by Gavin Neaves
The recent Academy award nominated movie, Marty Supreme (2025), directed by Josh Safdie, involves a young New York ping pong sensation, who, in seeing that he had a once in a lifetime opportunity to fulfill his dream of competing in the World Table Tennis Championships, does everything he can, including using those close to him, to achieve his dream. Taking place in the 1950s, the movie is alive with the possibilities open to Marty (played by Timothée Chalamet), yet the dreaded sense that they will close soon, never again to reopen; Marty must find his way to the Championship. When reading about the Edmontonian, Grant McConachie’s life, it is hard not to see parallels between the movie character and the Canadian pilot. In order to achieve success, McConachie often relied on his ability to charm, and at times swindle, those around him. However, rather than using, at times, less than credible methods for achieving his dreams of ping pong, McConachie set his eyes on the goal of becoming a pilot.
Although McConachie grew up in a well-off family, he is described as always having a drive for achieving as much as possible, often playing off of others to do so, similarly to Marty. Even as an eight-year-old boy, he was described as having a “Tom Sawyer style,” tricking other boys into doing his chores.[1] Attending classes at the University of Alberta, a friend told how “McConachie could charm you right out of your socks without taking your shoes off… and make you like it.”[2] Of course, it was when his dream of becoming a successful pilot set in that McConachie turned his ways to a specific purpose
While earlier in his youth McConachie had followed his father’s work on the railway around Edmonton, labouring at different jobs, McConachie eventually turned his passion for the new method of transportation that was letting settlers access the far north: airplanes. Funded by his uncle Harry – a man wealthy from running dubious midway games and whom Grant certainly got some of his famous way with words from – in 1931 he acquired a blue Fokker monoplane for $2,500 of Harry’s money.[3] Despite it being the midst of the Great Depression, a time when many even greatly experienced pilots were out of work, McConachie managed to find some. Crucially, just like Marty’s sense of urgency appeared when he saw the moment of attending the World Championships in Japan before him, McConachie was also always aware of the necessity of acting in that very moment, regardless of the possible outcome of failure, financial ruin, or even death. The big opportunity for McConachie was transporting fresh fish from isolated communities, such as Cold Lake, to markets in the south. Although the venture eventually ended in financial ruin, McConachie certainly made a name for himself as he experimented with every possible method of cutting costs and increasing the amount of fish he could carry, including his constant overstocking of his airplane beyond the legal weight limits.
Some of these experiments are worth discussing due to their cinema-esque qualities. Take for instance how he decided to fly without the exhaust pipe on his Fokker Universal: “One evening he was watching [his mechanic] Limey Green at work on [his plane] HJ’s engine. The mechanic had removed the serpentine tubing that piped the exhaust from the outlet ports around the circumference of the engine mounting and discharged it under the fuselage. This “collector ring” lay on the dock, where it formed a useless-looking heap of plumbing. McConachie studied the engine. It looked trimmer, more streamlined with just the short stub exhaust stacks protruding behind the cylinders.”[4] McConachie told the mechanic to leave it off, and with the reduced weight, he was able to increase the pay load by fifty percent. As he flew with the exhaust blowing directly into his face, however, he became violently ill. Flying back from his delivery, McConachie felt his body go numb and nearly crashed multiple times into the northern lakes. After finally making it to Burns Lake, which had a doctor’s office, McConnachie learned that he was poisoning himself with the carbon-monoxide gas flowing from the plane’s engine exhaust into his face. “Good God, man!” the doctor apparently said, “By all odds you should be dead!” [5]
Despite his near misses with death, Grant McConachie’s life seemed destined to climax on the international stage, once again mirroring Marty Supreme. After his company, Yukon Southern Air Transport, was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1941, McConachie worked – or perhaps one should say “talked” – his way into eventually becoming the president of the Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA) in 1947.[6] As president of the company, McConachie saw the postwar opening up of Japan as an immense opportunity. Seeing the moment passing before him, McConachie risked financial ruin for the company in the prospect of establishing an air route to East Asia. Just like Marty, McConachie was going to Tokyo.
East Asia had been on McConachie’s mind for some time throughout his career. Hoping to cajole Imperial Oil into giving him long-term credit on $100,000 of fuel, in 1938 he had brought up the prospective future route extending past the one he was flying to the Yukon: “I won’t take up your time by going into details about the interest that both our governments and the government of the United States is showing in this sheltered inland air route to Alaska, with all of its military as well as commercial implications. Let us look over the horizon instead,” he said, according to his biographer, Ronald Keith.[7] He then rotated a globe and stated to the board, “You will see that I have extended the route markings on this globe over the top of the world… across Alaska…over the Bering Sea… down the coast of Siberia and on to Shanghai.” From his convincing on the utility of a top-of-the-world route, the directors of Imperial Oil voted unanimously to grant McConachie’s company the $100,000 of interest-free credit.[8]
Although in January 1949 McConachie was now the powerful president of CPA, in Tokyo McConachie was still reliant on his slick deals and ability to recognize fleeting opportunities. Just like Marty’s recognition of his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play at the ping pong International Championships held in post-war Japan, the real-life McConachie also saw this same historical moment in Japan as full of fleeting opportunities. With the US now in control of Japan, there was an opportunity for the Edmontonian to open up flight routes to the area. McConachie’s assignment in Tokyo, as Keith explains, “was to obtain for Canadian Pacific Airlines the operating permits to begin a scheduled air service from Vancouver to serve Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong. To succeed, he had to win the approvals of General MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek and the Governor of Hong Kong.”[9] McConachie (along with the CPA Director of Northern Development, Wop May) succeeded in his task and obtained all the needed permits from an oddly relaxed and brief meeting with General MacArthur. Yet, the Shanghai deal didn’t fully work out due to the Chinese Civil War making the flights nonviable. The setback was financially troubling for the company, with the deal turning out to be a financial disaster. Finally, however, the bold deal seemed to pay off for the company when CPA began flying out of Hong Kong immigrants leaving Communist China destined for North America. Furthermore, with the start of the Korean War in 1949, McConachie made another deal to transport American troops and supplies to the region; McConachie’s bold move worked out for him in the end.[10]
Yet it is important to mention that McConachie’s bold moves were not always great for those around him. Just like Marty Supreme, McConachie promised future repayment for help in his predicament, with that compensation rarely materializing. For those working under McConachie, his antics were often especially frustrating. As his biographer, Ronald Keith relates, the prestige of the CPA under McConachie was not reflected in the salaries of the staff. Most of his employees worked for the company with the expectations of the future financial success that McConachie promised; their wages were always below industry standard.[11] One occasion is particularly telling of McConachie’s attitude: the treasurer, Harry Porteous, asked for a raise, saying “A year ago it cost fifty cents to have new heels put on a pair of shoes. Today the same heels cost seventy-five cents.” McConachie’s reply was to tell Porteous not to worry, “after all, how often do you need new heels on your shoes?”[12]
Without spoiling too much of the movie for those who have yet to watch it, Marty Supreme’s bold moves and slick deals to make his way to Japan paid off for him in a certain way, despite the harm he caused those closest to him. Marty saw that the post-war opportunities were open to those who had the vision to recognize that they had to act as soon as possible before the historically specific moment closed. It could be said that the Edmonton pilot, McConachie, recognized the importance of grasping the fleeting opportunities throughout his entire life, with it similarly culminating in post-war East Asia. In fact, McConachie apparently even said something along those lines himself: “I have always believed in making the bold move first, then the profits will find their way home eventually.”[13]
[1] Ronald A. Keith, Bush Pilot with a Briefcase: The Happy-go-lucky Story of Grant McConachie, (Doubleday Canada Limited, 1972), 13.
[2] Keith, 29.
[3] Keith, 45.
[4] Keith, 96.
[5] Keith, 99.
[6] Keith, 230, 248-9.
[7] Keith, 178.
[8] Keith, 181.
[9] Keith, 261.
[10] Keith, 275-8.
[11] Keith, 271.
[12] Keith, 271-2.
[13] Keith, 270.
Although McConachie grew up in a well-off family, he is described as always having a drive for achieving as much as possible, often playing off of others to do so, similarly to Marty. Even as an eight-year-old boy, he was described as having a “Tom Sawyer style,” tricking other boys into doing his chores.[1] Attending classes at the University of Alberta, a friend told how “McConachie could charm you right out of your socks without taking your shoes off… and make you like it.”[2] Of course, it was when his dream of becoming a successful pilot set in that McConachie turned his ways to a specific purpose
While earlier in his youth McConachie had followed his father’s work on the railway around Edmonton, labouring at different jobs, McConachie eventually turned his passion for the new method of transportation that was letting settlers access the far north: airplanes. Funded by his uncle Harry – a man wealthy from running dubious midway games and whom Grant certainly got some of his famous way with words from – in 1931 he acquired a blue Fokker monoplane for $2,500 of Harry’s money.[3] Despite it being the midst of the Great Depression, a time when many even greatly experienced pilots were out of work, McConachie managed to find some. Crucially, just like Marty’s sense of urgency appeared when he saw the moment of attending the World Championships in Japan before him, McConachie was also always aware of the necessity of acting in that very moment, regardless of the possible outcome of failure, financial ruin, or even death. The big opportunity for McConachie was transporting fresh fish from isolated communities, such as Cold Lake, to markets in the south. Although the venture eventually ended in financial ruin, McConachie certainly made a name for himself as he experimented with every possible method of cutting costs and increasing the amount of fish he could carry, including his constant overstocking of his airplane beyond the legal weight limits.
Some of these experiments are worth discussing due to their cinema-esque qualities. Take for instance how he decided to fly without the exhaust pipe on his Fokker Universal: “One evening he was watching [his mechanic] Limey Green at work on [his plane] HJ’s engine. The mechanic had removed the serpentine tubing that piped the exhaust from the outlet ports around the circumference of the engine mounting and discharged it under the fuselage. This “collector ring” lay on the dock, where it formed a useless-looking heap of plumbing. McConachie studied the engine. It looked trimmer, more streamlined with just the short stub exhaust stacks protruding behind the cylinders.”[4] McConachie told the mechanic to leave it off, and with the reduced weight, he was able to increase the pay load by fifty percent. As he flew with the exhaust blowing directly into his face, however, he became violently ill. Flying back from his delivery, McConachie felt his body go numb and nearly crashed multiple times into the northern lakes. After finally making it to Burns Lake, which had a doctor’s office, McConnachie learned that he was poisoning himself with the carbon-monoxide gas flowing from the plane’s engine exhaust into his face. “Good God, man!” the doctor apparently said, “By all odds you should be dead!” [5]
Despite his near misses with death, Grant McConachie’s life seemed destined to climax on the international stage, once again mirroring Marty Supreme. After his company, Yukon Southern Air Transport, was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1941, McConachie worked – or perhaps one should say “talked” – his way into eventually becoming the president of the Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA) in 1947.[6] As president of the company, McConachie saw the postwar opening up of Japan as an immense opportunity. Seeing the moment passing before him, McConachie risked financial ruin for the company in the prospect of establishing an air route to East Asia. Just like Marty, McConachie was going to Tokyo.
East Asia had been on McConachie’s mind for some time throughout his career. Hoping to cajole Imperial Oil into giving him long-term credit on $100,000 of fuel, in 1938 he had brought up the prospective future route extending past the one he was flying to the Yukon: “I won’t take up your time by going into details about the interest that both our governments and the government of the United States is showing in this sheltered inland air route to Alaska, with all of its military as well as commercial implications. Let us look over the horizon instead,” he said, according to his biographer, Ronald Keith.[7] He then rotated a globe and stated to the board, “You will see that I have extended the route markings on this globe over the top of the world… across Alaska…over the Bering Sea… down the coast of Siberia and on to Shanghai.” From his convincing on the utility of a top-of-the-world route, the directors of Imperial Oil voted unanimously to grant McConachie’s company the $100,000 of interest-free credit.[8]
Although in January 1949 McConachie was now the powerful president of CPA, in Tokyo McConachie was still reliant on his slick deals and ability to recognize fleeting opportunities. Just like Marty’s recognition of his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play at the ping pong International Championships held in post-war Japan, the real-life McConachie also saw this same historical moment in Japan as full of fleeting opportunities. With the US now in control of Japan, there was an opportunity for the Edmontonian to open up flight routes to the area. McConachie’s assignment in Tokyo, as Keith explains, “was to obtain for Canadian Pacific Airlines the operating permits to begin a scheduled air service from Vancouver to serve Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong. To succeed, he had to win the approvals of General MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek and the Governor of Hong Kong.”[9] McConachie (along with the CPA Director of Northern Development, Wop May) succeeded in his task and obtained all the needed permits from an oddly relaxed and brief meeting with General MacArthur. Yet, the Shanghai deal didn’t fully work out due to the Chinese Civil War making the flights nonviable. The setback was financially troubling for the company, with the deal turning out to be a financial disaster. Finally, however, the bold deal seemed to pay off for the company when CPA began flying out of Hong Kong immigrants leaving Communist China destined for North America. Furthermore, with the start of the Korean War in 1949, McConachie made another deal to transport American troops and supplies to the region; McConachie’s bold move worked out for him in the end.[10]
Yet it is important to mention that McConachie’s bold moves were not always great for those around him. Just like Marty Supreme, McConachie promised future repayment for help in his predicament, with that compensation rarely materializing. For those working under McConachie, his antics were often especially frustrating. As his biographer, Ronald Keith relates, the prestige of the CPA under McConachie was not reflected in the salaries of the staff. Most of his employees worked for the company with the expectations of the future financial success that McConachie promised; their wages were always below industry standard.[11] One occasion is particularly telling of McConachie’s attitude: the treasurer, Harry Porteous, asked for a raise, saying “A year ago it cost fifty cents to have new heels put on a pair of shoes. Today the same heels cost seventy-five cents.” McConachie’s reply was to tell Porteous not to worry, “after all, how often do you need new heels on your shoes?”[12]
Without spoiling too much of the movie for those who have yet to watch it, Marty Supreme’s bold moves and slick deals to make his way to Japan paid off for him in a certain way, despite the harm he caused those closest to him. Marty saw that the post-war opportunities were open to those who had the vision to recognize that they had to act as soon as possible before the historically specific moment closed. It could be said that the Edmonton pilot, McConachie, recognized the importance of grasping the fleeting opportunities throughout his entire life, with it similarly culminating in post-war East Asia. In fact, McConachie apparently even said something along those lines himself: “I have always believed in making the bold move first, then the profits will find their way home eventually.”[13]
[1] Ronald A. Keith, Bush Pilot with a Briefcase: The Happy-go-lucky Story of Grant McConachie, (Doubleday Canada Limited, 1972), 13.
[2] Keith, 29.
[3] Keith, 45.
[4] Keith, 96.
[5] Keith, 99.
[6] Keith, 230, 248-9.
[7] Keith, 178.
[8] Keith, 181.
[9] Keith, 261.
[10] Keith, 275-8.
[11] Keith, 271.
[12] Keith, 271-2.
[13] Keith, 270.
Bibliography
Keith, Ronald A. Bush Pilot with a Briefcase: The Happy-go-lucky Story of Grant McConachie. Doubleday Canada Limited, 1972. Pictures of Marty Supreme from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32916440/ Other pictures from Bush Pilot with a Briefcase.Interested in staying up to date with stories like this? Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest news and updates CLICK HERE
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