Trans North Helicopters will cease operations on April 30, after 52 years serving the Yukon, the company announced this morning.

Trans North chair R.J. Lundquist told the Star this morning the primary reason for putting the company up for sale is the death this past summer of Gordon Davis, one of the founders of what was initially called Trans North Turbo Air.

Lundquist’s father, Ron Connelly, was also among the four founding owners, along with Al Kapty and Chuck Hankins.

Davis was the last of the four when he passed away last July, while he was still serving as the company president.

Lundquist said the intent is to sell the company. The last resort would be liquidating their assets individually, she said.

“We are currently in discussions and doing due diligence with a potential buyer, and we are in talks with other interested parties,” she said.

Lundquist said Trans North owns seven helicopters, leases two others and has 14 full-time employees, but the company roster swells in the spring and summer, like every helicopter business.

The company at one time had seven helicopter bases in the Yukon.

For the first 20 or so years after opening its hangar doors in the spring of 1967, Trans North Turbo Air also provided airplane service throughout the Yukon.

Trans North issued a press release this morning announcing its decision.

“The decision has been a very difficult one to make as our outstanding management and personnel over the company’s more than half-century of operating history have been dedicated to ensuring our fleet has operated in an uncompromising and beneficial way for our valuable customers,” says the release.

“To these clients – We thank you for your trust and we have enjoyed playing an important role in the work you have done and continue to do, particularly in exploration activities in the Yukon.

“We would like to thank our employees, past and present, who have made Trans North the admired family-owned company it is today.

“You have instilled excellence in the Yukon’s travel industry every step of the way and have truly helped the business live up to its slogan: “Where the Road Ends, We Begin.”

Trans North told its employees the news this week.

When the company started, each of the four partners brought with them their individual expertise: Davis’s was in mining exploration and business; Connelly was an experienced businessman and pilot; Kapty was a longtime helicopter executive; and Hankin was an experienced helicopter engineer.

The chair of company’s board of directors said after Davis passed away, the general feeling was that it’s time to move on.

“With the passing of Gordon, that was really the point,” said Lundquist, who served as the company vice-president.

“We missed his leadership, and it was decided it was time to pass it on to the next generation of new guardians. That was really the primary reason.”

Lundquist acknowledged times have been lean particularly with the slowdown in the exploration business, though the last couple of years were better than the previous couple.

Clint Walker of Fireweed Helicopters said this morning the recent downturn in mineral exploration in the Yukon has had a major impact on helicopter companies in general.

Back in the exploration heydays of 2010 and 2011, helicopter companies were having a hard time keeping up with the demand, but that is not the case these days, he said.

He said there’s also been an impact on local companies from the Yukon government’s policy of hiring helicopters for work, insisting everything go through the competitive bid process, locally and Outside.

Walker said using the tender process for government work sounds like the appropriate way to do business. But it can also have an impact on companies trying to maintain helicopter bases in the smaller communities like Ross River, he pointed.

Walker explained that you can use the example of wildlife field work that occurs mostly during the winter.

Instead of hiring the company that already has a base in the immediate area, or sharing it between companies that have bases there, the government began the practice several years ago of putting it out to tender.

There was a time when those three or four hours of flying time here and three hours or four there allowed a company to keep the lights on at its smaller bases.

Without the work, those bases closed or became seasonal, and suddenly the community is without a helicopter for emergencies for a large part of the year, he said.

“It’s unfortunate because they are a longtime company here in the Yukon, just about 53 years,” Walker said.

“With a change in the business climate we are in, I guess it is a sign of the times.”