THE LAST FLIGHT OF La Vigilance began on September 2, 1922, with pilot Don Foss and engineer Jack Caldwell at the controls of the Curtiss HS-2L flying boat that had been flown by Stuart Graham on what is considered the first bush flight in Canada. They were delivering gas from Remi Lake in northern Ontario to Lac Pierre, a 90-minute flight. On the return trip, they ran into heavy rain and decided to set down on a small lake to wait for the weather to clear, since they had only enough fuel for one run into Remi Lake. But it was a small lake only about a half-mile long. Getting back up would be problematic.
Foss mulled over his situation. On takeoff, La Vigilance probably wouldn’t clear the trees that grew right to the water’s edge. But he had to try. When the rain stopped, he floated over the lake looking for deadheads, then powered up for takeoff. In struggling to clear the trees, a wingtip hit the water, and the flying boat cartwheeled. Caldwell was thrown out and thumped onto the wing. Foss, unconscious in the submerged cockpit, was rescued by Caldwell. After Foss regained consciousness, the pair hiked along a nearby river to a trapper’s cabin, and the next day the trapper guided them to the railway at Fauquier. On a return mission a few days later to recover the downed HS-2L, it was declared a writeoff. Even the engine was scrapped.
The original hull of Curtiss HS-2L flying boat La Vigilance was preserved by the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and is displayed next to a Curtiss HS-2L reconstructed from parts of three different HS-2Ls and marked as Laurentide Air Service G-CAAC, the original La Vigilance registration. L.D. CROSS
And there La Vigilance remained, slowly sinking into the silt of the lake bed until 1967, when it was discovered by Kapuskasing businessman Don Campbell. Nobody knew the true identity of the HS-2L, but the Canada Aviation and Space Museum decided to retrieve and reconstruct it as historically representative of its type, since no others existed. In the salvage operation from what is now called Foss Lake, the true identity of the plane became clear.
In 1970, the longest restoration project ever undertaken by the museum began on the Curtiss HS–2L. The restoration was complex and time-consuming due to the size of the plane and the need to reconstruct a complete hull. Curators wanted to retain the recovered hull for historical purposes, but the water-soaked wood was not suitable for restoration. In 1986, an exhibit of the G-CAAC La Vigilance’s original hull and a reconstructed HS-2L aircraft assembled from three different HS-2Ls was unveiled at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, where it can be seen today. This is the only complete HS-2L in the world.