Santa gifts Sask. Aviation Museum with early Christmas present

Santa arrived by plane at the Saskatchewan Aviation Museum to gift hardworking volunteers with a pair of new pedal planes on Dec. 13, 2025. (Hallee Mandryk/CTV News)

Santa Claus made an early Christmas delivery to the Saskatchewan Aviation Museum on Saturday.

While his sleigh is being prepared for a busy night of delivering gifts across the globe, Santa opted to travel to Saskatoon in a 1952 North American Harvard Mk. IV plane.

“I came to the museum today to visit again this year, like I do every year to the museum, and the elves have been busy working to bring a present for all the volunteers that do all the hard work at the museum,” Santa Claus told CTV news.

Museum volunteers like Shelley Jensen were thankful for the visit and the gifts that accompanied.

“As volunteers, we work pretty hard. We’re not unlike Santa’s little elves. So it’s really nice to get recognition from the big guy because he knows how hard elves work,” Jensen said.

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Santa brought along a large gift box, which he unveiled to the museum volunteers as a way to say thank you for all of their hard work.

“In this big red box here we have a couple of new additions to the museum for the volunteers,” Santa said.

Inside the box were two pedal planes, one pink and one blue, for the children who visit the museum to ride around in.

Santa also spent his day visiting with families who stopped by the museum.

“It’s been great today. People have really enjoyed it, and there’s a lot of shyness occurs when the little kids come in, but they warm up after a while and they get in and have their picture taken with Santa,” Jensen said.

In addition to a visit with Santa, those in attendance had the opportunity to explore the museum and get up close and personal with the various aircrafts on display.

“It’s so great to be able to showcase the museum, and who better this time of the season to showcase it than the guy in the big red suit?” Jensen said.

Jensen added that the museum offers year-round programming that goes far beyond just looking at the it’s impressive aircraft collection.

“We do education programs here, we do tours here, we have flight simulators for kids and adults to play on. We have a helicopter to get inside. We have a couple of outside displays normally that are only open in the summer. Of course. and we’re showcasing Saskatchewan’s history, but also aviation history around Canada,” Jensen said.