Thanks again to Casey McLaughlin for the information about the above vintage aircraft.
Casey is executive director/curator of the Yukon Transportation Museum.
He and Bob Cameron know their stuff when it comes to planes.
His letter follows:
The plane to the right is actually a Keystone-Loening Commuter, nicknamed “The Duck.”
In the 1930s, White Pass & Yukon Route founded an airline called White Pass Airways.
The scheduled division operated between Skagway, Whitehorse and Dawson.
Additionally, White Pass Airways had a division that flew prospectors, doctors and businessmen to the far outposts of the Yukon.
In the early ‘40s, the airline was sold to a company formed by Grant McConachie which, in later years, become part of Canadian Pacific Airlines.
The plane to the left, a Fairchild 82, was part of the British Yukon Navigational Company’s fleet. Sadly, on November 9, 1939, CF-AXK crashed into Lake Laberge with pilot Jesse Rice and two passengers on board.
It has never been found.
To find out more exciting tidbits about early aviation in the Yukon, stop by the Yukon Transportation Museum.
Casey McLaughin,
executive director/curator,
Yukon Transportation Museum
Anyone with information about this subject, please write Jim Robb: The Colourful Five Per Cent Scrapbook — Can You Identify? c/o the Yukon News, 211 Wood Street, Whitehorse, Yukon, Y1A 2E4, or e-mail through the News website, www.yukon-news.com.