The last night of the year - 2012 by Mike Bellamy, Whitehorse The last night of the year had softened the ground with an inch of new snow and slender columns of smoke from a hundred city chimneys lifted the clouds to let in a feeble morning light. The borrowed Cessna One-fifty clattered happily in the frigid air. The first aircraft to move on the Whitehorse airport in 1973. This flight had become a tradition with me arriving early every new years morning to an airport quiet and serene to conduct one solo circuit of the airport. From a thousand feet above Whitehorse I could see the feathered trail of concrete that I had uncovered taking off from the runway just moments before. I keyed the transmit. “Tower UQR is downwind, full stop.” “Roger UQR you’re number one.” Tower replied. He couldn’t have said it better I thought. Gazing towards the frosted hills and distant mountains, I paid homage to a machine and a land that had given me the career that I had dreamt of as a child. Wherever my life devoted to aviation took me I would forever venerate the Yukon. My benediction complete I pulled on the throttle and the little Cessna muttered softly descending towards the runway. “UQR it’s Whitehorse tower you’re cleared to land thirteen right and Happy New Year.”