Wayne Kokseak imagines himself as a pilot.
The five-year-old from Qikiqtarjuaq got a feel for the job a couple of times this year.
His mother, Sharon Kokseak, has been working as a station agent for Canadian North since Wayne was three months old.
“I think that might be why he wants to become a pilot,” she says. “All the planes he sees at my work. He plays with toy planes all the time, and most of them are Canadian North [toy planes] because they were gifted from my work... That's what caught Canadian North's attention. He carries his plane everywhere he goes, even sleeps with it."
As part of another gift from the airline to Wayne, Canadian North saw pictures of the boy playing with the toy airplanes, and decided to make this little boy’s dream come true not once, but twice.
The airline invited Wayne to visit the cockpit and meet the pilots for the first time on Sept. 29.
Then, on Halloween, Sharon says Wayne told her he wanted to dress up as a pilot.
“They invited him back on Oct. 30,” says Sharon. “He used his costume to visit the plane."
Canadian North flight attendant Stephanie Cloutier helped arrange the visit for her co-worker and the driven boy.
“It’s always exciting meeting kids who are passionate about aviation," says Cloutier, who has been working for the airline for nearly a decade. "When Sharon shared the photo of Wayne in his pilot costume a few days before Halloween and subsequently offered to come say hi to me at the airport in Qikiqtarjuaq on Halloween eve, I checked with the captain and couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I asked her to bring Wayne along in his costume so he could get the full pilot experience (minus flying the plane). He was so proud to sit in the cockpit and looked at the controls in wonder. It was heartwarming to see how much he loved the experience and will cherish it for a long time. I look forward to one day seeing him flying the skies above Baffin!”
Wayne was excited to recount his experience.
“I met both pilots. I saw the cockpit, and there are so many buttons that pilots press as they go on the plane or take off. That’s what I want to learn how to do.”
Sharon says Wayne already talks about wanting to go to pilot school when he’s older, but even now, when he’s asked at school what he wants to be when he grows up, he always says a pilot.
Wayne had his first experience actually flying in a plane this past month, where the “pilot said a special warm welcome to him” when the family returned to Qikiqtarjuaq from Iqaluit on Nov. 2.
“He was scared at first,” said Sharon of Wayne’s first time up in the air, “because it was windy when we took off, but he was sitting in the window seat looking out admiring everything.”
It seems Wayne is closer than ever this National Child Day, Nov. 20, to realizing his dream, thanks to his mother and Canadian North.
