CMW’s Catie Owen spoke to Sarah Cruse, general manager of Vancouver Island’s Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge about the off-the-grid destination’s incentive appeal. Catie Owen: How long have you worked at Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge, and why does this site appeal to you? Sarah Cruse: I have an interesting little story. I’m a returning general manager, originally coming here in 2016 as a career change from hospitality to off-the-grid remote. When I left, my dream was to come back one day. I got the call to return in 2020! While I was looking for a career change after 30 years in hospitality, I saw an advert for a luxury wilderness lodge in British Columbia. For me, the appeal was that it’s off-the-grid. Our guests come here because they’re looking to completely disconnect from today’s world, rather than following a trend. Working here, you see the site’s positive impact on the staff and the transformation of the guests. CO: What does that transformation look like to you? SC: The way I envision it, I see the transformation visually as a glass funnel inside everyone. When guests arrive, their funnel is empty, they’re tired, but while they’re here it fills with green, and they’re rejuvenated. You can see it in their eyes. The disconnect is important for them; they put their devices down, get back in touch with themselves, and start enjoying the world around them. That’s why I don’t allow WIFI in the dining rooms – to encourage people to talk to each other.
Aerial view of Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge
I love hosting meetings! In this environment, you can have a meeting on top of a mountain, in the middle of the woods, beside a river, in one of our tents – anywhere
but a boardroom. The tents, for example, their canvas walls will change the feeling of the meeting; it’s creative. When guests are disconnected, they have fewer distractions and are going to actually achieve what it is they’re setting out to do. In this environment that’s the case especially, as Clayoquot’s surroundings and activities encourage groups to be and work together. If they start their morning in one of our glacier lakes, for example, it’s a refreshing beginning that will blow away any brain fog. When they come to the table together, they’ll be rejuvenated and have a better understanding of their focus. Meetings don’t have to be traditional; they can be unusual and get people out of their comfort zones.
CO: What are your sustainability initiatives? SC: At Clayoquot, we are guardians of the land, and we take that role very seriously. As a very basic initiative we of course have a recycling programme. All our waste is delivered out of here on a barge, and we’re careful that our recycling is dealt with appropriately. Composting is my favourite thing in the whole world! We have a huge composting unit, whose nickname is Katie Silver Bullet. We fill Katie every day with the compost from all of our meals and mix it with wood chips. Then, in seven to 10 days we have compost. That goes into our gardens where we grow our vegetables. Additionally, as we have horses, we use the manure in the fields to help generate pastures and grass. As sustainability can be looked at in a variety of ways, we have a big emphasis on our work with our local First Nations neighbours. That’s an ongoing partnership that we’re very serious about so we can share this land in harmony. We work together on riverbed restorations and maintaining bird and fish spawning channels. It’s a very small footprint we have here, and we like to keep it that way. When it comes to upcoming initiatives, the largest one we’re looking at is a solar project down the road. As we are off-the-grid, we are entirely powered by generators – it would be great to replace those with solar energy.
Images courtesy of Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge, photographer, Jeremy Koreski
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