Rocky Mountain vacation accommodation
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
We are a family owned and operated business who promote appreciation, enjoyment and conservation of our fragile surroundings. The main lodge and all cabins are self-sufficient and environmentally friendly. Power is provided by both solar energy and hydro generated power, sustaining an eco-sensitive and natural setting to ensure that special experience for all.
We aim to offer guests real wilderness experiences that challenge and empower not only the body, but also the mind and the soul, through a heightened connection with the natural world and all its inhabitants.
As opposed to just hiking, paddling, or peddling through nature, we aim to role model, teach, and inspire travellers with an awareness of the wilderness that actually opens up the possibility to learn from it, and all of creation.
To help achieve this outcome consistently, we aim to maintain our lodging area clean and natural, and are devoted to a philosophy of respect for the earth. Our garbage is hauled out every week, our power is generated only from hydro and solar energy, our water supply is natural spring water from the mountain side, and we have a gravity feed septic tank with gravel field bed and the septic tank is pumped periodically. Our simple guest lodgings are themselves recycled and authentically renovated settler cabins from the turn of the 20th century. The trees and surroundings are as they were when we arrived, and as landowners, as well as conservationists, we have stopped all hunting and logging in our immediate area. We have also been involved in opposing irresponsible commercial developments nearby, such as a large-scale ski hill.
All of the food at our Rocky Mountain vacation accommodation is purchased at local businesses, and the basic supplies for the running and maintenance of our mountain retreat are purchased or contracted out, when necessary, to local companies in the district.We support other local small businesses as well with binders in each of our guest lodges containing helpful brochures to nearby restaurants, shops, and tourist attractions, in case guests choose to venture back out of the wilderness for a night during some free time. Furthermore, all of our certified guided river rafting and canoeing trips are contracted out to the local river guiding company.
Community
This experience promotes social responsibility by offering local people good working conditions, a fair wage, and empowering them with training opportunities. Most of our guides - hiking guides, rafting guides, canoeing guides, climbing guides, and yoga instructors - are all local people we’ve contracted out from surrounding communities, and are paid the standard rate based on current industry practices. Our executive chef for this experience is also from the area and on top of a generous seasonal wage, gets his/her own cabin, all room and board paid for, days off when requested whenever possible, and the opportunity to join in on any of our programs and projects when available free of charge. We have also supplemented regular chef wages, and acknowledged work we’ve been very thankful for, with a bonus of flying the employee to a place of their choosing in the world for a holiday at the end of the season. If one of our employees or regular contracted guides has been with us for a while, or if some other trade with them has been discussed (which we are also very open to), we have also paid for training opportunities to upgrade or supplement their knowledge in an area relating to their job with us. Some of the training opportunities we’ve purchased for our staff and volunteers include: backpacking guide certification upgrade; yoga teacher training upgrade; wilderness first aid re-certification; and wilderness interpreter certification. We also frequently take-on volunteer workers - some of whom we may meet around the wilderness centre, or be joined by during the hikes in this experience - who get all room and board paid for, and frequent opportunities to join in on any of our intercultural sharing or outdoor programs free of charge, in exchange for helping out around the wilderness centre. We are also frequently asked to host and facilitate intercultural sharing work with youth groups, community organizations, and Aboriginal communities, often through non-profit work, and this we do gladly. These organizations and projects receive significant discounts from us, some of which this experience might help fund, and we have started up an affiliated non-profit organization called the Kotawî Foundation for Nature, Arts & Culture to help facilitate, design, and support similar projects at the wilderness centre and around Western Canada that focus on intercultural sharing experiences through empowering initiatives that are rooted in the arts and/or nature-based education.
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