Edward Joseph Augustus “Paddy” Burke (d. 1930)
Paddy Burke started flying at the age of sixteen during the First World War.1) Burke flew in the Middle East and then immigrated to Canada in 1926. He flew with the Aerial Photographic Survey of the Fraser Valley, as a pilot for International Airways, and as a test pilot for Boeing.2)
In May 1930, the Air-Land Manufacturing Company of Vancouver sent the first Junker F-13 to Atlin to fly in British Columbia. Burke was their chief pilot, one of the most experienced pilots in Canada at the time. On October 10, 1930, Burke, Emil Kading, and trapper Bob Martin left on a flight from Atlin to the Hudson's Bay Co. post at Fort Liard. They flew into a blizzard on the return trip and Burke was forced to land on the Liard River. The plane's float was damaged on takeoff the next day and the men were stranded. On 17 October, they left the plane for a cache left earlier in the season.3) They made some forty-eight kilometres looking for the food cache before setting up a camp when Burke was exhausted. On day twenty-three Kading shot a caribou but [diabetic] Paddy died that night. A rescue party from Prince George got lost and a party sent to find the rescuers could not find them. The original crew walked 560 kilometres to safety. Many more tried to find Burke and his party, but the search was called off after a month. The company Burke worked for tried one last time because their pilot Wasson was sure he could find them. He asked expert woodsman Joe Walsh for help and the two started a systematic search on 12 November. Two months after Burke's plane went missing, Wasson and Walsh spotted it in the snow. Two days later they found Kading and Martin. They threw out food and landed on a lake sixteen km away and snow shoed back to the men. The survivors were transported to Whitehorse on 10 December 1930.4)
After Burke’s death, Joe Walsh went back to Mayo to live and Martin and Kading moved to Atlin. Everett Wasson married Florence G. Jones of the Whitehorse Hospital staff. A creek was named after Paddy Burke. Burke Creek runs into the Liard River, south of Wasson Lake on the southeast side of the Simpson Range and near the headwaters of the Liard River. Since this rescue, Yukon aviation law requires survival gear for all passenger aircraft.5) Everette Wasson was inducted into the Yukon Transportation Hall of Fame on 2 June 2005.6)