Article content The Cheam First Nation has expanded its tourism ambitions in the eastern Fraser Valley with the purchase of a luxury resort on the Fraser River with postcard views to another of its ventures. The resort property, the Fraser River Lodge outside Agassiz, is an imposing log structure sitting amid emerald-green fields that offers guests guided-fishing excursions and gourmet dining in a wilderness setting. Last week, the Cheam said they closed on the purchase of the property for $18 million — another piece in their efforts to assemble a land base to build sustainable ventures in ecotourism.
“We live in one of the probably most highly developed resource extraction areas in Western Canada,” Chief Darwin Douglas said. “So we think it’s time that we really take a look at what activities can be sustainable going forward.” The lodge has a panoramic view of mountains in the Skagit Range on the south side of the Fraser River, where the Cheam are partners in the Cascade Skyline Gondola, a proposal to build a sightseeing lift into the alpine near Bridal Veil Falls.
The Cheam viewed Fraser Valley Lodge, when it came up for sale, as a natural extension of the Nation’s ambitions for tourism. The lodge purchase secures property adjacent to a Cheam reserve near Agassiz and follows the purchase of farmland nearby, which combined with land it already owns, is intended to form “a base for an ecosystem-based farming initiative.” “We need to be thinking about these things for our future generations but also for everybody in the region,” Douglas said.
“We want to do our part to work on sustainable economic development.” Douglas said no changes are planned and the Nation will continue to operate the lodge as is — a successful five-star resort property. He added that it fits in with the Cheam’s other tourism activities in the region such as the Fishing Village campground and RV park further upstream in Agassiz, which includes a boat launch and riverside trails.
Douglas said the First Nation has also recently purchased farmland to the west of Fraser Valley Lodge. “It’s all been (development) that we’ve been actively working on for the last six, eight months. .
.. So things are moving pretty quickly for us.
” Another Cheam venture is its partnership in the Cascade Skyline Gondola, which would build a $70-million sightseeing gondola starting from the site of what is now the Bridal Falls Golf Course up into the mountains above Bridal Veil Falls. That one’s moving a lot slower. An application for the Cascade Skyline proposal, officially known as the Bridal Falls Gondola Corp.
, has been with the province for several years. However, since 2021, so has a competing application for a bigger Bridal Veil Mountain Resort proposal, which would build two sightseeing gondolas along with the phased development of a ski resort in the alpine above Chilliwack. The Ministry of Tourism, in an unattributed statement from staff, said the relevant ministries are “working together to ensure the implications of the proposals are adequately assessed and ensure Indigenous and public interests are fully considered before any decisions are made.
” The statement, sent in response to Postmedia questions, said the Cascade Skyline Gondola’s application is being reviewed by the Ministry of Water Land and Resource Stewardship under the province’s adventure tourism policy. Bridal Veil resort is being reviewed by the Tourism Ministry under the all-seasons resort policy. Both proposals were initially in overlapping alpine territory, according to the statement, though the Cascade Skyline recently adjusted its boundaries further east outside of the overlap.
They remain in proximity, however. “Ministry staff have been working closely to understand the interests of Sto:lo First Nations communities and the extensive interests in the area, namely environmental, cultural and social, which could be affected by the proposed developments,” the statement said. The Cheam oppose the Bridal Veil Mountain resort as too much of a risk to the environment, particularly as it is in prime habitat for endangered spotted owls, Douglas said.
“We’ve got a project that’s wanting to really find a way to protect the area for everyone’s youth,” he said, referring to the delays. “Whereas for other types of resource development, such as forestry and cutting trees down, they seem to approve those very quickly.”.
