Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
A single mother of 10-year-old twin boys is slowly but surely gaining altitude as she works towards her commercial pilot with the eventual hope of flying for a living.
Born in 1991, Madeline Ungurain grew up the second oldest of four in Cambridge, Ont.
Her parents Gary and Ronda (nee Roy) separated when she was seven, but her childhood was mostly good, although from an early age she had her sights set on the distant peaks across the country.
“I’d always loved the mountains so I’d always dreamed of moving to the mountains when I got older,” Ungurain said.
She kicked off her education at Saint Michael Catholic Elementary School. For high school, she went to Eastwood Collegiate in the nearby city of Kitchener. She needed to audition in order to get into the arts school and also had a lengthy commute.
Ungurain dropped out of this school in tenth grade and started going to St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge, as that’s where her friends were.
“It was kind of like a turning point because I was having a rough time at home,” she said.
“My mom and I were having a hard time getting along so I wanted to be out on my own and I left home and moved in with one of my friends.”
Ungurain soon lost all motivation due to being on her own and working part time while going to high school. She ended up dropping out of this school too, spending the next couple of years working but otherwise not being productive.
“I was just kind of lost for those years,” she said.
Her mother eventually reached out and encouraged her to go to St. Louis Adult Learning and Continuing Education in Kitchener for a culinary program where she could get credits for high school. Ungurain accepted this offer.
Halfway through the program, Ungurain found out she was pregnant and needed to take maternity leave. She gave birth to twins named Ashton and Aidan.
The father was involved until the children were about six months old. Once she had children, Ungurain said she was able to pick up her relationship with her mother.
Upon returning from maternity leave, Ungurain completed her program and finished high school. A restaurant where she completed her co-op hired her. She worked there for eight months and got a good picture of the industry during this period.
“I realized that I still had a whole lot more to learn,” she said. “I decided to apply to college so I could have real accreditation and get a better-paying job.”
Ungurain went to Conestoga College in Waterloo. She was the top of her class and graduated with honours.
“I realized that I was really capable of a whole lot more than I thought I was,” she said.
During her co-op after her first year, her chef had suggested that she get a job at Fairmont Banff Springs, a luxury hotel in Banff.
Ungurain was unsure about this, as she would have to leave her twins with her mother, but the chef managed to convince her, telling her, “It might be the best decision of your life.”
She took the plunge and worked at the hotel for four months in the summer of 2013. According to Ungurain, it did indeed end up being the best decision of her life.
“I started to fall in love with working in the culinary industry in the hotels,” she said.
“And I loved where I was. I loved the mountains and I spent the whole time I was there just trying to figure out how I make a life out there with my kids.”
Ungurain returned to finish her second year of culinary school. She used this time to sell off items in her apartment, save money and apply to jobs.
Although not getting hired back in Banff, Fairmont hired her for a job at the Jasper Park Lodge. Ungurain then moved to Jasper where she stayed for three years with her twins. She described her overall experience of living in this part of the world as “amazing.”
“I loved it,” she said. “It kind of helped me grow into a better person and become more motivated to reach my goals.”
Later on, she realized the stay couldn’t be long term as she wanted more opportunities for her children to go to postsecondary or find a good job as a young adult.
Culinary lost its lustre too as Ungurain had begun to experience the harsher side of the industry working for other restaurants, although she emphasized that working for Fairmont had been a positive experience.
Her departure from Jasper was also motivated by the discovery of a new passion.
“I drove past the Jasper Airport every day on my way to work at the Fairmont,” she said.
“I was always a little bit curious, and it was something I always wanted to do but I’ve never tried it before.”
Ungurain went for her first flight Squamish, B.C. while on a road trip and upon her return began taking lessons out of the Jasper-Hinton Airport from November 2016 until May 2017.
When she was no longer able to take lessons there, she turned her eyes back to Squamish and moved there in June 2017 to enroll in Glacier Air for flight school while balancing this against her role as a single mother of two boys.
This was only possible by becoming a flight dispatcher at Glacier Air.
“I did it so I could be able to study while I’m at work and be right in the environment where I can learn,” Ungurain said.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, temporarily closed her flight school. As a result, she decided to return to Ontario in May 2020, not returning until the end of August.
Nevertheless, Ungurain got in some flight hours over the summer since some Ontario flight schools were renting out their aircraft.
“As a private pilot, I could rent a plane so I started flying just on my own and with friends and I was able to build a lot of experience and hours that way,” she said.
During her stay in Ontario, she reconnected with Scott Graf. They had gone out on a few dates two years prior before losing touch. But the spark had relit.
“We started talking and it just got really serious really fast,” Ungurain said.
When Ungurain returned to Squamish, she strove to maintain her long-distance relationship with Graf. Her plan was to rejoin Graf this upcoming summer once she completed her flight instructor course and her children finished up their school year.
Tragedy would prevent this plan from coming to be, as Graf passed away unexpectedly at the beginning of March. While declining to go into details out of respect for his family, Ungurain noted how she has been doing better and slowly getting back to a regular routine.
Ungurain has yet to experience any real scares while flying, but she explained that piloting was often challenging in the mountains, which can experience abrupt shifts in weather, compared to other areas of Canada.
“You just have to really understand how to predict the weather and what’s going to happen during the course of your flight and just be prepared for that,” Ungurain said.
Ungurain also volunteers with the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots. She suggested that any aspiring female pilots should join.
Although she doesn’t plan on sticking with flying a Cessna 172 for the rest of her career, Ungurain doesn’t have any interest in becoming an airline pilot.
Instead, she wants to focus on becoming more comfortable being a bush pilot and eventually fly for missionary and humanitarian organizations in remote areas.
Ungurain is now working to get her commercial pilot licence. She recently was one of four recipients of the “Seal Your Future” scholarship, worth $5,000, from the I Hart Flying Foundation.
Her favourite aspect of flying is being able to leave all her trouble on the ground.
“Once I get up in the air, everything just gets quiet,” she said.
“No matter how bad of a day I’m having or what’s going on in my life, that’s not on my mind like it would be if you were at work.”
