Hugh Kitchen
Hugh Kitchen got his pilot’s license in the late 1970s and flew for three years with Air North. He joined Alkan Air in 1982. Alkan Air was founded in 1977 by Joe and Winn Muff and Barry Watson. The Muffs left the company in 1987 and Kitchen became a partner. At one time the company ran regular flights to Watson Lake, Faro, Ross River, Mayo, Dawson, Old Crow, and Inuvik. Trans North, Alkan Air, and Air North shared the air ambulance flights, each doing the flights for a month, but the nurses never knew who to call. In the early 1990s, the government started tendering the flights and Alkan Air was successful in that competition. In the late 1990s, there was slump in mining and changes in aviation rules that led to more competition on regular flights from Air North who had bigger planes. Wendy Taylor joined Alkan Air in 1993 as an accountant and became a minority partner in 2008. She and Kitchen took joint management roles in the company in a time of spikes in the mining and aviation industries. Kitchen sold his shares in 2012 and retired to fly part time as a pilot.1)