By Marc Lostracco

New Brunswick native Mary Martell knew something was weird when the baggage scanners at Saint John Airport asked why she had packed a turkey in her suitcase. On her way through to YYZ for a business trip, Martell had no fowl to declare, so airport officials curiously sent her luggage through without much further scrutiny, despite seeing a tiny skeleton on the x-ray screen.
After an uneventful two-hour Air Canada flight to Toronto, Martell’s luggage came tumbling down the baggage conveyor and was tossed in her rental vehicle for an almost two-hour trip to her hotel in Niagara-On-The-Lake. Another hour passed for a late meal, but when Martell returned to her room and opened her suitcase, she found an item that she didn’t remember packing: her cat, Ginger.
Ginger is not allowed outdoors, but her seven hours jammed inside a suitcase almost confirmed the adage about what curiosity does to cats. Temperatures within the cargo holds of airplanes can range from below freezing to as high as 60° Celsius, and Ginger would have often been lodged upside down. Turning in one of her nine lives, the stunned stowaway suffered no apparent injury during her 1,200 km trip.
Back at Pearson two days later, Air Canada decided to fly the cat home for free in a proper carrier. Ginger did, however, have to be removed from the carrier at security so it could be sent through the x-ray.
[CBC video]
Image originally from Jun Kumagai’s Airborne Cats series on Flickr.