NoneCA 🇨🇦 Closed Airport
CA-0227
-
2231 ft
CA-BC
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Loading...GPS Code: Not available
Local Code: Not available
Location: 56.097896° N, -124.40094° E
Continent: NA
Type: Closed Airport
Keywords: BV4 BV4
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The exact date of closure is not officially recorded, as is common for private, remote airstrips. It was listed as operational in the Canada Flight Supplement until at least 2006. However, by 2018, it was officially listed in aviation databases as permanently closed. The abandonment likely occurred sometime between 2007 and 2017.
Economic reasons. The airport was a private aerodrome built, owned, and operated by a forestry company, Finlay Forest Industries, to support their logging operations in the remote Mesilinka River valley. The closure of the airstrip coincided with the cessation or relocation of these specific logging activities in the area. With no supporting industry, the airstrip became obsolete, and its maintenance was no longer economically viable.
The site is abandoned and non-operational. Satellite imagery of the coordinates confirms the runway's outline is still visible in the landscape. However, it is unmaintained, significantly overgrown with grass and shrubs, and considered completely unusable for aviation. There are no remaining buildings or signs of human activity at the site, which is slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding forest.
The Mesilinka River Airport was a crucial piece of logistical infrastructure for the resource extraction industry in a remote part of northern British Columbia. Its sole purpose was to serve as a transportation hub for a logging camp, facilitating the movement of personnel, mail, food supplies, and critical equipment. The airport featured a single 3,000-foot gravel runway (01/19) and was primarily used by STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) capable bush planes, such as the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver and DHC-3 Otter. Its significance was not public or commercial, but industrial, representing a typical private airstrip that enables access to Canada's remote, resource-rich wilderness areas that lack road access.
There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the Mesilinka River Airport. Its existence was tied directly to a specific industrial operation that has ended. A reopening would be contingent on a new, large-scale economic driver, such as a major mining or forestry project, being established in the immediate vicinity that would require and fund the significant cost of restoring the runway and facilities. Given its remote location and the lack of any such developments, the airport is expected to remain permanently closed.