The day the world came to Gander, Canada. Thank you, Newfoundland.

Thank you to CNN. From Gander Newfoundland, British aviators Alcock and Brown boarded the world's first nonstop transatlantic flight and Amelia Earhart began her pion­eering journeys there.

Map of Newfoundland, Canada

Gander is marked in green

Greenwich Mean Time

In June 1936, workers jumped off the New­foundland Rail­way, and set about cl­ear­ing land for what would become the world's largest airport, having one square mile of tarmac. Most of the people who built Gander were ordin­ary men from all over New­found­land; the wages were good and the manual work was back-breaking but speedy.

In Jan 1938, a single-engine biplane made the first landing. With the threat of European war, Gan­der became a strat­egic post for the Royal Air Force Ferry Command. Too new to appear on maps, the base rem­ained a secret as c20,000 North American-built fighters and heavy bombers were transported overseas. 3 new American bases opened, while 2 Canadian bases were built at Gander and Goose Bay. Thanks to its locat­ion between Europe and North America, the airport was the perfect fuel stop for pre-jet engine air­craft.

In WW2 Gan­d­er oversaw Allied aircraft flying to Europe. And it was a major factor in Newfoundland’s improved ec­onomy. 12,000 British, Can­ad­ian and American servicemen lived in crow­ded barracks beside the run­ways, and the base became a bustling comm­unity.

The 38 airliners were landing at Gander 

and were parked together, awaiting instructions, 

SMH

Post-war, the airport reverted to civilian control. Gander was an unlikely loc­at­ion for an international airport, yet the tip of this rocky Can­adian isle remained important. By 1954, it was the largest airport anywhere! Planes went to New York, London, Berlin and Tel Aviv etc, with the clocks in the terminal showing what time zone their destin­at­ions were. Gander Airport became truly cosmopolit­an!

Throughout the Jet Age of the late 50s and the 60s, most Trans­atl­antic flights required to refuel at Gander. While the Cold War drew hard lines between eastern-bloc and western nations, Gander remained a safe haven for all. Even Soviet planes, banned from American soil, could land there.

Gander has remained involved in inter­nat­ional aviation technol­ogy, hosting the first transat­lan­tic test flights of the SST Con­cor­de. And the airport was designated as an alternate landing site th­roughout NASA's Space Shuttle era .

As cross-continental travel increased, Gander became a refuelling stop for commercial air­craft. The biggest airlines of the day ran regular trans­Atlantic services via Gander. Soon the airport was annually handling 13,000 planes and 250,000 passengers, so they designed a new, artistic terminal with a colourful mural.

Refuelling jet engines wasn't nec­es­sary, so modern routes bypassed Gander and headed straight for US. Nonetheless in the later C20th, the airport remained busy. Planes from East German, Cuban, Czechos­lov­akian and Soviet Un­ion airlines continued to land in Gander, often then flying to Cuba: a Communist European base. But after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Gander faded. In fact I’ve been to Canada a dozen times, but had never heard of Gander Airport.

The good citizens of Gander fed thousands of stranded travellers 

then organised bathing, sleeping and supplies for them 

SMH

The world was devastated by the terrorist attacks on 11th September 2001. Global air traffic in the USA halted and those already in mid-air were rerouted, to military and civ­ilian airports across Canada - including Nova Scotia, New­foundland and British Columbia.

Each pilot informed his passengers that there had been a terrorist att­ack in New York and the plane would be re­directed. 38 aircraft land­ed unexpectedly at Gander that day, grounding c8,000 people on the air­port's otherwise empty runways. The authorities told the pilot how to avoid the security threat.

Meanwhile Gander’s citizens urgently prep­ar­ed food and shelt­er for the passengers. The citizens could have left the frightened pass­engers in the air­port, but families warmly welcomed them into their homes. The population of Gander almost doubled over­night and thus began one of the most heartening stories to come out the Twin Towers catastrophe.

Years later Gander Airport won a starring role on New York's Broadway and in London's West End, thanks to the musical, Come From Away (2017). The show's Canadian husband-and-wife writer team, Irene Sankoff and David Hein, developed the book, mus­ic and lyrics. And a filmed version of the award-winning show will stream internationally in Sept 2021.

The 12 actors played multiple roles: locals and passengers. As the ac­tors seamlessly switched character, by adding some clothing and chang­ing their accent, the multiple role-playing enhanced the message of universal humanity.

The global success of Come From Away had other effects i.e Gander was back on the tourism map. Gander's famous lounge is currently being renovated, for these new tour­ists.

Come From Away: hugely uplifting

The Guardian

See a Rabbi who helped inspire Come From Away. Every year, British Rabbi Leivi Sudak travelled to New York to pray at the Lubavitcher Reb­be’s grave. In 2001 he planned to fly in and out again, with­in 24 hours. But two hours into his flight home, he noticed the Amer­ican Air­lines plane was flying in the wrong direct­ion, and the pilot quickly announced there’d been an attack on the Twin Towers!

Back then R’Sudak had no idea that his experience would be used by a key character in the musical. For R’Sudak, his time in Gander showed the very best in humanity after an unth­inkable act of terrorism. It was not a rich town, yet the town’s people brought blank­ets, food, soaps and clothes. They transformed a local school into a dormitory. In one of the scenes in the musical, Sudak’s ch­ar­act­er prepared a Sabbath meal, at which a Tibetan monk from the plane was among the 12 guests. And a local, who’d hidden his Judaism since the Holocaust, refound his heritage with R’Sudak.