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WW Neither of you had tourism backgrounds. Why build a resort? CM: I wanted a business that kept the family together, so I wouldn���t have to go off to a logging camp or work on a fishboat or something like that. I just woke up one morning and thought, ���I should start a resort.��� WW How does someone just ���start a resort?��� CM: Well, I told my friend what we wanted and he said, ���What you need is a Pelton wheel.��� I said, ���What the hell���s that?��� He said, ���It���s a turbine operated by water pressure that gives you electricity; it���ll run your resort.��� Because I knew a lot of old-timers that used to log the mainland where we wanted to locate, it was just a matter of asking about waterfalls. How easy is that? Soon after, we were taking off across Queen Charlotte Strait looking for the waterfall we���d been told about. So there we were; we���d finally worked our way up to Nimmo Bay, and the morning fog was still with us so you couldn���t see Mount Stephens, which is right behind Nimmo. So we cut the engine, and, in the distance, could hear all this rushing water. As we got closer we could then see the waterfall through the trees. I knew instantly this was the place. So we got an old float house on a brand-new float, then towed it and 850 feet of 10-inch PVC pipe to Nimmo Bay. That was May 1, 1981, the first time we had something physical there. At that time you couldn���t buy anything ��� at best you could get an upland lease and a foreshore lease. The government took six years to give us both. WW You make it sound easy. DM: It���s hard to remember ��� there had to be some dark moments. But overall, it was like we just opened this door and couldn���t go back. We had to keep going forward, no matter what. CM: After Toronto [Craig���s hometown], B.C. seemed like a place where you could still do something on your own; it was a place to eke out a pioneer existence. We were far enough away from the ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill government person that I knew they wouldn���t be coming up too often to bother us. And the land and the water and the mountains were so incredible, it was just a place you wanted to be. WW Did you think of yourselves as pioneers? DM: I woke up one morning when I was out in the bush [at Nimmo] and thought, ���Wow, this must have been what the pioneers felt like.��� I think the ringer washer, the wood stove, and heating all our water and washing all our clothes manually ��� including diapers because we had cloth diapers for the kids, of course ��� sure gave me that feeling. I just loved it, the adventure. Why would you be there otherwise? 14 W e s tw o r l d p10-15_The Pioneers.indd 14 >> Spring 2013 13-01-28 10:27 AM

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