Nordic Air

Nordic Air is an air service based in Petersburg, Alaska, a fishing town on Mitkof Island in the middle of Southeast Alaska's Inside Passage. It flies an amphibious Cessna 185 Skywagon, fitted with floats that have retractable wheels, so it can take off and land on either water or a runway.

The company provides air transportation across Southeast Alaska, flying to remote places on the sea or on land, including communities and destinations that have no scheduled jet service. Southeast Alaska is a maze of islands, fjords and rainforest with few roads, and floatplanes are often the only practical way to reach cabins, lodges and lakes.

One example the company shows is Kah Sheets Lake near Petersburg, where its aircraft can tie up beside a Forest Service public use cabin. The Tongass National Forest maintains a network of these cabins across the region, many of them reachable only by floatplane or boat.

Because the amphibian can use both airports and water, it can link Petersburg's airport with lakes, bays and beaches in a single trip, which gives travellers more flexibility than a pure floatplane or wheel plane.