Start of aviation's third era? Zero-emission seaplane may soon be a reality

Canada's Harbour Air will test-fly a prototype electric aircraft in December

It all started with a summer vacation. Growing up in Southern California, Greg McDougall and his family left sweltering Santa Barbara for his parents’ lakeside cabin on Nelson Island in the Sunshine Coast region of British Columbia as soon as school let out. As McDougall recalls, he spent hours sitting on a dock, marvelling at the sight of floatplanes landing and taking off. In the summer of 1962, when McDougall was 7, a ferry strike meant the only way off the island was on a seaplane. That clinched it: The young boy was hooked on planes.

In a region where people