Andrew David “Andy” Cruikshank (1898 – 1932)
Andy Cruikshank was born in England in 1898. He joined the British Army in 1914 at age 16 and transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force), remaining there until the end of the First World War. Cruikshank immigrated to Canada in 1921 and lived on his aunt and uncle’s Saskatchewan farm. He joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in April 1923 and was sent to Dawson in June 1924.1)
Andy became a member of an orchestra in Dawson and acted small parts on the stage at the Dawson Amateur Athletics Association (DAAA). He was posted briefly to Mayo/Keno in 1924 and was the only officer after Corporal Thurgood took sick. He left Keno for Dawson in November 1924. He was constable in charge of the Keno detachment before he left the RCMP in March 1927 to start a Yukon airline with James Finnegan and Clyde Wann.2)
The Yukon Airways and Exploration Co. had James Finnegan as president, Clyde Wann as vice president and Andrew Cruikshank as pilot and general manager. Andy had to go to California to pick up his plane, The Queen of the Yukon. It was a Ryan Braugham cabin monoplane and the sister ship to Lindbergh's, except Lindbergh carried fuel and the Queen carried freight and four passengers. She had a Wright Whirlwind air-cooled engine. Andy and Esme were married in Vancouver in 1927 as Andy was on his way back to the Yukon with the plane. The two, along with the plane, packed in parts, took the voyage north from Seattle to Skagway on the liner Princess Alice. Andy assembled the plane at Skagway and he, 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 on 11 November 1927. The company lacked capitol, and Cruikshank left the Yukon to take a position in Winnipeg.3)
Cruikshank went on to a distinguished career as a bush pilot with Canadian Airways until he died in an unsolved accident flying from Great Bear Lake to Fort Rae in June 1932.4) Andrew David Cruikshank was inducted into the Yukon Transportation Hall of Fame in 1997 as a Transportation Pioneer. His Queen of the Yukon was the first commercial aircraft to arrive in Whitehorse.