Pine Portage Lodge has been in Betty McGie’s family for more than 70 years.
The fly-in fishing and hunting retreat was started by her father, Dick Watson, on Kabinakagami Lake, south of Hearst, in 1946, and it’s remained family-owned and operated ever since.
This year's challenges, presented by COVID-19, have decimated her season.
Ninety-five per cent of her clients hail from the U.S. – they’ve all had to cancel because of the border restrictions in place.
And McGie estimates the resort’s sister company, Wawa-based Watson’s Skyways, is operating at a 98 per cent loss. With few clients to fly into area lodges, her plane is mostly sitting idle.
“It’s a lost season,” said McGie. “Our 74th year is a writeoff, and it’s nothing that we would want to ever see again.”
On Aug. 27, McGie joined an online panel of Northern Ontario resort operators, presented by Destination Northern Ontario and marketing firm The New Business, to discuss how the ongoing pandemic is impacting their operations.
In short: the news isn’t good.
All owners say they’re operating at a loss, missing out on thousands of dollars in annual revenue that keeps their operations humming.
Charlie McDonald, manager of the Kesagami Wilderness Lodge in Cochrane, decided just a few weeks before his scheduled spring opening to keep his resort closed for the year.
Normally operational for just a few short weeks per season, it made more sense, he decided, not to open and to instead focus on upgrades.
It was the first time the resort has remained closed through a season since it launched in 1960.
“We ran the numbers and said, ‘You know what? Let’s take this summer off, borrow a bunch of money, and dedicate it to major renovations at the lodge while we have the time,” McDonald said.
Staff members that would usually help run resort services were redeployed, installing a new roof, laying down new carpeting in the guest rooms, replacing the old kitchen with a new one, and cutting two years’ worth of firewood.
It helped get work done around the lodge, while keeping summer workers employed, McDonald said.
At White River’s Lodge Eighty Eight, David MacLachlan figures he’s lost about 90 per cent of the business that he usually sees every summer.
Only accessible by plane or train, the fishing lodge operates between mid-May and the end of September – a brief seasonal window in which to generate revenue.
The money that is coming in is just enough to cover the cost of operating, said MacLachlan, the third generation of his family to operate the resort.
But they’ve had to overcome other roadblocks, like keeping the outpost adequately stocked for staff and guests.
“For us, even just simply buying groceries, our grocery store that we would normally have a weekly order from, they have no staff and are unable to do it, so somebody’s got to go out every two weeks and bring them back,” he said.
The biggest sticking point, say operators, is the uncertainty on when the Canada-U.S. border might open back up to leisure travellers.
With the timeline constantly shifting, it’s difficult to know what to tell potential visitors.
Ontario’s shutdown arrived in mid-March just at the peak of Matt Rydberg’s ice fishing season, immediately cutting into revenues for his resort, Crawford’s Camp, based in Sioux Narrows on Lake of the Woods.
Some local clientele did replace the visitors from Manitoba and the U.S. that he was accustomed to serving.
But most were content to enjoy a leisurely stay on the dock or the beach, options that are available at a significantly lower price point than the fishing packages that are his bread and butter.
“We’ve been operating this summer in a little cloud of uncertainty,” said Rydberg.
“You can roll the dice and gamble and cancel all your U.S. clients for the summer so that you could take any call you would get if there were any Canadian clients, but for us to live under that uncertainty as a business, it’s tough.”
The border is currently closed until at least Sept. 21.
But with school set to resume in Ontario in one week and medical experts forecasting a second wave of COVID-19 cases, Rydberg doesn’t rule out the possibility that the border’s opening will be delayed yet again.
If operators had a solid timeline to work with, “now we can market something to try to bring in more clients, or close your doors and start doing as much work as you can,” he said.
At many of the operations, loyal, annual visitors have been understanding about the situation and have simply pushed their reservation to the same dates for 2021.
McDonald said he’s even got two reservations booked for his Cochrane resort for 2022.
Despite the overall downturn, the news hasn’t been all bad.
Pat Peterson, who owns and operates Bruce Bay Cottages and Lighthouse in Bruce Mines, called her season so far “better than anticipated.”
Located 45 minutes east of Sault Ste. Marie along the North Shore of Lake Huron, the 1950s-era retreat boasts walking trails, geocaching, kayaking and canoeing, and plenty of fishing.
Though she also lost out on several American clients, Peterson said she’s seen an influx of Ontario visitors, mostly from Sault Ste. Marie or Sudbury, and a few from the southern part of the province.
Eager to get out and travel while still minding COVID-19 protocols, local visitors have taken the staycation to heart, exploring areas of the province they might not have considered.
Enthusiastic anglers have resulted in the local fishing guide experiencing his best ever season, she added – and that’s all with the absence of American visitors.
“Will they return?” Peterson mused of her new patrons. “I think that they will come back.
“I think the majority had a great vacation and realized that we in Northern Ontario do have something to offer for tourism.”
