Background: C. Louis Schwam
(with Michel Lafrance who is
in the above photo) was
posted to the Upper Air Station at Frobisher Bay (now Iqaluit) from
January to April
1969. He was doing vacation-replacement duty at that time and saw
service at Maniwaki, Fort Chimo, Frobisher Bay, and Clyde during the
one year period from July 1968 to July 1969 and has added the following
anecdote:
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Gov. General Roland
Mitchener Drops in at the Frobisher Bay Upper Air Station (Spring 1969)
The Story in Louis' words:
One morning in March 1969, Michel Lafrance and I were on duty at the
Upper Air Station for the morning rawinsonde observation. Michel
was at
the L&N chart recorder and I was at the wind plotting station. The
wind plotting station had a small window looking out onto the road that
passed in front of the office.
Shortly after the launch, I was at the plotting station working up the
balloon track when I though I saw something flash by the window.
I was
not looking at the window but I saw a white object cross in the
periphery of my vision. I thought a ptarmigan had just flown by.
A few seconds later, someone knocked on the door. We were kind of busy,
so we just called out (loudly) for whoever was there to "come
in". Whoever was there must have heard us and we heard the door
open and
someone came in. A couple of seconds after the door closed, I
looked
over my right shoulder and saw a fairly tall, rather distinguished
looking man standing at the office door.
I recognized him immediately as Roland Michener, the Governor General
of Canada at the time.
Needless to say, we both paused for a few minutes to introduce
ourselves. The Governor General was out on his morning jog
(unaccompanied by any security detail or aide as would be required
today). As he came down the road, he saw this rather interesting
set of
buildings and, not knowing what their function was, and seeing the
lights on inside, decided to stop in and find out. After the short
introductions, we proceeded to give the Governor General a short
description of what we were doing.
The Governor General, being the gentleman that he was, saw that we were
very busy and made his excuses to leave - I'm sure he had plenty on his
agenda too. We asked the Governor General to sign the observing
log
book below the morning's record. This he, of course, did graciously.
One of the things I remember most about the encounter was Michel's
parting words "Thanks Governor" after the Governor General had signed
the log book. I had been in the military before and knew that the
proper form of address was "Your Excellency". I ribbed Michel
about
this afterwards.
The Governor General and Mrs. Michener were in Frobisher Bay for that
year's annual Toonik Time
spring festival. We knew the Governor General was in town but
never
expected to meet him in person, especially under such informal
conditions.
I met Mr. Michener one other time when, as Chancellor of Queen's
University in Kingston, Ontario, he presented me with my Bachelor of
Science degree in Electrical Engineering in May 1976.
C. Louis Schwalm
January 2013
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