James F. Finnegan
	
James Finnegan and Clyde Wann founded Yukon Airways and Exploration Co. in 1927. The company was backed by mining men who wanted the Yukon to be more accessible to prospectors and mining engineers and they thought they would serve clients in Mayo, Keno, Dawson, Engineer Mine, and Atlin. Finnegan was president, Wann was vice president, Andrew Cruikshank was pilot and general manager, and Alan Innes-Tylor was advisory director.((“Flying Machines for Yukon.” //Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse, 13 May 1927.)) Finnegan and Wann were not pilots.((Chris Weicht, //Air Route to the Klondike: An Aviation History. Air Pilot Navigator: Volume Three.// Victoria: Creekside Publications. 2006: 102, 118-19, 122-23, 125-27, 133-34.)) 

Andy Cruikshank went to California to pick up the company’s first plane, //Queen of the Yukon.// He assembled the plane at Skagway and he, his wife Esme, Clyde Wann and James Finnegan flew over the Chilkoot Pass, the first time this had been done. The official inauguration of the air mail service between Dawson and Whitehorse was 11 November 1927.((June Cruikshank Lunny. //Spirit of the Yukon.// Prince George: The Caitlin Press. 1992.)) This was Yukon’s first commercial air service. The company folded in late 1929 after it lost all three of its aircraft and their chief pilot Pat Patterson in accidents.((R.B. Cameron, //Yukon Wings.// Frontenac House, 2012: 340.))