Hats off to Thompson Chamber of Commerce president Keith MacDonald for having the good sense to get behind the Flin Flon Chamber of Commerce picking up our dropped ball on airships to the Arctic last month at the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce annual general meeting in Russell.

To recap the chain of events briefly leading up to the provincial meeting, the Thompson Chamber of Commerce Feb. 24 defeated a resolution, which would have otherwise seen it supporting an airships to the Arctic resolution at the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce annual general meeting. What is noteworthy about that is the chamber had lobbied for them by resolution for the last several years before this year’s abrupt about-face when it nixed the idea of pursuing airships as freight vehicles in the North as being worthy to lobby for.

In fact, Mayor Tim Johnston had in the past represented Thompson’s interest in airships – including being invited to sit participate in a leaders panel as recently as October 2007 at the Airships to the Arctic IV symposium presented by the University of Manitoba and Transport Institute. Former mayor Bill Comaskey had also been a supporter.

Curtis Ross, chief executive officer of the Thompson Regional Airport Authority, with support from Brock Weir and Brent Sutherland at Calm Air, convinced the chamber to reverse their support for airships this year and forgo sending a resolution supporting the idea to the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce annual general meeting. Ross said in a later interview he’s not so much against the idea of airships as he is the notion of pursuing them right now for Thompson when much can be done to improve the already existing Thompson Regional Airport Authority and airports across the North.

Of the chamber’s 178 members at the time, only 18 were present for the vote and the majority abstained, so as office manager Margaret Allan later noted in the minutes, “the resolution on airships was defeated.”

We commented earlier that the decision may have been technically democratic, but we also thought ill advised. We didn’t see the two – improving the airport and lobbying for airships – as mutually exclusive.

Airships are enormous cigar-shaped balloons, up to six storeys high, that are touted to be a cheap, reliable transportation for people and cargo.

Airships, dirigibles, or Zeppelins, are in casual usage interchangeable terms for what can be technically different types of air vessels. They are lighter than air and can be steered and propelled through the air. Unlike aerodynamic vehicles like fixed-wing aircrafts and helicopters, they stay aloft by filling a large cavity with lighter than air gas like helium or hydrogen. But a series of high-profile accidents, including the May 6, 1937 airborne burning of the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, understandably created a public relations disaster 70-plus years ago for the aircraft, which like airplanes and automobiles are built differently – and more safely today.

The idea for their wide-freight use has been around in this area since 2002 when Barry Prentice, a professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba’s I. H. Asper School of Business and former director of the Transport Institute started talking about them at symposiums.

MacDonald noted the decision to send – or in this case, not send – a resolution to the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce for discussion are in effect for a year. So, although the airship resolution “might not” be put back on the slate for voting in Russell, it doesn’t mean the resolution can’t be brought back by another chamber in Manitoba this year or even Thompson in future years, he said earlier this year after the vote.

“The Thompson Chamber members believe that this year, we have more pressing resolutions to bring forth and it may be a few years before the airships resolution will gain more strength,” MacDonald said.

Fortunately, the Flin Flon Chamber of Commerce saw the matter differently. And equally fortunately for us, MacDonald proved to be a good Northern neighbour and gracious on the issue.

“Flin Flon partnered with us last year, and they supported us when we brought the motion then. They’ve actually supported us for the last three or four years I believe, and the reason why is because it’s a resolution that is provincial in scope,” MacDonald explains. “We can’t necessarily say it’s for Thompson alone, but we can say we want it for the North … if the airships landed in Flin Flon or Gillam or anywhere else in the North that’d be the sole purpose behind it – at least we’d have them coming to the North.”

Now, MacDonald says he is hoping the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce will take the airships resolution, combine it with the resolution about creating an all-winter road to Gillam, and lobby the Province of Manitoba to have a feasibility study done sometime this year.

“Freight is a big issue up here in the North. There are a lot of benefits for airships,” MacDonald goes on to say. “They carry more, they’re also more fuel efficient and if we’re trying to be environmentally aware and do our part, that’s another bonus …They can also get to more places at any time of the year – they only need a small landing area, they don’t need a whole airport, so that’d be something that’s a bonus too.”

He added: “We just couldn’t let anything of this nature die,” MacDonald stresses. “We just needed to make sure one of the other chambers was putting it forward. I supported the Flin Flon bid at the chamber meeting, and I also instructed them along the way.”

Well done, Keith MacDonald.