Beside a quiet dock in La Ronge, a floatplane bobs gently on the surface of the lake.

It’s old, unmistakably so, its paint faded from decades of sun, wind and water.

The engine is loud, the cockpit small. The smell of fuel and oil hangs in the air like part of the landscape.

To most, the aircraft looks like a relic. To the Pacey family, it’s home.

Listen to the story here:

This is a story about a plane, yes.

But it’s really about a father and son — Robert Pacey Sr. and Robert Pacey Jr. — and the lives they’ve built in northern Saskatchewan, working side by side for Rise Air in the sky and on the ground.

And at the heart of it all is an old de Havilland Beaver, built in 1956 and still earning its keep in the bush.

Fuel in the blood

Jet fuel runs in the Pacey family’s blood. It alwa

See Full Page