Yukon Expedition Sleds is preparing to introduce what it says will be Canada’s first welded‑plastic all‑terrain landing craft, a project founder Ryan McGillivray described as a northern‑built response to shrinking ice seasons and changing access needs across remote regions.
“So, right now, with climate change, the amount of time that people could drive their vehicles on ice roads is decreasing,” McGillivray said.
He told the News the concept has been in development for roughly a year, advancing through engineering reviews and design revisions. The company is now finalizing build details before construction begins, a process he noted takes significantly longer than aluminum fabrication.
Airboats are useful for communities cut off by freeze‑up and break‑up, yet few manufacturers specialize in vessels designed specifically for northern conditions or year‑round reliability, McGillivray said.
A key decision early in the design was the choice to build the vessel from welded plastic rather than aluminum. McGillivray said the material is about 30 per cent lighter, performs well in cold weather and is already widely used in European shipbuilding.
He added that welded plastic has historically been rare in Canada because of the labour required to fabricate it. But rising aluminum prices and tariffs have shifted the economics, making plastic construction comparable in cost to premium aluminum boats while offering weight advantages.
“It’s quite a bit more labor intensive to build, which makes it more expensive, but with now aluminum tariffs and the price of aluminum skyrocketing through the roof, it’s all of a sudden cost effective to build a boat out of plastic,” McGillivray said.
The vessel is designed to operate across a wide range of terrain. McGillivray said it can travel over water, ice, snow, grass, buckbrush, rocks and through stands of small trees. The only limitation is long, steep hills, where gravity eventually overcomes the vessel’s power‑to‑weight ratio.
The first model will carry eight people and a payload of roughly 2,500 pounds, enough to transport an ATV or snowmobile across water or ice. The hull measures eight and a half feet wide, making it six inches wider than most airboats currently available.
McGillivray said the design also incorporates a forward operator station enclosed in a heated cab. The hull is shaped to prevent waves from swamping the vessel, a common issue he said with Florida‑style air boats that sit high above the deck.
Northern applications, he said, are broad. Air boats are used for ice taxis, search and rescue, oil‑spill response and environmental assessments. The vessel is intended to bridge periods when neither trucks nor boats can travel safely in remote areas.
“The amount of time that people could drive their vehicles on ice roads is decreasing… the time that they’re shut off, like where a boat or a truck can’t get across, is getting larger and larger. So the air boats, they bridge that gap,” McGillivray said.
While interest in the Yukon has been limited so far, McGillivray expects that to change once the first vessel is demonstrated. He said many people are familiar only with southern swamp boats and may not yet recognize the capabilities of a northern‑built design.
Most early inquiries have come from provinces with ice‑road networks, including Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. McGillivray said these regions rely heavily on seasonal access and are seeking safer, more dependable options as freeze‑up windows shorten.
Commercial production of the Yukon landing craft will remain small by design. McGillivray said the boats are so labour‑intensive that the company can build only a few each year, with a maximum capacity of about four. Even so, he said demand expects to exceed what the company can supply.
Testing of the first vessel is expected in April, with public demonstrations and social‑media coverage planned for the summer of 2026. McGillivray said the timeline may shift, but the company is confident the craft will be ready for its first season on the land, ice and water next year.
Contact Jake Howarth at jake.howarth@yukon-news.com