Victoria entered the air age with a crash, 111 years ago.
During Carnival Week, August 1913, performing American aviator Johnny Milton Bryant plummeted to his death in downtown Victoria.
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As did Alcatraz so too did Victoria have its “birdman.” Whereas Robert Stroud, a twice convicted murderer, made himself famous through his studies of birds, William W. Gibson achieved immortality by being Victoria’s—Canada’s—Wright Brothers in one.
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At the time—Oct. 1, 1951—the crash of a Queen Charlotte Airlines Canso on Nanaimo’s Mount Benson was the worst aviation accident in British Columbia history. It’s now the 18th which shows you how far we’ve come in 70 years.
Although I’ve always been fascinated by old aircraft and plane wrecks are a natural extension of that interest, I’ve only managed to get to a few over the years. The one on Mount Benson, six miles west of Nanaimo, is the one that has intrigued me most of all. I first heard of it as a kid and was reminded of it in the mid-1970s as I came out of a north Nanaimo department store and saw the sun glinting on something on the southeast face of Mount Benson.