Around the World with Santa: Day 1

If you have ever looked at a map, you have probably noticed that the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Now it would certainly be possible to construct a runway in the winter up at the North Pole. However, the company owning Santa's chartered 747s would probably take a dim view of landing the aircraft at an unregulated airstrip which does not appear on any global navigation charts. (Besides, Flight Simulator X has no mechanism for this, either.) So, in order to comply with the terms of the lease agreement, Santa's elves have agreed to schlep the toys from their workshop at the North Pole using their fleet of flying reindeer to Iqaluit Airport, located in the far northern territory of Nunavut in Canada. This will be as close to the North Pole as the 747 aircraft's owners will allow it to land.

From here, we are going to make a run down to Montreal's Mirabel Airport for the first leg of our journey. Mirabel was originally intended to be a replacement for Montreal's Dorval (now Trudeau) Airport, but it never really quite caught on. Instead, Mirabel mainly sees lots of use by cargo, general aviation, and even some MEDEVAC flights. This makes it quite an ideal destination for staging Santa's toy deliveries to all the good boys and girls living in French Canada.

Here we are at Iqaluit, ready to go. The snow is blowing hard, and the weather is rather cold. Takeoff time is around 10:00 in the morning. Being in the far north of Canada, the sun rises very late and sets very early:



Our flight path will take us roughly due south over the Hudson Strait and into northern Quebec. We will go in and out over a few small portions of western Labrador as well. When we reach Baie Comeau, QC at the St. Lawrence River, we will turn southwest and follow the river the rest of the way to Mirabel.

We are airborne, at last. Here we fly above the snow. You can see the Hudson Strait below us:



Here we are in the great white north over Ungava Bay. We will be crossing back onto land in northern Quebec near Kuujjuaq, a largely Inuit village:



At Baie Comeau, we turn southwest. Here is the wide expanse of the St. Lawrence Seaway ahead of us:



We are getting close now. Montreal Center has directed us for an approach on Mirabel's Runway 24, so we will begin to vector into position:



Here we are on final approach. We expect a few bumps on our way down as we pass back through the snowy clouds:



We touch down in the snow at Mirabel. Gee, snow seems to be a recurring theme in the Canadian winter, eh?



Here we pull into a slip at the cargo terminal next to a UPS bird. There appears to be a problem with the texture on PMDG's Boeing dreamliner livery. I will have to check and see if a fix exists:



Our first leg of the journey is complete. Merry Christmas to all our friends in Quebec and the surrounding areas!

Around the World with Santa: Prologue

If you are like me, you have probably wondered at some point: how does Santa Claus cope with the ever-increasing numbers of children at Christmas? I did some checking around with various unnamed sources, and I have found some very surprising answers. It turns out that Santa has had to modernize his gift distribution network over the years to keep up.

How, you might ask? Well, it turns out that Santa has a global logistical network that puts both Amazon.com and UPS to shame. In fact, I have learned that Santa now has secret distribution centers all over the world! You see, if Santa had to trek back up to the North Pole to reload the sleigh after every trip, he would still be delivering gifts from five years ago this Christmas. So, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, he stocks up all his secret regional sites with goodies ahead of time. Sure, when Christmas Eve rolls around, Santa still continues the tradition of hitching Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer up to the sleigh and delivering gifts to all the good boys and girls. However, rather than wasting valuable time zipping back to the North Pole to reload the sleigh on Christmas Eve, Santa can simply zip over to the nearest secret site to tank up and keep going.

As you might expect, Santa and the elves have to rent some planes to get the goodies out from the workshop out to all the sites ahead of the big day. And let me tell you, Santa doesn't mess around! He charters 747-400 freighters like this one:



The liveries on Santa's planes tend to be similarly nondescript. Santa doesn't like to attract unnecessary attention before the big day, after all.

Now it turns out that different regions of the world have slightly different beliefs when it comes to Santa. For example, in much of Europe, Santa is known variously as Father Christmas, Papa (or Pere) Noel, Sinterklaas, or various other names. Many Europeans believe that Santa's operations are located in Lapland, rather than the North Pole. People connected with Santa's operations have assured us that these are just different franchises of the same operation, and everything is connected.

In a Pretend Flyer exclusive, Santa has agreed to let us tag along on some of his pre-Christmas gift delivery flights this holiday season! We will ride along in the jumpseat of one of Santa's 747s as they stage gifts in various locales ahead of the big day. We will even visit the European operations of the world's largest gift-giving organization along the way. Keep watching this space as we document the daily travels of Santa's flying elves.