Preparing for a Grand Reopening of the Gorge Harbour Marine Resort

Roy L Hale/ Cortes Currents - After a year of extensive renovations, QXMC hopes to fully reopen Gorge Harbour Marina Resort this Spring.

“We are getting closer to hopefully a grand opening on May 31st,  where we can provide a resort that is worthy of its name,” explained Marco Bedetti, General Manager of the Klahoose First Nation management corporation.  

“The majority of septic issues have been dealt with. We're still working on the AX100 system, which separates the treatment of the laundry facility and the guest toilets versus the rest of the property.” 

“Regarding the water systems: We are  very close to receiving a GARP assessment from VIHA, which will then allow us to set up the new well to our main distribution and allow us to use the new well. The reason for this big project was just due to high salinity in the old wells, which were overused over the years.”

“The pool and hot tub are going to be open as soon as we can. When I say ‘can,’ it really involves our homework, which is now to provide a pool safety data sheet that is comprehensive, but also for Island Health to come by and finally give us the operating permits to run it.”

“The store is running as always. We are actually going to be hiring more people, not only because of the summer months, but because we are opening a new store in Squirrel Cove. What better than to train them here at the Gorge and have them ready to go when the doors open over there.”

“Up at the main roads, where Trude’s Cafe used to be, we had to clean up.  The buildings were very old, the area fairly swampy, so in the first phase of the project we made sure that we could see the land and make decisions upon that.”

“We are putting in 21 RV sites down below, but we still want to guarantee staff to have a place to stay. We decided to move the staff trailers on that upper part of the property. We flattened the land out. We're putting in electric, water and sewer services. We will have 8 RVs that are available for staff.”  

“The domes are a new feature. The geodesic domes are where we will allow guests to have a glamping experience. They have arrived. We have them in storage. The pads are poured. We're just waiting for a little bit of drier weather to be able to pull the cables and then the water lines to the domes themselves.  Then we're going to start setting them up and furnishing them. So we'll have them ready to go by May.”

“There's  a lot of things to make sure that are complete by the season start, but I'm very positive that we'll get there.”