Environmental & Social Initiatives
First Nation/Inuit Tourism Initiative
Carbon Offsetting of Our Wilderness Trips
Purchase Airfare from a Local Yukon Airline
Earth-Friendly Initiatives
At Cabin Fever Adventures we don’t believe we can protect the planet by simply saying that we love wilderness and that we strive to protect wild places. Of course we love the wilderness, but the bigger question is does the day-to-day operation of our company demonstrate this commitment? At Cabin Fever Adventures we strive to be the Yukon’s industry leader in promoting a earth-friendly business model. We actively engage our company in the preservation of not only the wilderness here in the Yukon, but consider our company an economic vehicle to affect positive change around the planet.
Our Earth-Friendly initiatives are based on the following simple beliefs:
- One person’s happiness can not be built at the cost of another's
- One person can change the world by doing things differently, daily
- The needs of the earth’s natural systems are the basis for all sound economic decisions when judged over the long-term.
Based on the above stated beliefs, we have instituted the following business practices into the operations of Cabin Fever Adventures.
We Provide an Organic and Fair Trade Food Menu
- Our food menu is as close to 100% organic as possible and we support several Fair Trade organizations through our food purchases as well. To learn more about organic food products please visit our food distributors website www.horizondistributors.com
- To learn more about Fair Trade products and benefits please visit www.transfairusa.org
We are a Member of One Percent for the Planet
- One Percent for the Planet is an organization of member companies who donate at least 1 % of their gross revenues to non-profit environmental protection agencies. We are proud to have made this commitment and hope you will check out their site.
We Support-Best Practice Local and or Canadian Businesses Partnerships
- We support businesses in the following order of priority when it comes to sourcing gear for our company. First we support companies that we feel are conducting best practices for eco-justice and earth-friendly business practices. Next, we support companies that are local to the Yukon, and thirdly we support Canadian manufactured products because as a voter we can at least work towards changes in our own country.
We Actively Encourage our Clients to Support Our Locally Owned Airline and Encourage them to Carbon Offset Their Flights
- We are very aware that one of the greatest impacts our business has on the planet it the greenhouse gases produced by jets as our clients travel to arrive in the North. We encourage our clients to purchase carbon offsets for their flights through discount rewards, wherein our company pays for a portion of the carbon offset expense via a discount rebate. Purchasing carbon offsets promotes increased development of sustainable energy, nationally and globally. We also encourage our clients to use our local airline, Air North, by explaining to them the eco-tourism-related benefits of local ownership. A key principle of eco-tourism is that spending must benefit the local community directly. To learn more about our local airline follow this link.
We Challenge the Status Quo Consumer Attitudes Through our Purchasing Decisions
- We maintain our gear very well and believe in using the entire life-span of a product through proper maintenance and repairs. CFA does not get rid of perfectly good gear to satiate the consumer demand to be outfitted in gear that appears to be brand-new. We can not pretend to be true environmental advocates if our concern for the environment is Yukon-specific rather that global in perspective. Unnecessary consumerism is the fundamental lifestyle problem which has placed human existence out of balance with the planet. We need to start operating within our needs, rather than our wants. When a piece of gear no longer does its job properly or will create a significant consequence if it fails in the backcountry than it is first repaired, and if it can not be properly repaired than it is replaced, but not before. We have become skilled in gear repair, and even make some one-of-a-kind items ourselves. We attempt to source gear for our company from like-minded companies who are making significant steps to reduce their global environmental impact.
We Support Agencies Dedicated to Protecting Wild Places and to Improving Transportation Technologies Vital to Tourism
- We
donate to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and green
technologies NGO’S. For more information on the work of CPAWS
please visit www.cpaws.org
- We donate to the Pembina Foundation. www.pembinafoundation.org
The Pembina Foundation for Environmental Research and Education
supports innovative environmental research and education initiatives
that help people reduce their energy footprint.
We Practice Leave No Trace Camping Practices
- The owner of Cabin Fever Adventures is a certified Master Educator for The Leave No Trace Centre for Outdoor Ethics. Most of our guides have formal certification in LNT camping and we practice that approach on our wilderness trips. We travel as lightly upon the land as we can so as to leave for the enjoyment of future generations the landscape we hold dear today. To learn more about the principles of LNT backcountry travel please visit www.lnt.org
Day-to-Day Operation of our Physical Plant
We operate Cabin Fever Adventures during our operating season from our wilderness base-camp and are pursuing numerous efforts to minimize our environmental footprint.
- We and our staff live a lower-than-average impact lifestyle at our base-camp in the wilderness. We run our office from at 480 square foot (44.6 m2 ) log cabin. We function on an average of 25 gallons (56.78 L) of water per day for our staff, including laundry, cleaning, drinking etc. Our water consumption at our base is about one-twentieth the national average for Canada on a per capita basis.
- We operate an almost paper-less office and we conduct near-paperless interactions with our clients. You will notice that we offer all our information digitally and encourage our customers to embrace communication that avoids the need for paper.
- We run our office electronics primarily on solar energy. We turn off our computers when not in use for even a few minutes, and our base-camp office has only one propane light.
- We believe in making our equipment last as long as possible and invest in skills and equipment which allow us to repair our equipment.
- We build most of our small projects with locally harvested wood and or recycled building materials whenever possible.
- We remove our solid human waste from the environment on our busier river routes and dispose of it in sanitation dumps.
- Our largest environmental impact is our use of fossil fuels for transportation. This is why we actively donate to foundations supporting advances in renewable energy, such as the Pembina Foundation and have chosen to carbon offset all of our tourism products.
- We utilize green cleaning dish soaps, cleaning products, and laundry detergents.
First Nation/Inuit Wilderness Tourism Initiative
Cabin Fever Adventures has a deep respect and appreciation for First Nation/Inuit peoples, communities and culture. The owners have lived and worked extensively in First Nations communities in the past. Wilderness tourism, as an industry, relies heavily on access to the traditional territories of aboriginal people, and yet often they see little direct economic gain from the tourism that occurs in their areas.
Cabin Fever Adventures believes the following statements;
- youth are always the best conduit for change and are therefore the best investment strategy for the future
-
the current lack of profitability of First Nations/Inuit in tourism is
not acceptable and initiatives need to be put in place so that First
Nations/Inuit can profit from this industry according to their desire
to participate
- barriers to participation in this industry need to be dismantled so that participation in tourism is a viable choice for more First Nations/Inuit people
The barriers to participation are numerous; socio-economic factors, access to education, and access to capital for tourism development. This list is extensive and certainly work in many areas needs to be done in order to close the tourism participation gap. Much work has been done, but there is still a lot more to do.
Cabin Fever Adventures therefore wishes to utilize its business ventures as a vehicle to create positive change by providing access to tourism training opportunities for First Nation/Inuit youth from Canada’s North. This is an initiate of a private sector company to make a direct and meaningful partnership to achieve the following goals:
- increasing First Nation/Inuit opportunity for employment in the wilderness tourism industry
to allow Cabin Fever Adventures to hire and retain staff of Aboriginal ancestry who possess all the necessary skills to succeed in the industry
- that participants take the skills they learned during their work experience home and use them, in collaboration with their community to develop tourism products appropriate and specific to their culture and community (if desired)
The Initiative
Cabin Fever Adventures offers to utilize a 50/50 funding partnership with an interested First Nation/Inuit Government to provide an employment opportunity for summer 2010 for a youth of aboriginal ancestry (age 16-25). The youth will be hired under the job title “Apprentice Guide” and will be held to the duties of a specific job description. This job position will provide the youth with considerable opportunities for significant skills acquisition in the following areas:
- Menu planning and provisioning for multi-night wilderness trips
- Equipment maintenance, storage and general care
- Expedition transportation logistics and maintenance
- Gear selection and its proper use for several outdoor disciplines, (backpacking, sea kayaking, canoeing)
- Expedition planning, route selection and use of safety equipment
- Wilderness navigation skills
- Hard-skills development in wilderness discipline such as sea kayaking, backpacking and hiking.
Partnership Strategy with First Nation/Inuit Governments
It is our hope that First Nation/Inuit governments will consider this a positive opportunity for an interested youth from their community that has demonstrated the following traits:
- Significant interest in traditional teachings and skills from their cultural heritage
- A desire to pursue education or demonstrates a personal commitment to life-long learning
- Strong communication skills
- An interest in physical fitness and outdoor pursuits
- A reliable and consistent work ethic
- A lifestyle free from substance abuse
If you know of a First Nation/Inuit youth (age 16-25) from your community that would be perfect for this opportunity, please contact Cabin Fever Adventures to get more information about participation.
