"Sporty" is a polite way to describe it. "Do whatever the fuck you want as long as nobody dies" is more apt. If you ever want to see what would happen to commercial aviation with no rules, oversight and regulation, go watch bush pilots operate. I've been on planes held together with tape, overloaded with cargo, with inebriated "walking drunk" pilots. Good Times.
Kenmore Air flies the float planes out of Seattle. They hit the islands of Puget Sound and British Columbia. There's Super-8 footage (that Kenmore Air does a good job of suppressing) from the '70s of that time they decided to see if they could put a float plane down on one of Mount Rainier's glaciers. Every now and then the news gets ahold of it and runs it and then KA basically purges it from the Internet.