Chopper company considers flights around Northern lights
Great Slave Helicopters looks to future endevours, raises nearly $20K for Yellowknife Community Foundation during 32nd anniversary celebrations
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Mine work is the bread-and-butter of its business but the North's largest helicopter company plans to start chartering Northern lights viewing flights later in the year, according to its vice-president of global operations.
About 1,100 people took helicopter rides over the weekend to mark Great Slave Helicopters' 32nd anniversary celebrations. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
Corey Taylor said Great Slave Helicopters has catered to tourists in the past, carrying fisherman, outfitters, trappers and hunters out onto the land and back. But they've never offered package deals to tourists visiting to see the aurora.
"We're thinking for the upcoming winter, something we haven't done before is do a package deal with tour companies for Northern lights tours, he said.
"Looking at any city from a helicopter is awesome, so looking at the Northern lights too would be even better. But we've never really connected with ... a tour company where people are coming from Japan where they sign up to go out in a helicopter."
Taylor was on hand at the helicopter base over the weekend as the company celebrated its 32nd year in Yellowknife by offering free helicopter rides to children, discounted rides to adults, a barbecue and a bouncy castle.
The celebration was scheduled for Saturday but it continued on Sunday after garnering a huge amount of interest. About 1,100 people took helicopter rides, according to company president Chris Bassett. The company set out donation buckets at the event and the proceeds from the buckets combined with revenue from the discounted rides totalled more than $900. Great Slave Helicopters' parent company Discovery Air matched the donations and the helicopter company donated $19,342 to the Yellowknife Community Foundation.
Taylor said mine work has dropped off as many mines have scaled back operations or closed altogether but Ekati Diamond Mine and Diavik Diamond Mine keep the company's rotors turning.
"Those mines still do require helicopter work," he said. "Not as much as they did when they were in the exploration phase but we have helicopters there every year."
Taylor said helicopter companies cash in during mineral exploration.
"Most of the work is finding the mines. Long before there's a mine, there are helicopters there."
Bassett said the company operates a range of different choppers, from the smaller Airbus 355N to the much larger Bell 412EP and even operates a former-U.S. army Cobra gunship. The menacing-looking combat helicopter was acquired after the army sold off many of its surplus aircraft in the 1990s, said Bassett. The company operates the Cobra in Chile, where it's used to fight forest fires.
Bassett said all of the company's helicopters are fun to fly.
"This is good for some things, and this is good for others. But they're all fun," he said.
