The Canadian Aviatrix Project (2022)
Looking back at my "flying ladies", as my daughter calls them
In the run up to this year’s 100DaysProjectScotland, I’m looking back at my previous ones – for my third year, I celebrated the first 100 Canadian women pilots.
Canada has seen some amazing women pilots and, while some of them are well-known and honoured, a surprising number of the really early ones have been forgotten. In Shirley Render's wonderful book 'No Place for a Lady: The Story of Canadian Women Pilots 1928-1992', she investigated the lives and careers of the female pioneers in Canadian aviation. However, there were certain women she just couldn't find, so I’ve been trying to help!
I researched each woman as thoroughly as I could, then wrote up a full biography of them here. I also made family trees on Ancestry and Wikitree, so any relatives would find out about their adventurous ancestor.
For the 100 day project, I drew a picture of one pilot, wrote up a little summary of her life, and posted on Instagram.
The project started on June 1 and I posted my final collage on August 30. However, I haven’t stopped looking for the missing pilots and keep updating their profiles with new information. Only eight women remain unknown for now.
You can see a selection of the drawings under the hashtag #CanadianAviatrixProject or all of them by scrolling back through my profile - https://www.instagram.com/randomlygen.
And I regularly add to their blog - https://randomlygenerated.ca/blogs/canadian-aviatrix-project.