By Captain Graeme Scott
We all need help from time to time—and that includes Santa Claus.
On Friday, December 6, 2019, members of 8 Wing Trenton, Ontario, took to the skies to transport more than 11,000 pounds of toys from Trenton to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, as part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's annual “Toys for the North” program.
Every year since 2010, thousands of toys have been collected by members of the RCMP, Thomson Terminals, and the Toy Council of Canada in hopes that as many children as possible in Canada's Northern communities have a present to open at Christmas.
The program begins each year in the early summer, with toys being donated by corporate sponsors through the Canadian Toys Association. The RCMP then collects the toys and volunteers sort and package them at Toronto-based warehouse and shipping company Thompson Terminals in early December.
Once prepared, the toys are loaded onto a tractor-trailer and delivered to 8 Wing.
While 8 Wing doesn't have any reindeer, it has the next best thing: its very own workhorses—a pair of CC-130J Hercules transport aircraft. As part of a training flight in the early morning hours of December 6, members of 436 Transport Squadron and 426 Transport Training Squadron prepared for departure to RCMP hubs in Thunder Bay and Happy-Valley Goose Bay (respectively).
Within minutes of landing in Labrador, 5 Wing Goose Bay and the RCMP personnel were hard…
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