The heli-skiing company with the most tenure in Revelstoke is waiting to get one step closer to landing an all-season lodge north of town, which would bring tourists and restaurant goers to an area that's seen little development.
Selkirk Tangiers Heli Skiing (STHS) has spent close to two years pursuing a rezoning application with the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) for 65 hectares of land it owns off Lake Revelstoke and Highway 23 at Mars Creek, 45 kilometres north of Revelstoke.
Seeking to amend the Area B Official Community Plan (OCP) and zoning bylaw to change the property from a small-holdings residential space into a commercial resort lot, STHS would turn the land into the Mars Creek Wilderness Lodge.
According to the CSRD's August 2024 board report, the proposed year-round resort would be approved for up to 100 guest units, 50 staff units and a dozen summer campsites, while accommodating heli-and cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, biking, hiking, fishing and kayaking.
"The resort would also provide amenities such as spa, wellness centre, apr猫s bar and dining, as well as medical and mechanical support," it says.
The proposed zoning amendment notes a 10-berth marina and boat launch as well.
Though the CSRD mentions Revelstoke Mountain Resort would also operate with the lodge, the resort told Black Press Media it "has minimal involvement in the planning or use" and echoes what STHS says.
Despite providing access to more than 400 runs in more than 200,000 hectares of backcountry tenure, STHS solely operates from the Coast Hillcrest Hotel as its home base for Revelstoke, with its Albert Canyon lodge providing a day base and fuel stop for heli-skiing parties recreating farther east toward Rogers Pass.
Before STHS and parent company Northland Properties originally acquired the Mars Creek property, general manager Dave Pehowich remembered it staying up for sale "a long time," after being owned for decades by logger and longtime Revelstoke local Buddy McKenzie, who'd dedicated his labour of love to the lands.
Pehowich said STHS's interest in obtaining the lands led to thorough consultation with McKenzie, resulting in a plan that carefully aligned with how he wanted to preserve it 香蕉视频直播� free of logging, among other things.
"I think he felt good leaving it in our hands for the future of that property," Pehowich said.
After assessing the land and two small existing wooden cabins, STHS approached Northland about buying the privately-owned parcel. Then, in December 2023, it went to the CSRD with a rezoning request for Mars Creek.
Today, STHS runs daily helicopter flights adjacent to the property in winter. Pehowich emphasized that the intent of the lodge proposal is not to expand current heli-skiing tenure any farther into the Selkirk or Monashee mountains or add any more helicopters to the arsenal. On the contrary, the goal would be less air traffic congestion as more of the helicopters would be parked up at the lodge, rather than in Revelstoke.
"It's not like we're reapplying to go heli-skiing," Pehowich said, adding he expects skier traffic to remain about the same.
STHS's ski days have actually downsized by number of people and helicopters over the last decade, according to Pehowich. Abiding by Helicat Canada guidelines, STHS has focused on operating with smaller helicopters and groups than in previous years. The main change would be that some of its employees in Revelstoke, including pilots, guides, maintenance staff, cooks and cleaners, would work from Mars Creek.
The CSRD report, however, notes that a main benefit of the resort would be "providing (STHS) customers with faster access to the ski runs."
Mars Creek remains considerably isolated, not served electricity by BC Hydro and with the nearest private property seven kilometres away. If approved for the lodge, development would be phased over several years, but with easy access to the site via Highway 23.
Susan Edgell, stakeholder engagement advisor for BC Hydro, confirmed the CSRD had reached out last December about STHS's proposed by-law changes, to which BC Hydro advised it holds a statutory right-of-way on the property title and all development must comply with its terms.
As the property sits largely on steep slopes and floodplain areas, about 11 hectares (17 per cent of the land) can be built on.
"We also flagged that the shoreline around the reservoir can be impacted by our operations," Edgell said by email, adding this includes flooding, floating debris, wave erosion, sloughing, groundwater fluctuations and other geohazards.
"As for the possibility of a marina and boat launch, if the project is being considered on Provincial Crown land next to (Lake Revelstoke), our understanding is that BC Hydro would receive an application referral from the Province so we can further review."
Eddie Petryshen, conservation specialist with Wildsight, said his leading concern with the proposal is how changes to helicopter launch points could affect caribou in STHS's tenure in the Monashee Mountains. With that land just across Lake Revelstoke being "high-value range" for federally threatened southern mountain caribou, Petryshen is concerned about further displacement of this species.
"This is potentially changing some of the intensive-use sites," Petryshen said. "We don't manage the land for heli-skiing. We have to manage the landscape for biodiversity, for all those values."
For Mars Creek, Petryshen hopes STHS would start sharing its flight data with the provincial government. He added that the proposal's intent to accommodate snowmobiling around the Selkirks should take into consideration the winter snowmobile closures for caribou that already exist in areas farther north past Downie Creek.
Stephen Hews, a landscape architect and building designer at LDA Studio working with STHS on the proposal, said that transitioning the lot from a personal holdings to commercial resort space would help "steward" the natural features of the site that include mixed second-growth forest.
In particular, amending the lot to commercial resort zoning would remove the small-holdings allowance of having timber harvesting or a small sawmill on the property, and better align with the OCP by focusing on wilderness accommodation and recreation, Hews and Pehowich explained.
"This provides the opportunity to manage, maintain and enhance the existing property through investment, beyond just harvesting the timber value of the private lot," they said later on by email.
Pehowich made clear STHS, given its push for the amended zoning, has no interest in resource extraction.
"Putting it bluntly, someone could go clear-cut that whole property (as it's currently zoned) 香蕉视频直播� and that's definitely not our plan," he said. "We want to maintain the feel of the forest."
"Everyone gets out to that parcel and can see the beauty of that space," Hews added. "We want to keep it that way."
Moving to a commercial resort lot would get STHS similar zoning to what CMH Heli-Skiing and Mica Heliskiing enjoy at their lodges up at Mica Creek. Due to electricity limitations along Highway 23, however, the Mars Creek Wilderness Lodge would need to run off the power grid, according to Hews.
"Everything will be governed by what we can provide," he said, noting STHS would take a "light-on-land" approach to running its guest services there.
The two cabins currently on the site partly operate on solar and also use a backup generator, and will likely remain if the proposal goes through, Pehowich said.
U.S. design firm Hart Howerton drafted a very early concept plan for the lodge site, sketching a multi-storey wooden build immersed in trees, slightly set back off Lake Revelstoke, with the Selkirks towering in the background.
Ultimately, "we don't want the focus to be a building," Pehowich said. "We want the focus to be the property itself."
He described getting "positive reception" so far from the CSRD board on the proposal, after carrying out local consultation last fall that included a sparsely-attended public information session that STHS advertised and hosted.
"If there was any confusion, it was the perception that we're starting a new heli-skiing company," Pehowich said.
It's already been a year since STHS earned first reading on the proposal at the CSRD board table, in August 2024. Hews said the hope now is to reach second reading this August, which would trigger a CSRD-hosted public hearing ahead of third and final reading.
Ken Gobeil, the CSRD's senior planner of development services, told Black Press Media by email in June that after first reading, STHS has needed to complete technical feasibility and safety reports. This includes an environmental overview, water and sewer service demands report, electricity demands report, geohazard assessment and wildfire susceptibility report.
Gobeil said those reports will be available when the board considers second reading, which he confirmed has been pushed back until at least August.
