Baseball Cap
Object
2024.4.26
Black baseball cap with a logo depicting a plane and reading "VIKING" across the front
This company based a bit north of Victoria is not an airline, but rather works to keep many of the smaller ones around the North American west coast healthy and running. Established in 1970 by Norwegian-Canadian Nils Christensen, Viking provides and distributes spare parts, a useful service for those desiring quick-delivery without the hassle or distance of ordering from the companies of origin. Lucratively, Christensen obtained the rights from De Havilland to handle spare parts for their models, opening a large market given the latter’s numbers out there across the globe! He even acquired the rights to distribute the ever-versatile Otter and Beaver aircraft. Never a company to settle, Viking Air later bought the licences to assemble and sell numerous additional aircraft, most notably the Twin Otter, from De Havilland in 2005, and began manufacturing the dual-engined workhorse two years later. As a matter of fact, this brought the Twin Otter back to the assembly-lines after a near two-decade absence, to aviators’ relief all over. Since then until today, Viking Air has settled into a role as one of western Canada’s linchpins for reliable bush plane manufacture and maintenance. While no direct connection with the Yukon exists, the aviators there can trust Viking to deliver parts for their aircraft or even provide one should they need it