Lethbridge Glider Club’s primary glider being launched with a tow rope, ca. 1934–1937.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007001-005.
Curated by Aimee Benoit
To soar like a hawk, or ride a wild “mountain wave” off the edge of the Rockies: this dream has enticed generations of gliding enthusiasts to the skies of southwestern Alberta.
Gliders are lightweight, motorless aircraft that are launched into the air, and flown on rising spirals of warm air called thermals. Gliding began in western Canada in the 1920s, alongside the growth of motorized flight, and by 1931 handmade gliders were being tested in small towns such as Cardston and Taber. Lethbridge soon became home to one of the most active gliding clubs in North America.
Gliding has continued to attract a small but passionate following in southwestern Alberta, which is now recognized as a world-class destination for the sport.
“Soaring… is the art and essence of flight.”
–J.W. Tibbetts, Lethbridge Herald, Oct. 11, 1945.
Art Larson piloting the Lethbridge Glider Club’s primary glider, ca. 1933–1937.
This in-flight photo was taken with a camera mounted on the left wing tip, using a string routed from the shutter to the cockpit.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007001-034.
Art Larson (sitting) and unidentified man with the first “Prairie Gliders” primary glider, 1929.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007021-007.
Fence-Hoppers and Skid Busters
In 1929, three Lethbridge students pooled their resources to build a simple primary glider. On May 11, 1930, the Lethbridge Glider Club, or “Prairie Gliders” as they called themselves, launched the wooden craft using a shock cord, stretched back like a catapult. The glider barely made it off the ground.
“The glider I would compare with the crow—short, stubby, thick wings, and not capable of displaying much grace in flight. He is not built for it…. Generally, all you can do is glide down. The soaring or sail plane can very easily be compared to the sea gull and swallow–sleek, graceful lines, long thin tapering wings, all perfectly streamlined, capable of sustained flight…”
–J. W. Tibbetts, Lethbridge Herald, October 11, 1945.
Lethbridge Glider Club members with primary glider, ca. 1934–36
In 1934, the Lethbridge Glider Club acquired several new members. Likely pictured here are co-founders Art Larson and Jim Findlay; Tom “Rudder Bar” Hardy, who excelled in stall turns and loops; and John “Lightening Hole” Zmurchyk, who did all the metal work on the club’s gliders.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007001-006.
Yet from that first attempt, the club took every chance they had to fly. They exchanged technical advice with other amateur gliders, added members, modified their aircraft, and experimented with new launching techniques such as motorized winches and tow-cars. Broken skids and long treks through farmers’ fields were all part of a day’s fun.
Club members used their skills in carpentry and metalworking to add a “gull wing” trainer and a Hutter H-17 sailplane to their small fleet. Unlike the primary gliders, the H-17 was designed to soar, and with it, the club achieved several notable feats. Tom Hardy performed what is believed to be Canada’s first loop-the-loop in a glider, and Evelyn Fletcher and Art Larson made long-distance flights that eventually earned them international gliding certificates. Evelyn’s 51-minute flight reached an altitude of 3858 feet (1176 meters)—a Canadian gliding record that stood for ten years.
W. P. “Stevie” Stevens in the Lethbridge Glider Club’s primary glider, ca. 1936.
A private pilot in Calgary, Stevie was a regular visitor to Lethbridge and logged many flights with the Lethbridge Glider Club. In 1936, the club covered the glider’s fuselage with fabric and painted the nickname “Skid Busters,” which they used after Jim Findlay crashed into a fence and broke the skid.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007021-006.
On August 8, 1937, Lethbridge glider pilots took their H-17 to Calgary, where they visited the Calgary Glider Club and enjoyed an afternoon of flying. The two clubs had begun corresponding in 1934 and maintained close ties over the next few years.
Art Larson with H-17 glider in Calgary, Aug. 8, 1937.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007001-091.
Art Larson with the Hutter H-17 glider, at the old Calgary Municipal Airport, June 14, 1943.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007004.
During the Second World War, Art Larson worked as a civilian airframe instructor for the War Emergency Training Programme in Calgary. He brought the Lethbridge Glider Club’s H-17 glider with him to Calgary and flew it occasionally during the war years.
Telegram to Evelyn Fletcher from W. P. Stevens, May 23, 1939.
On May 14, 1939, Evelyn Fletcher made her first cross-country flight, staying aloft for 51 minutes and setting a new unofficial Canadian record. Fellow glider pilot W. P. Stevens sent this telegram to congratulate Evelyn on the flight.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007011.
No. 2 primary glider under construction in Art Larson’s backyard at 1411 3 Avenue North, ca. 1933.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007001-032.
Evelyn Fletcher in the cockpit of the Lethbridge Glider Club’s gull wing glider, which she helped build, ca. 1937–1939.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007021-013.
Evelyn Fletcher joined the Lethbridge Glider Club in 1936. She was one of the first female glider pilots in Canada and set a Canadian long-distance record in 1938, just a few months after soloing the H-17.
Lethbridge Glider Club trailer and tow car, ca. 1939.
Money was scarce during the 1930s. The Lethbridge Glider Club offered to advertise local businesses in order to pay for a new trailer. In April 1939, the club painted the ads off the trailer and added its own emblem instead. Around the same time, they purchased this 1928 Buick to use as a tow car, for $50.
Galt Museum & Archives, P20061007001-005.
The Mountain Wave
Gliders lined up for launch at the Cowley Summer Camp, 1991.
Cowley is the Canadian national wave soaring site, and is so honoured by a cairn that was erected on the summit of Centre Peak (Livingstone Range) in 1987.
Courtesy of Gerald Ince.
When the Second World War began in 1939, members of the Lethbridge Glider Club joined the armed forces, and the club dissolved. In 1945 John Tibbetts, an experienced pilot and air traffic controller in Lethbridge, set up a new soaring club—but it lasted only two years.
These early groups struggled without the support of a larger coordinating body. However, the establishment of the Soaring Association of Canada in 1945, and the Alberta Soaring Council in 1966 helped regulate the sport and provide a forum for sharing knowledge.
A cross-section of the valley through the Cowley airstrip, located between the Livingstone Range and Porcupine Hills. The mountain wave occurs regularly over the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, easily allowing flights over 20,000 feet (6,000 meters), often at a climb rate of well over 1000 feet per minute. The Canadian record of 34,400 feet (about 10,500 meters) was set October 31, 1991 by Bruce Hea.
Courtesy of Tony Burton.
Southwestern Alberta became a magnet for glider pilots chasing the “mountain wave”—a unique airflow created by strong westerly winds sweeping over the Rocky Mountains. Beginning in the mid-1950s, visiting pilots would gather at “Cook’s field,” a private airstrip just north of Pincher Creek, owned by rancher Alvie Cook. Mountain soaring gradually shifted to Cowley, where the Alberta Soaring Council gained a use-permit for the airstrip in 1972. Since that time, the Council has organized annual summer and fall camps that draw pilots from across Canada and the United States.
“We who have appreciated gliding flights, experienced the little whims of the machine and the versatility of the atmosphere in its suddenness to disrupt all stability and tax the pilot’s expertness and good judgment to the extreme, look forward to soaring flight with almost greedy and hasty anticipation.”
–Norm Bruce (letter to Art Larson, January 12, 1935)
The mountain wave is made visible by long, stationary lenticular clouds paralleling the mountains (the Chinook arch is the most obvious example). This photo shows a lenticular cloud and the Livingstone Range from the Cowley airstrip, 2007.
Courtesy of Tony Burton.
The Lethbridge Soaring Club’s first flight, April 4, 2014.
Club members (L–R) Greg Fleming, Greg Skelton, Bruce Aleman, Geoff Minors and Pavan Kumar, pictured in Claresholm with a 2-22, C-FXUB glider.
Courtesy of Geoff Minors.
Soaring Today
Gliding has changed since the days of shock cords and bulky wooden trainers. Today, high-performance gliders can reach more than 30,000 feet (about 10,000 meters), and travel hundreds of kilometers. Pilots are licensed, and equipped with oxygen and parachutes for safety. But some things have not changed: gliding continues to be a team effort, and pilots are still at the mercy of the atmosphere, requiring a finely tuned sense of the wind, clouds and thermodynamics.
Soaring silently alongside a hawk: one of the reasons that glider pilots love the sport.
Photo courtesy of Wilf Plester.
After decades without an active local gliding scene, the Lethbridge Soaring Club was formed in 2013. The club maintains a permanent hangar in Cowley, and three aircraft: a Schweizer SGU 2-22 trainer, a Grob G103T two-seater glider, and a Schweizer SGS 1-26 single-seater. They soar as many weekends as possible, instruct new students and operate a chapter of Freedom’s Wings—a program designed to make gliding accessible to people of all physical abilities.
Glider pilots continue to gather from across the continent to enjoy southwestern Alberta’s exceptional conditions for motorless flight. As a local soaring instructor reflected in 1945, the region remains an ideal place to fulfill the centuries-old dream “of becoming a bird to play with the air.”
Lethbridge Soaring Club’s Grob 103T glider being winch launched at Cowley, 2016.
Courtesy of Bruce Aleman.