Travel is good for you

I just finished reading the September issue of Conde Naste Traveller. The members of the WTA missed out on the World Savers Awards, a hat tipping to travel companies giving back to the environment and society, but not because they didn't qualify. In fact after reading about the winners I'm confident many members of the WTA are doing as much or more, especially when their relative size and revenue are considered. You can find out more about some of the stewardship initiatives of some of the WTA members here.

What I found most interesting in the magazine, though, were two articles on the benefits of travel, both related to overall health. The first article says a holiday of a week or more in length gives the most health benefit. The other plus for longer trips is that the overall environmental impact is reduced. More frequent, shorter trips create more carbon emissions, through flights and/or driving back and forth, and mean more impact from cleaning and washing accommodation. Plus, travel can be stressful and tiring.

Among the five tips offered in the article another rang true for me: Get off your beach chair. Being active is important - I know I always feel better if I get some exercise every day, especially on holiday. The good news is most of the members of the WTA specialize in active, week or longer vacations at lodges or on tours. Week long trips like sea kayaking on the B.C. coast where the chances of seeing an orca, like the one pictured, are high or ski touring at Icefall Lodge, a member of the Backcountry Lodges of BC, are both week long, active vacations. Search through more options here.

The other interesting article was more specific about how travel can reduce your chances of getting heart disease, depression and other health issues. Perfect: another excuse to pack my bags.

Skeena Steelhead: quality waters heating up

The Fall steelhead run is in full upstream migration on the Skeena River of B.C. Goverment bodies are forecasting a better than average return this year of the sea run rainbow trout, which means fishing for these lunkers should be good. (Click here for more details on government numbers.)

The Skeena and it's tributaries are considered some of the best steelhead fishing rivers in the world. The region is become the place to go to catch big, hard fighting fish, but as it does the angling experience is threatened. To head off a potential crisis the provincial government and anglers are working to find a balance between access for all, a quality fishing experience and the long-term survival of the fish species.

“This is a critical turning point for the Skeena,” says Pierce Clegg, owner of Babine Norlakes Lodge, a steelhead guiding operation on the Babine River. “Right now we’re loving the steelhead to death. We need to find a way of managing our love.”

Clegg and other guides and resident anglers in the area are working to implement the Skeena Quality Waters Strategy (QWS), signed in 2005. The new process replaces the old classified waters method of management that grouped rivers, with an Angling Management Plan, where each river is micro managed river by river and sometimes section by section.

Geoff Straight, the head guide at Bell 2 Lodge Steelhead Fishing, welcomes the process as a change in tact from the usually politically motivated method of managing fish. “It is new for government to actually have a ‘committee of user groups’ legislated to help in the decision making process and an annual monitoring process, as well as having a reasonable timeline imposed,” he says.

The Skeena QWS is the second such process in B.C. The first QWS plans were approved and implemented in the East Kootenay’s to manage rivers in southeastern B.C., and is showing signs of success. However, the Skeena is more complex, since it involves the mysterious variable of ocean survival of salmon and steelhead.

Thus the government and the Skeena QWS committee is left with a conundrum – how to limit and spread out the fishing pressure without having control over fish numbers. Everyone involved admits there are no easy solutions, but certain commitments are mandatory. “The government needs to support this initiative by dedicating the resources for the QWS to work - enforcement namely and funding at the right time,” Straight says. And he says the fish have to be protected, otherwise there is no point. “Fish farming and commercial fishing is currently destroying our angling resource,” he says. Both provincial and federal governments must collaborate on fish management plans, he believes.

The Skeena QWS is in its final draft stage. Watch this blog for more news on it.

Green in the rainforest: King Pacific Lodge's sustainability ideal

I mentioned some WTA members that were going carbon neutral. Well here's another with serious sustainable ambitions that go beyond the environment.

King Pacific Lodge in the Great Bear Rainforest, in Gitga'at territory on BC’s central coast. Set in one of the most ecologically and culturally sensitive parts of the province, the lodge is a leader in sustainable initiatives, from its close cooperation with the local First Nations community to its carbon neutral vacation packages (read about some of their initiatives here). And now the latest: The Great Bear Rainforest Eco-Challenge.

As part of a “giveback getaway" available in 2010, guests are set a series of challenges, all designed to help them gain a deeper understanding of the culture and ecosystem of the area; success earns donations in the guest’s name to local community and conservation groups. And the eco-challengers really have to earn their donations.

Tackling a five-mile open water kayak trip or mastering vocabulary in the Sm'algyax language will, for example, earn a $100 donation to the local Hartley Bay School. Participants may also try capturing four marine or land mammals on film, releasing three salmon caught on self-tied flies, photographing two of the three bear species living in the area, or climbing a nearby mountain and snapping shots of edible plant species to prove they’ve been there. Any one challenge will earn a donation to the school, to the North Coast Cetacean Society, or to the Gitga'at Cultural Centre; completing all seven tasks will earn a $1,000 donation to the Hartley Bay School. It’s not entirely altruistic: three challenges will win a luxurious spa treatment. A well-deserved eco-challenge win. www.kingpacificlodge.com

Children going wild

A $200 a night spa, let alone a $1500 a night resort, are not the kind of places you'd expect to find toddlers and pre-teens, but that's just what wilderness resort owners are finding more and more. Parents want to bring their kids with them on their wilderness holidays. And so they should, researchers and nature advocates are saying louder and louder.

For many kids that grow up in a city, hanging out in the forest, camping out overnight or riding a horse on the range is more exotic than a trip to Dubai. Author Richard Louv calls it “Nature Deficit Disorder" in his book Last Child in the Woods. Turns out humans are hardwired to learn in a natural environment, processing sensory information from all our senses at once. Not just being visually distracted and zoned out by TV or video games or texting. Not spending time in the wilderness not only lessens our value for wild places but is also harmful to kids development.

There's an excellent article on this topic in the summer issue of explore Magazine which you can find here.

What wilderness resort operators are finding is that parents are realizing this disconnect and many are trying to do something about it. They remember spending time in the wilderness with their parents and remember how important those experiences were.

To feed the growing demand many resorts are offering family style programs or specifically cater to families with programs designed to instill a value in wild places and nature in the whole family. You can read more about some of these options in an article that appeared in the first issue of Be Wild in BC by clicking here. Or browse through the members of the WTA and discover some of the potential experiences like staying at a backcountry lodge as the family pictured did at Mistaya Lodge in the Canadian Rockies.