J.A.D. McCurdy

and the Silver Dart: Canada's 'First Aerial Navigator'

The Bank of Commerce's 1956 Christmas card noted, " ‘The Silver Dart' was painted for The Canadian Bank of Commerce by William Winter, R.C.A., O.A.S., and it appears on the Bank's 1957 Calendar. It depicts the first flight of a heavier-than-air machine in Canada, on 23rd February, 1909, when J.A.D. McCurdy took off from the ice of Bras d'Or Lake at Baddeck, N.S., in the Silver Dart, built by Alexander Graham Bell's Aerial Experiment Association."

Date: 1956

Photographer: William Winter, artist

Reference: Nova Scotia Archives Photograph Collection: Transportation & Communication: Airplanes: Silver Dart