This news is about 25 years late as far as I'm concerned.
Dogbreath alluded to it and living in Sandspit from 1987 to 1990 I also witnessed what was happening.
Prior to living at Sandspit I was working at Eden Lake for Husby and actually flew from Vancouver to Sandspit with a group who approached him with the idea of doing a lodge at Naden Harbour. He heard their ideas, sent them on their way and then did it himself as the market seemed viable and there was certainly room for expansion then, in 1986. At that time I was wondering why some enterprising Haida didn't get into the whole fishing lodge Haida adventure market. Would have been easy to get financing from Indian Affairs most likely and you could make your lodge at any of a number of old Haida sites and in the shape of a longhouse only modernized, sell native arts etc,. have locals employed in all aspects of the business etc. etc.
But, nothing like that happened and it was off-island investors who started and expanded the fishing lodge businesses around the Charlottes. Living there I got the feeling that making beds, cleaning rooms, guiding guests, cooking meals and all that was somehow above many of the local Haida and it was much simpler to protest the lodges and demand a "fee" for having them on "Haida land."
To my horror, a few of the lodges coughed up but Bob Wright wouldn't pay them off so they targetted him.
I've always respected Bob for that.
I knew Dan Pick, the pilot of the Goose that those idiots paddled in front of so as to cause a minor collision, and he was quite dismayed at all the crap he had to go through from that incident.
I'm happy to see them actually getting invested in that industry finally for sure, but talk about late out of the blocks.
Geeze.
Take care.
