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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1484213
accessible to a large centre, which is obvi- ously a challenge in the West Kootenay." (That's where Zincton also is.) Putnam and his business partner, Andrew Kyle, were willing to risk a lack of proximity to big markets because Whitewa- ter is a passion project—a family mountain supported by locals for generations—that they're able to subsidize from years of money they each made in other industries. "We were never in it to maximize prof- its," he says. "We wanted it to pay for itself and generate enough revenue to pay for improvements. So we're fortunate my part- ner and I didn't require profits as part of our income. That put us in a unique situation where we could reinvest most of the profits back into the ski hill... It's almost a way of giving back a little bit to an industry and a sport that we both love very much." Putnam notes other hurdles for ski-area investors, too: skier visits at resorts have been stagnant in Western Canada for two decades, and without summer operations there's no revenue for half the year. Most bigger ski areas have adopted summer oper- ations for this reason, among many others. "We're looking at four and a half—maybe round it up to five—months of winter busi- ness per year," explains Kevin Manuel, director of marketing at Revelstoke Moun- tain Resort, which has branched into hiking, mountain biking and a wildly suc- cessful mountain coaster (a type of gravity- powered summer luge track). "I mean, we have the infrastructure in place [to do summer business]. But I would say the number one reason we went down this path initially was for staff retention. You want an ability to generate some income during those summer months to pay your employees and keep them on a year-round basis." He also notes that homeowners want activities year-round—something that is cru- cial to real estate sales. Zincton won't have mountain biking, a mountain coaster or an aerial adventure park because of its wildlife reserve, and because it needs to clean up those mine tailings. But Harley thinks tap- ping into the backcountry market during the winter will more than make up for these deficits. "This is, like, bigger than snowboarding was when it was growing up. You know, this is huge," says Harley. "And it'll be huge in China, too, which will ultimately become the largest ski market in the world." Geopolitical tourism prospects aside, it's true the sector is growing locally, which shows in sales figures for equipment and other backcountry products. "We've seen an increase in bookings of 16 to 30 percent from 2012 to 2022," notes Brad Harrison, executive director for the Backcountry Lodges of BC Association, which represents 32 off-grid lodges that sell catered and guided ski-touring vacations deep in the backcountry, far from other skiers and resorts. Harley wants a piece of this market, too, and has plans to put a similar "hut" on top of London Ridge. He says that tapping into the success of this niche sector, along with cat- and heli-skiing, is Zincton's key move. "The heli- and cat-ski business has exploded over the last 30 years, and they broke all those rules [about being close to a major market]," Harley says. "The more commitment it takes to get to a destination, the longer people stay. So there's a benefit to being remote now." TOUGH CLIMATE The trouble with comparing yourself to the mechanized backcountry ski indus- try, as heli- and cat-skiing are together called, is that it's tiny. It collectively con- tributed $326 million to the B.C. economy in 2019, according to Helicat Canada. This drastically outpaces revenues from backcountry ski-touring lodges, to be sure, but looks miniscule compared to the ski- resort industry, which, in Western Canada, was worth $2.51 billion in 2021. Heli- and cat-skiing also have a com- pletely different price point and user intensity than both ski touring (which is free) and lift-based skiing. It costs between $1,500 and $15,000 to ski out of a helicop- ter or snowcat for a day, and those opera- tions only host 30 to 40 guests at a time (or less), across far more terrain. That's because seclusion is something backcountry skiers, whether they be mechanized or self-pow- ered, specifically seek out. "Each [ BLBCA] lodge has a tenure asso- ciated with it," Harrison explains, "and that would be accommodating an eight- to 14-person group. The extensive-use area [for ski touring] is usually about 5,000 hectares." Compare 14 ski tourers, then, to the fore- casted 300 daily backcountry users in Zinc- ton's similar-sized tenure (up to another 1,000 daily are expected to stay inbounds and use the lifts), and Harrison asks point- edly, "Do you want to go ski touring with 300 other people?" Lodges and mechanized operations also have the advantage of higher altitude; they tend to ski above 2,000 metres whenever possible. Most of Zincton's skiing will be below this elevation, and that's a problem because of climate change. According to Michael Pidwirny, an earth scientist from the University of RISE AND GLIDE Low levels of skier visits at resorts in Western Canada could be a con- cern for investors R E C R E A T I O N 38 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 BRUNO LONG