So, in my 29th year, I packed my family into an International Scout 4x4 I had managed to purchase and went looking for a Super Cub I could afford. Looking back, I shudder contemplating what I did. On the trip back to Alaska, and for the first two years I owned that airplane, my rabbit's foot got so overworked that I wore it out. Today, there is hardly a hair left on it. But in the process I sure learned a lot.
Pilotage is primarily the art of navigating by landmarks.
These landmarks can be roads, valleys, rivers, lakes, glaciers, mountains, anything that provides real-time data as to where you are. When using a chart, the usual method is to pick out the landmarks you will be using, along with compass headings and estimated time from one point to the next, and go for it. Pilotage got me safely to Alaska that first year, and to this day I use it when circumstances dictate. Let's take a look at the various landmarks and see how you will be using them in Northern Canada and Alaska. Flying into the Los Angeles basin, roads are not the best landmarks, but fly into the Yukon Territory or Alaska, and things become very different.