While the flat and relatively weather-favoured area around North West River had for years been under consideration for an airport for the anticipated North Atlantic air routes, it was not until Eric Fry of the Dominion Geodetic Survey investigated the area on 1July 1941 that the Goose Bay location was selected. Fry beat by three days a similar United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) survey team under Captain Elliott Roosevelt; the American team had first investigated nearby Epinette Point before joining Fry at the sandy plains that would become Goose Bay. These surveys used amphibious aircraft that landed at the Grenfell Mission; from there the teams explored by boat.