A company is claiming today to be producing the first large hovercraft in North America, but in video here, we can see that an offshoot of the Dominion Bridge Company made one back in 1971.
The machine was given a demonstration at Nisku in 971.
A commercial spy working for a British firm saw the try-out that day, and reported it to the patent-holder. Arctic Contractors was only allowed to make the one "air cushion" machine.
It proved itself able to carry freight over water, land, muskeg and rock. According to a participant at that demonstration, it even was able to work itself across a fence. The side-walls below merely folding themselves around the top of the fence as it came to it.
According to one old-timer, that one machine operated for a good while up North on the Mackenzie River.
It was used as a lighter to convey the freight -- Caterpillar tractors and industrial and oil drilling components -- from the shore to a barge offshore.
see also these online sources:
Voyageur Air Cushion Vehicle trials on the Mackenzie Delta: environmental effects two years later - NRCan Open S&T Repository
R42-3-1965-3-eng.pdf
710186: The Design and Operational Experience of the TTI T4x ACV in Northern Canada - Technical Paper
A.D.S. - Phase I Ice Tests With An Air Cushion Transporter | PETSOC Annual Technical Meeting | OnePetro
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There is also a Hovercraft Club today.
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