Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by Marcel Rousseau.
Some were previously published by the Orillia Museum of Art and History and in the book Postcard Memories Orillia.
The end of the First World War produced an abundance of two things: pilots and airplanes, including this Curtis HS-2L La Vigilance parked at the dock on Orillia’s waterfront.
Originally built for the U.S. Navy as an anti-submarine patrol bomber, the HS became the very first Canadian bush plane shortly after the war.
The plane had a wingspan of 74 feet and was 39 feet long with a cruising speed of 65 miles per hour.
The HS required a crew of two - a pilot and an engineer - but could carry up to five people or their equivalent weight.
One of the many shortcomings as a bush plane was the crew and passengers sat in open cockpits and were forced to endure snow, wind, rain and skin freezing temperatures.
Sitting in the two cockpits at the nose would terrify the most daring passengers. The HS was soon replaced by newer aircraft.
Orillia, with its waterfront close to the business area, was a major supplier to the lumber camps north of here and we can speculate that the boxes of supplies on the wharf were soon packed into the aircraft and flown to some remote lake north of here
