History of Tyax Mountain Lake Resort
To the aboriginal people of this region, the Bridge River Valley was known as the “Skumakun” or “Land of Plenty”. While they did not settle here, the nomadic Chilcotin from the North and the Lillooet Indians from the Fraser River traveled through to forage for roots, berries, and to hunt game. In the mid-1800s, prospectors left the gold-bearing gravel bars of the Fraser River to explore the banks of the Bridge River.
The area remained virtually undiscovered by tourists until the late 1970s, when an outdoorsman named Gus Abel toured the back roads in search of a suitable place to build a destination resort. His criteria was that the location had to be remote, on a lake, and surrounded by mountains, with dry hot summers and lots of powder snow in the winter. In his search, Gus found a remote lake known to the aboriginal people as “Tyaughton” or “lake of the jumping fish”. On its north shore was a deserted old hunting and fishing camp with the name of Tyax Lodge. This location and its 275 acres of lakeside wilderness had all the ingredients to build the resort.
The lot was purchased by Abel in 1981 and a development plan was worked out. Since all finances were exhausted and the banks wouldn’t even look at “such a crazy idea”, an advertisement was placed in a Swiss newspaper “looking for an investor for a tourism project in BC, Canada”. A Swiss entrepreneur named Urs Villiger, with a passion for bush plane flying, responded and a great vision turned into reality.
In 1985, Scott McKenzie, a local contractor, joined Abel and Villiger in building the resort. That winter, the land was cleared. On May 17, 1986, excavation began and the foundation was laid. In July, eight logging trucks of spruce trees were peeled and put in place. It took seven months and seven days for a crew of twelve men to build the largest freestanding log lodge (34,000 square feet) in Western Canada.
On December 24, 1986 at 4:30 pm, Tyax Resort opened for business.
Tax Mountain Lake Resort met with immediate success and became a shining star among independently owned and operated wilderness resorts that were to expand in numbers throughout super, natural British Columbia in the years to come. The Government of British Columbia acknowledged this success and awarded its founder/co-owner and CEO Gus Abel with the IDEA Small Business Excellence Award for Entrepreneurship in 1989.
In the first summer of operation the need for a bush plane to be stationed at the resort became apparent. Abel applied for an air carrier license, bought a De Havilland Beaver on floats/skis, and named his new airline “Tyax Air Service”. Now, this plane is owned and operated by Dale Douglas and flies guests to remote alpine lakes for fishing, hiking and mountain biking, as well as flight seeing trips over the vast Bridge River Glacier Fields.
With the combination of mountainous terrain, sunshine and abundance of powder snow, Tyax proved be an ideal resort destination for winter activities including snowmobiling and skiing. Instead of building tow ropes and chairlifts like other ski resorts, Abel chose to introduce heli-skiing in its first winter, and heli-skiers (and later heli-snowboarders) showed up in larger numbers once George Rosset began marketing the heli-skiing in the mid 1990s. It was decided that a new company called TLH Heli-skiing would be formed and managed by Rosset to promote this activity to international markets. By the late 1990s, heli-skiing became the main drawing point for guests to visit Tyax in the winter season.
In the summer of 1991 Tyax marked and built a seven kilometer multi-purpose recreational trail around the eastern portion of Tyaughton Lake and eventually expanded it to encompass the entire lake later that year, making a popular circle route of 20 kilometres for resort guests.
Recreational trails became the foundation of an expanding variety of outdoor adventure experiences offered by Tyax. These trails were easily accessible from the resort and were designed for guests with various levels of fitness. Activities included walking, hiking, cycling, horseback riding, and ATVing in the summer/autumn months, and Nordic skiing and snowmobiling in the winter/spring.
In 2000, Abel hired an ambitious young naturalist named Scott Alexander to design and build a four kilometer “self-guided nature interpretive trail” starting from and returning to the main lodge at the resort. This innovative “soft adventure experience” featured signage and a handbook for guests to take on their own whenever they wanted. Throughout the project, Alexander expanded the wildlife knowledge base of Abel and his wife Marita, who became an expert in the indigenous flora and fauna. Despite the self-guided tools of signs and a handbook, it became apparent that most resort guests preferred a guide for the tour. Marita led many of these groups which enhanced the understanding of and appreciation for the beautiful environment surrounding Tyax. In addition to her extensive knowledge of the wildlife, it is likely that her presence as a guide was also respected in the unlikely event of meeting up with four-legged neighbours like the family of grizzly bears that Marita and a group bumped into one day. She recalls “I was leading a small group of European guests and we had left the main lodge just minutes earlier. As I bent down to show the guests a nodding onion – edible, and used in combination with the yarrow leaf as a mosquito repellant - when all of a sudden behind us there were three grizzly cubs that took up the entire width of our walking trail and were slowly walking towards us. Our dog Blanca immediately chased them away, but they appeared again in front of us five minutes later and seemed interested in joining our group! They stayed briefly for a photo session then tumbled off into the woods to catch up with their mother nearby”.
Concurrent with Abel discovering the tourism potential of the Bridge River Valley, the forestry industry was attracted by the same dense stands of fir, spruce, and pine trees. Clear-cut logging practices spread like wildfire. Regrettably tourists don’t like to look at stumps and since it was only a matter of time before the woods around the resort were going to get leveled, Abel decided that if you can’t howl against the wind you might as well howl with it. He applied for a woodlot license and is now in charge of what, where and how the forest around the lodge gets harvested.
Since Tyaughton Lake sits on the foothills of the South Chilcotin Mountains, Abel spent endless hours in land use planning meetings trying to convince the BC Government to protect this pristine mountain range. Finally in 2001 this rocky wilderness was named “Spruce Lake Protected Area” and it is hoped will eventually become a provincial park.
Many of the guests would return year after year to Tyax, with numerous couples raising their children in parallel with Gus and Marita raising their two boys Robert (born Dec 30, 2002) and Thorne (born Aug 4, 2004). These families and returning guests were always keen to try new experiences, and in 2002 Gus hired White/Barton Research Associates in Vancouver to design another unique type of educational program. The theme of this program was honey bees which became a two-hour experience for guests to visit a newly-constructed bee station while outfitted in the proper gear, learn about bees, work with a beekeeper inside the hives, and extract their own honey which they could be kept as a souvenir. Things eventually started to get a bit out of control as Gus found himself responsible for 250,000 bees; fortunately, the bears solved that problem for him…but you’ll have to read his book for that story (available spring 2010).
Abel retired in 2006 and relocated with his family to the sunny Okanagan Valley, also in beautiful British Columbia.
Tyax remains a classic Canadian wilderness destination for families and outdoor enthusiasts. Its main lodge features 29 spacious guest rooms, a spectacular 114-seat lakeview dining room, western lounge, gift shop, fitness room, massage room, sauna, out-door whirlpool, and meeting room. Within walking distance are four guest chalets, a beachfront campground, riding stable with horses, lumberjack area, tennis and volleyball courts. A lush, green lawn flows down to the sandy beach with boats, canoes, rowboats, paddleboats, motorboats, and sailboards.
Tyax has evolved from one man’s dream into a world class wilderness resort visited annually by thousands of guests from all over the world.