Twin Otter Captain Joe Reid is hanging up his pilot’s hat after 45 years of flying in the North.
Air Tindi employees, friends and well-wishers gathered on the rock behind the airline’s Latham Island office to watch him land the last flight of his career on Aug. 2. They then threw a retirement party for him.
Reid, originally from Saskatoon, Sask., was a pilot with the RCMP for 25 years in Yellowknife and northern Saskatchewan and with Air Tindi for 20 years.
That marks Reid as a rarity for Northern pilots, said Air Tindi president Chris Reynolds.
“He’s one of the few who spent his entire career in the North,” Reynolds said.
His work with Tindi took him all over the NWT, Nunavut and the High Arctic.
“I’m tired and it’s time to relax a bit more and spend more time with my wife,” Reid said. “I plan to hang out at my house on Pontoon Lake.”
