Gander is a town located in the northeastern part of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately 40 km (25 mi) south of Gander Bay, 100 km (62 mi) south of Twillingate and 90 km (56 mi) east of Grand Falls-Windsor. …
When the U.S. closed its airspace after the September 11 attacks, Gander International Airport took in 38 commercial aircraft and four military aircraft, and accommodated nearly 6,700 evacuees from Olympic Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways, Alitalia and more.
Assistance following September 11 attacks In 2001, Gander International Airport played an integral role in world aviation in the hours immediately following the September 11 attacks when all of North America’s airspace was closed by Transport Canada and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As part of Operation Yellow Ribbon, 38 civilian and 4 military flights bound for the United States were ordered to land at the airport—more flights than any Canadian airport other than Halifax International. More than 6,600 passengers and airline crew members—equivalent to 66% of the local population at the time—were forced to stay in the Gander area for up to six days until airspace was reopened.
Reddit user CoolCademM has a collection of photos taken by their grandmother from Gander Airport shortly following 9/11
Elder G helps us imagine the traffic at the Gander Airport
Very cool video about the history of Gander, including Fidel Castro riding a toboggan sled and Cold War intrigue.
Even during Cold War, every Aeroflot jet from Russia to Cuba had to land in Gander for refueling. Gander was considered to be some kind of neutral ground, so the passengers were allowed to leave the plane and into the terminal, while their plane was serviced. In that terminal interesting black market deals took place, for example Russian woman quickly sold their fur coat (which very often they only brought for this purpose, since you don’t really need fur coats in Cuba) and either brought the dollars home or bought all kind of stuff in the duty free shops, that were hard to find in the Soviet Union: cigarettes, perfumes, cosmetics, electronics, cameras, etc.
I know a woman from Romania who did the trip from Bucharest to Moscow, to Havana via Gander and back, just for the black market opportunities. She was well prepared with goods to trade and made the deal of her life in that round-trip. Back at home she had some much highly sought of goods to trade, that she made more than three times the money than the whole holiday had cost. But she said you had to be smart because the KGB also had its agents in Gander airport. – @ekesandras1481
O Canada.com features a nice tour of the North Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander. The article includes a photo of the Jiggs Dinner at nearby Rosie’s Restaurant and Bakery.
It appears that the North Atlantic Aviation Museum is down, by you can read about it on Wikipedia.
Semi-sequitur: Jigg’s Dinner
By Alycmy – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124190840
Let’s Break Google
Details from “Jiggs Dinner.”
I’m going to give Google 2 of 4, or 50%. At WLBOTT Ag & Mechanical, this qualifies Google for W A&M magma cum laude.
Remembering 9/11: The Day Canadian Town Of Gander Opened Its Doors, Hearts To Stranded Strangers
For the better part of a week, the people in Gander – and surrounding towns such as Gambo, Appleton and Lewisporte – opened their doors to the Plane People, as the unexpected guests were called.
[excerpts from the transcript]
As we remember 9-11, there’s one story of hope and kindness that has endured. The story of the small canadian town of gander newfoundland where nearly 7,000 passengers were stranded after their flights were diverted there that day.
For five days the town of 10,000 people welcomed the passengers into their homes a few months after 9-11.
If you look at the world today, and you look at what is happening, and you see on the TV and you see on your Facebook and everything how people are getting angry at each other and they’re fighting on airplanes, and they’re fighting on trains and they’re fighting in grocery stores and people are looking at this play and reading books and seeing the documentaries and going I Remember.
I Remember.
That’s what it was like when i was growing up. And they’re longing for that.
For Roxanne, 9-11 was an especially scary time. She was bringing home Alexandra, a 2-year-old infant, she had just adopted in Kazakhstan.
After the first night the McLeods moved them from the Lion’s club to their own home. They were family immediately.
We feel like we got more out of it as far as good feelings and what not than the passengers did.
Roxanne who made sure her daughter, who is now 22, understood what happened on that fateful day.
I have tried to instill in all of my kids to continue with that kindness, you know, and anytime i see anyone that needs any help, we don’t know their story. We don’t know what they’re going through. We just know they need help, so help them.
Gander – Getting There
Gander is being considered for the 2025 WLBOTT Conclave. Note the opportunities for car pooling.
The conclave will feature a buffet based on Jiggs’ Dinner:
Gander has an average of 1,624.2 hours of sunshine per year, or about 4.446938999014347 hours of sunshine per day.
The cloudiest city in the world is often considered to be Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands. Located in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Norway, Tórshavn experiences an average of over 840 hours of sunshine annually [or an average of 2.299857627861132 per day], meaning it’s cloudy for the vast majority of the year. The combination of its latitude and oceanic climate leads to frequent overcast skies and misty conditions.
Elder G
Why, heck, down here in Texas, we got us 840 hours of sunshine in a single day.
