Gerd and Dorothy Wengler have joined a very elite group. That, of course, is the group of pilots who have landed their private aircraft at Canadian Forces Station Alert, the most northerly airport in North America.

Alert is a restricted military site, so just getting permission to go there takes a lot of work.  And then there's the flight to the top of Ellesmere Island, some 4000 kilometers north of their home near Toronto, Ontario . There is only one small civilian community on Ellesmere - Grise Fiord, about 700 kilometers south of Alert. And there's a weather and science station about halfway up at Eureka. Making that trip is not something for the faint of heart.

Gerd and Dorothy made the Alert trip in mid-August 2009, from their home in southern Ontario.  And from this article on the Canadian Forces website, it sounds like it was quite an adventure.  They made the trip to mark the Centennial of Powered Flight in Canada.

This wasn't their first trip to Canada's Eastern Arctic in their Turbo Skylane.  They visited Iqaluit in the summer of 2005 on the way to Europe. They were back in 2007 for a sightseeing trip to Pangnirtung, Qikiqtarjuaq and Greenland.

We're looking forward to a trip report from Gerd on the Alert trip.  You can read his trip report on the 2005 Europe trip here.