firth served as president of the NWT Métis Association.
He continued to support the North and advocate for his community into retirement, teaching fiddle lessons to eager students in Fort McPherson remotely from his retirement home in Victoria, B.C.
He is remembered as an inspiration to many.
“I was just a kid back then but I do remember him on CHAK Inuvik,” said Gwich’in Elder-in-training and retired journalist Lawrence Norbert. “Perhaps why I also joined them while still in high school and after grad.”