The New Wings to Vancouver
Harbour Air was sold to private equity and dismantled for parts. A great shame. But Sunshine Coast Air stepped up — with a 1954 de Havilland Beaver and the best 20-minute commute in Canada.
There is a moment, somewhere over Howe Sound, when the city disappears. The towers of Vancouver drop behind the mountains. The water below turns from grey to deep green. And the sound of the Pratt & Whitney radial engine — that particular, irreplaceable sound — fills the cabin like a promise. This is the Beaver. And there is nothing else like it.
The de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver first flew on 16 August 1947. It was designed after the Second World War for exactly this kind of work: connecting remote communities across Canada's vast coastline and interior, carrying cargo and passengers to places no road could reach. Between 1947 and 1967, de Havilland built 1,657 of them. The Canadian Engineering Centennial Board named it one of the top ten Canadian engineering achievements of the 20th century. The Royal Canadian Mint put it on a quarter in 1999. It is, by any measure, a national icon.
And it is still flying. Right now, out of Sechelt Inlet, a 1954 Beaver is doing what it was built to do — connecting the Sunshine Coast to Vancouver in twenty minutes, carrying the people who live here back and forth across the water with a reliability and a romance that no ferry, no highway, no modern turboprop can match. The company operating it is Sunshine Coast Air. The owner is Josh Ramsay, a pilot who followed his love of flying from Ontario to BC and never looked back. And the service he has built is, quietly, one of the best things to happen to this coast in years.
To understand why it matters, you need to understand what came before it — and what was lost.
Harbour Air: The Rise, the Sale, and the Silence
Harbour Air was founded in 1982 as Windoak Air Service — two pilots, two planes, a single dream. It grew into the world's largest all-seaplane airline, connecting Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Sechelt, the Gulf Islands, and Whistler with a fleet of de Havilland Beavers, Otters, and Twin Otters. It became North America's first carbon-neutral airline. It was, by any measure, a BC institution.
Then, in 2020, Harbour Air was acquired by Birch Hill Equity Partners, a Toronto-based private equity firm. What followed was a familiar story. Routes were suspended. Staff were let go. The Sechelt service — the lifeline for Sunshine Coast commuters — was gutted. Over 100 people lost their jobs in what the community described as a company-wide purge. The planes that had connected this coast for four decades were grounded or redeployed elsewhere.
For the people who live here — the architects, the nurses, the contractors, the parents who commute to Vancouver for work and come home to the forest — it was a genuine loss. The ferry takes an hour and forty minutes on a good day. The highway doesn't exist. The Beaver was the only thing that made the Sunshine Coast feel connected to the city without surrendering what makes it worth living in.
VANCOUVER HARBOUR AT DAWN — THE ROUTE THAT DEFINED THE COAST
The Aircraft That Built British Columbia
The de Havilland Beaver is not a comfortable aircraft in the modern sense. It is loud. The radial engine vibrates through the airframe with a mechanical honesty that no turbine can replicate. The seats are narrow. The windows are small and scratched and absolutely perfect for watching the world go by at 1,000 feet. You can see the kelp beds. You can see the seals on the rocks. You can see the shadow of the plane moving across the water below, and it is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see.
The Beaver was designed for STOL — short takeoff and landing. It can operate from a patch of water no bigger than a small lake. It can carry six passengers and their luggage, or a load of cargo, or a combination of both. It was used by the US Army, by bush pilots across the Canadian north, by Edmund Hillary's 1958 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It is, in the truest sense, a working aircraft — one that has earned its reputation not through marketing but through decades of doing exactly what it was built to do.
Sunshine Coast Air operates a 1954 Beaver — C-FUVQ, a long-nosed variant that flew for years with Vancouver Island Air before Josh Ramsay brought it home to Sechelt. It is, by any reasonable measure, an antique. It is also irreplaceable. No modern aircraft does what the Beaver does, in the places the Beaver goes, at the price the Beaver charges. When the last one stops flying, something real will be lost.
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THE VIEW FROM THE COCKPIT — SECHELT INLET, SUNSHINE COAST, BC
"We sell time and we sell experiences. I think it's important that the consumer has choice. It's a passion of mine and I didn't mind taking it on and working every day to make it happen."
Sunshine Coast Air: What They've Built
Josh Ramsay started Sunshine Coast Air with two Beaver floatplanes and a schedule that connected Sechelt to Nanaimo, Victoria, and Vancouver. The flights take between 15 and 20 minutes — a journey that by ferry and highway would consume the better part of a working day. Regular clients fly twice a week. The tenth flight is free. It is, in the most practical sense, a commuter service. It is also, in the most impractical sense, the best commute in the country.
The company is locally owned and locally operated. The money stays on the Sunshine Coast. The pilots know the inlet, the weather patterns, the particular quality of light on the water in October. They know which passengers are heading to a meeting and which ones are heading home. There is a warmth to the operation that no corporate airline can manufacture — the warmth of people who genuinely love where they live and what they do.
Beyond the scheduled service, Sunshine Coast Air runs flightseeing tours that are, frankly, extraordinary. The Princess Louisa Signature Tour takes you up Jervis Inlet to one of the most dramatic fjords on the BC coast. The Glacier Tour flies over alpine lakes and snowfields that most people never see in their lives. The Fly & Dine package pairs a flight with dinner at a waterfront restaurant. The Chatterbox Falls Tour lands you at a waterfall accessible only by boat or floatplane. These are not tourist gimmicks. They are genuine experiences of a landscape that deserves to be seen from above.
The company has also partnered with West Coast Wilderness Lodge in Egmont — one of the finest wilderness lodges in BC — to provide air transportation from Sechelt. You can book a flight, a lodge stay, and a kayak tour in a single package. It is, as Gerald would say, the full day.
The Routes
| FROM | TO | FLIGHT TIME | FREQUENCY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sechelt Inlet (YHS) | Vancouver Airport (YVR) | ~20 min | Daily, year-round |
| Sechelt Inlet (YHS) | Nanaimo Harbour (ZNA) | ~15 min | Daily, year-round |
| Sechelt Inlet (YHS) | Victoria Airport (YYJ) | ~35 min | Scheduled |
| Sechelt Inlet (YHS) | Tofino (YAZ) | Charter | On request |
Schedules and fares at sunshinecoastair.com. Frequent Flyer program: every 10th flight is free.
The Fleet
C-GFLT — DE HAVILLAND BEAVER · SECHELT INLET DOCK
CESSNA CARAVAN — REMOTE BEACH LANDING · SUNSHINE COAST
THE BEST PASSENGERS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST — WAITING FOR THEIR FLIGHT
Hear the Engine
The Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engine. 450 horsepower. Built in 1954. There is no sound like it in aviation.
SUNSHINE COAST AIR — DE HAVILLAND BEAVER · SECHELT INLET, BC · JULY 2019
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Best Day Ever Scorecard
SUNSHINE COAST AIR — SECHELT TO VANCOUVER
A Personal Note
I have taken this flight more times than I can count. I have taken it in fog so thick you couldn't see the water until you were on it. I have taken it in winter, when the mountains are white and the inlet is black and the Beaver's floats leave two perfect lines of spray behind you as you lift off. I have taken it in summer, when the water is so clear you can see the bottom, and the orcas are sometimes visible from the air, moving south through the sound in a line.
Every single time, I have thought: this is it. This is the one. The best 20 minutes in Canada. The sound of the engine. The smell of the water. The moment when the city disappears behind the mountains and you remember, again, why you live here.
Harbour Air's departure from this route was a real loss — the kind of loss that happens when a company built on passion and community is handed to people who see it only as a portfolio asset. But Sunshine Coast Air is here. Josh Ramsay is here. The Beaver is here. And the route — the best route in BC, the route that makes this coast possible — is still open.
Book the flight. Sit by the window. Listen to the engine. Watch the city disappear. That's the Best Day Ever.
— Gerald Shaffer, Roberts Creek, BC
GERALD SHAFFER & WIFE — BOARDING C-FUVQ FOR HORNBY ISLAND
Book Your Flight
Sunshine Coast Air operates daily, year-round scheduled service between Sechelt Inlet and Vancouver, Nanaimo, and Victoria. Charter flights available to anywhere a floatplane can land on the BC coast.
Sechelt: 5987 Sechelt Inlet Rd · 1-604-740-8889 · 1-888-436-7776