CANADA: Royal Entrance

In the chill of a gathering fog, porters loaded 97 pieces of baggage aboard the big-bellied BOAC Stratocruiser Canopus* at floodlit London Airport. Just before midnight, as hundreds of well-wishers cheered, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh got aboard; it was the first overseas flight for an heir to the British throne. At 12:31 a.m., the Canopus took off into the mist. Back on the tarmac, Queen Elizabeth blew a last kiss, said to a companion: “I’m full of envy.”

Hours later, at 20,000 feet over the Atlantic—while Elizabeth slumbered in the 6-by-4-ft. bed of her private cabin—the plane began to nudge the edge of a hurricane. The pilot, Captain Oscar Philip Jones, 52, veteran of 3,000,000 air miles, shifted his course, made an unscheduled fuel stop at bleak Gander, Newfoundland. Airborne again after two hours, Elizabeth visited Jones at the controls—asking, he reported later, “some knowledgeable questions.” At noon the plane let down through heavy overcast at Montreal’s Dorval airport before a crowd of more than 25,000 people.

The first crack of a 21-gun salute greeted the princess when she appeared in the doorway. She wore a slate-blue dress, matching velvet hat, mink jacket and black laced, high-heeled shoes (the first of many expected fashion hints). Followed by Prince Philip, in a Royal Navy lieutenant commander’s uniform, she walked down the steep steps to be greeted by Viscount Alexander and Prime Minister Louis St.-Laurent. Smiling, wholly composed, Elizabeth quickly reviewed an R.C.A.F. honor guard, then with her husband boarded a black Chrysler convertible which swung slowly past the cheering crowd to a special, ten-car train at a nearby siding. Their monthlong, 10,000-mile tour, which will include a visit to Washington, had begun.

All across the Dominion, local officials were in a dither of preparation and expectation. As the fuss and festivity of the royal tour got underway, the Times of London struck the proud note of empire: “Wherever [Elizabeth] goes, she represents the future of the British Commonwealth, and how much of that future may belong to Canada, it would be difficult to overestimate.”

* Named after the second brightest star. In Greek mythology, Canopus was the steersman of famed Menelaus, king of Sparta and husband of even more famed Helen of Troy.