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Wednesday, November 12, 2008 • PARRY SOUND NORTH STAR - 5

Stained glass window in memory of mom

BY EVAN FRENCH North Star Staff

It was nice day, but nobody had gone flying yet on Friday morning as Parry Sound Area Municipal Airport manager Neil Pirie gazed across the runway.

“I think they’re calling for rain,” he said.

Construction on new facilities at the airport is continuing on schedule, he said, and the airport will soon welcome two new businesses on the grounds: ProSafe, a company which tests fire suppression technology on the hulls of aircraft, and Project X, a classic car refurbishing company.

For the most part, the airport deals in what Pirie called general aviation. Considering how much their customers buy in fuel, he said, they wouldn’t be considered the biggest spenders.

“For the most part we get small planes - Cessnas and Pipers.”

But when business is at it’s peak, he said, they sell to Hydro One, and the Ministry of Natural Resources, as well as the provincial police.

When the OPP are patrolling the highways with their eye-in-the-sky spotter plane, they’re in and out of Parry Sound airport to refuel.

Pirie also deals with the armed forces on a regular basis, as search and rescue choppers, out of CFB Trenton, pay fuel visits on their way to search for missing people.

“It’s nice to have them in here,” he said. “But it’s always a bad reason, so you kind of don’t want to see them.”

He said he’s heard the airport used to be a privately-owned grass field, and it was first designated in 1979.

He likes to go through old records and newspaper clippings, when he has time, to find out more about the strip in Seguin Township, which features a 4,000-foot runway and employs as many as 30 people.

Pirie said the airport is a busy place, although this year has been slow.

“Our movements are probably up around a thousand a year,” he said. “This summer might have dropped off a little bit, but that was all weather related.”

If we’d had a nicer summer, he said, the number of visits this year

would have exceeded last year’s number. He said there have been requests from the owners of bigger planes to develop facilities to service and refuel their thirsty machines.

If their requirements were met, said Pirie, the airport would be able to bring a whole new load of wealthy customers into the area.

“We can already land some of the smaller jets,” he said. “There’s no maintenance for it, but we have the fuel.”

He said to land larger jets, with higher weight capacities, the airport would have to look at expanding the runway.

“We’ve got some room to make it longer,” he said. “There’s the possibility of maybe turning it a bit, all kinds of things.”

He said in terms of continued expansion, there are many plans afoot.

“You name it aviation wise, and someone’s already suggested it.”

Pirie said an area that needs work is the international market. American tourists who fly up to visit their cottages on the Canadian Shield have to make a stop at Muskoka Airport before carrying on to Parry Sound.

Pirie said it ’s because the local airport has been unable to qualify for the CANPASS program, which allows residents of Canada or the U.S. to pass over the border quickly at participating ports of entry.

He said the reason the local municipal airport doesn’t qualify is simple; Parry Sound’s airport lies 20 kilometres outside of a boundary line, which radiates around the CANPASS headquarters in Barrie, and cannot qualify.

Pilots who want to visit Parry Sound have to waste valuable fuel landing and taking off in Muskoka, before making short flight north.

“To have to land and start up the engine again, for a 20-minute flight, it’s ridiculous.”

He said he can understand why the procedure is so strict. After the airborne attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, CANPASS had to rethink how they do business, and the program went back to the drawing board.

He said it’s much harder now for a small airport to gain CANPASS approval, but he understands why.

“It’s a perfectly good reason,” he said.

Airport could keep growing: manager

BY EVAN FRENCH North Star Staff

A church in Seguin Township has recently been renovated with a new stained glass window.

The window, which depicts a rose, was donated and built by Elizabeth Steinebach, in memory of her mother, Elfrieda, who died in December of 2006.

Although her mother lived in Toronto, Steinebach said she wanted to build a memorial that would be close to her home in Orrville.

Steinebach, who has been cottaging in the area for 40 years, said the Seguin Memorial United Church has always been her favourite local house of worship.

She said staff at the church took a big “leap of faith” in allowing her to build a memorial to her deceased mother in their chapel.

Jim White, a member of the church, worked

with Steinebach to make the window a reality.

He said it’s a very generous donation and many people from around town have been in to have a peek.

Steinebach said the 17 square-foot window was very expensive to build, and she’s very happy with the finished product.

“In the summer months, the window should reflect right behind the altar, so that should be really cool,” she said.

White said the congregation has met a couple of times since the window went in, and everyone is very impressed with it. He said installing the window was entirely Steinebach’s idea.

Steinebach said when she was planning her design with members of the church, their idea was to bring lots of colour into the room and, after much brainstorming, they decided to go with the rose design.

White said dedication for the window should come sometime in December.

Submitted photo

Steinebach’s 17-square-foot memorial will reflect light behind the altar of Seguin’s Memorial United Church in Orrville.

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