Born on a farm in March, Ontario, near Ottawa, on June 19, 1888, Arthur Massey (Matt) Berry entered the First World War as a Captain with the 153rd Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
In that role, he was given British pilot certification by the Royal Flying Corps in England before returning to Deseronto, Ontario as a flight instructor for the 189th Training Squadron.
Berry's first work was with the Northern Aerial Mineral Exploration Ltd. at Hudson, Ontario, where he became the first pilot to land at Baker Lake, Northwest Territories.
Berry briefly joined Mackenzie Air Services, but after being injured in a crash sought further education from a RCAF course at Camp Borden in instrument flying and radio beam work before returning to CAL.
In 1935, he found and flew to safety missing CAL pilot Con Farrel and engineer F. Hartley, who had been stranded for eleven days in the Barren Lands after a blizzard downed their aircraft.