By IAN ROSS
No jet skis or glass-bottom boats here.
For David Wells, the only way to truly appreciate Lake Superior's untamed beauty is in silence and by kayak.
The owner of Wawa's Rocky Island Lodge and Naturally Superior Adventures is marketing his paddling excursions as a thing you must do before you're dead - a trophy hunting been-there, done-that experience.
Are you up for some white-water canoeing or a challenging month-long jaunt along the Superior's shoreline from Pigeon River to Sault Ste. Marie?
How about singer Ian Tamblyn serenading you every night on a sandy beach while on a voyageur canoe trip to the Red Rock Folk Festival?
Call it eco-tourism, adventure travel, or even green eco-adventure, but Wells wants outdoor trekkers to mention Lake Superior in the same breath as Mexico's Baha Peninsula, the glaciers of Greenland and the greenery of Ireland.
The vast lake's windswept coast of rocky coves, ancient billion-year-old granite headlands and uninhabited beaches is gaining appeal with urbanities and Europeans alike. There's a growing fascination from visitors of a freshwater lake so large, it generates it's own weather systems. And there's travellers' comparisons of Superior with the B.C. coastal mountains, but with drinkable fresh water.
Since 1994, Wells and his crew of 10 guides have been offering beginner and advanced paddling instruction and wilderness trips along the shore and inland rivers near his lodge on scenic Michipicoten Bay.
Wells knows his demographic market perfectly. They're just like him. They're 50 and 60 something. Boomers who aren't afraid to fork over the gold card for an experience like no other.
"The person who does a sea kayak trip is a really unique individual," says Wells, a former City of Sault Ste. Marie forester. "They have to have a certain level of fitness, be an adventurer and be prepared to travel with a small group of strangers to a place they don't know, under the care of someone who's typically younger than them."
They're hard core travellers, but still want all the amenities of a warm bed and hot shower.
"They don't necessarily want to sleep on cold rocks every night."
Winter storms usually shut down the shoreline-hugging Trans-Canada Highway, but Wells constantly searches for ways to stretch the tourism season into the shoulder months. He creatively packages surf kayaking workshops, day hikes into Agawa Canyon and weekend wellness retreats.
He even has his own version of Storm Chasers every fall. His popular Gales of November photography workshop pulls in visitors from across North America to sample a blast of Superior's legendary northwest winds with all of its shipwreck lore and Aboriginal mystic.
Wells is a disciple of guerilla-style web marketing in appealing to his niche market. And he knows those precious key words that will land a Google searcher on his virtual doorstep.
Though Europeans make up only five per cent of his clients, a favourable write-up in a Lonely Planet travel guide started the flow of Germans and Swiss to his lodge.
Those who did arrive were blown away by the location, a spectacular three-hour drive north of Sault Ste. Marie.
It's much the same reason some of his former guides have returned to find teaching jobs and permanently live in Wawa.
To him, guiding represents a small measure of economic diversification in a region entirely dependent on resource extraction.
Unlike the fiercely independent lodge owners of yesteryear, Wells recognizes the value of partnerships with other outfitters to defray advertising costs and better deliver a well-rounded client experience.
"We're not a big business. If we have 300 customers on paddling trips a year, we're doing very well."
It's partly a reason why eco-tourism isn't perceived by many in struggling one-industry towns as an adequate replacement for the jobs and incomes lost.
In Michipicopten Bay, there's debate whether a quarry proposal by a U.S. aggregate company should proceed. Many question whether the bay should return to its century-old industrial roots as a working harbour or be preserved as pristine coast for paddlers.
Wells says it's a tough call to balance everyone's land use needs.
"I don't know the answer, but I know how it affects my business. I'm into silent sports and when ATV'ers come and rip up my beach, I'm not going to feel happy about that."
Marketing the outdoors has been a new strategy adopted by Tourism Sault Ste. Marie.
Its award-winning Explorers Handbook and interactive website promotes the Sault as a base for area outdoor opportunities, accommodations and dining.
Tourism director Ian McMillan says eco-tourism has evolved from "camping with a bag of granola in the middle of nowhere" to a mixture of hiking, biking and viewing adventures with softer amenities.
"What we wanted to capture in this program is the ability to do all of those things."
Provincial tourism research shows there's a link between upscale adventurers with disposal income and those who want to be pampered with fine dining, spa treatments and four-star accommodations.
One Sault hotel, Algoma's Water Tower Inn, offers its Trailhead program connecting the city with outdoor activities and the Searchmont Ski Resort.
The Algoma district's rugged terrain is already a popular place for Eco-Challenge competitions and episodes of the Outdoor Life Network's Mantracker program.
One of the Sault's biggest outdoor attractions, the Agawa Canyon Tour Train, is getting a $10-million facelift by Queen's Park and the Canadian National Railway (CN) to replace its 60-year-old passenger coaches.
After a three-year effort of scouring railyards from New England to Alaska, McMillan and the CN officials anticipate receiving two proposals shortly on acquiring new coaches.
McMillan says what's wanted is a combination of single and bi-level viewing and dining coaches, capable of handling 1,000 passengers per day.
The retrofitted coaches will feature on-board DVD screens and GPS technology for passengers. There's also plans for the canyon park to have a new visitors centre.
