Inspiring Young Tahltans – Faro Burgoyne

INSPIRING YOUNG TAHLTANS

Faro Burgoyne

Some may consider twenty-nine-year old Faro Burgoyne a bit young to have already established a successful business, but he has had no shortage of life experience and setbacks leading up to it.

Faro’s mom, Hilary Vance, of Tahltan and Tutchone descent, was born in Whitehorse where she spent much of her time travelling. She eventually made her way to Cranbrook, where she met Faro’s dad. When he was born, Faro grew up in the Akisq'nuk First Nation, a part of the Ktunaxa First Nation, where he learned the culture and traditions. Though he knew he did have other ancestry as well, this is where he was based. His family on his dad’s side were the keepers of culture and the cultural leaders. Growing up with cousins on that side of the family, he always felt very immersed in it. Recently, through his mom, Faro is proud to have been reconnecting with his Tahltan roots. He has attended Tahltan Central Government (TCG) Update Meetings in Kamloops and enjoyed meeting fellow Tahltans. As a young man, Faro did not like going to school. Given the choice, he would have preferred to spend his time snowboarding. In fact, he graduated a year and a half early just to so he could get school out of the way. He began working as a lifeguard to save some money and spent his free time sourcing out snowboard teams to join. He was accepted on a Calgary snowboard club team, which, as luck would have it, led to him joining the Canadian National Snowboarding Team with whom he trained and travelled for the next five years.

Faro dreamed of making the Olympics and earning a gold medal, as did those around him, and both he and his coaches felt he had a good shot at it. However, competitive snowboarding, including flights to competitions, accommodation at ski resorts, and training on the slope was increasingly expensive and he was having a hard time supporting his snowboarding career on his salary as a lifeguard. Despite a handful of sponsors that covered half of the season’s costs, Faro soon found himself in serious debt and did not think he would make it through another season. Unfortunately, he was left to watch his teammates travel to the Olympics in 2014, while he himself was forced to give up snowboarding.

After watching his Olympic dream fade and withdrawing from the sport he had loved and practiced for so long, Faro found himself at a loss to know what to do with his life. To pay off his acquired debt from snowboarding, he spent four seasons working on an oil patch in Northern Alberta. Summers off provided an opportunity to travel and he took advantage, hitting South America where he visited Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. The experience was life-changing and visiting new cultures gave him greater perspective.

It also opened his eyes to entrepreneurial opportunities related to tourism. It seemed that just about anyone could make money by putting something together that travellers would like to experience. As a young man, he had always been interested in his own small business ventures from selling Bannock on the side of the road at age twelve, to working in farmers markets, to selling firewood.

Upon returning to Canada, Faro started to seriously consider ways in which he could make a living off tourism. He considered adventure tourism for a short time but decided against it in the end. While working a number of small jobs, Faro met his partner Emily and the two of them tried their hand at making a fortune in number of creative ways - one of which included mushroom picking in the Yukon, none of which succeeded. After several setbacks, the pair travelled to Guatemala, Columbia, and Panama where they made the decision to do something greater. Faro did not want to go back to work in labour or oil patches and Emily did not want to go back to working as a server. Faro had access to a beautiful property that his dad had passed down to him and had previously considered hosting music festivals there. After two successful festivals in 2018 and 2019, they learned that it was difficult to actually make a living off festivals as the profit basically covered the cost of the event, and not much else.

They decided that a better option might be a campground. They could build cabins and rent them out on a nightly basis. This way they could provide activities and fun without trying to come up with one big event. In his twenties, Faro had friends ask if they could build small cabins on the property and stay on the condition that they pay rent or help out. These friends, with their building experience, would later be perfect for helping to build small cabins.

First came the planning. Faro would need funding to get his business up and running. He remembered hearing talk in high school about opportunities for young Indigenous entrepreneurs, including access to grants and how easy it would be. The reality proved much more difficult and, in the end, most of their funding came in the form of a rather large loan with a high interest rate. The process took about seven months, and while they did find that they had access to grants – it wasn’t easy. They had to work hard to come up with business plans and strategies.

While beautiful, the property was essentially just a forest, so in throughout spring and summer they had a tremendous amount of work to do. While waiting for the full funding to come in, they started work clearing brush, building roads, making space for the campgrounds, building outhouses, and signing different sections. Emily built forty-five picnic tables to support opening the campground in early August.

Without a grand opening to announce their campsite and only a small sandwich board on side of the highway indicating their presence, it was a slow start. Faro’s solution-oriented mindset was not discouraged, however, and he notified the local chamber of commerce about their site. By the second weekend, which happened to be a long weekend, over half of the campsites were full.

At the end of the camping season, funding finally came through allowing them to build eight log cabins. There had been huge obstacles in obtaining funding on reserve as lenders are often afraid being unable to repossess land as they would on federal property. They needed to rely on businesses that offered highrisk lending. Faro was able to get a grant from All Nations Trust, based out of Kamloops, a microloan from the Ktunaxa First Nation, and the reserve they lived on gave a small grant from the band, but like many of his experiences, it did not come easy. Much of the funding needed was reliant on other funding becoming available first, and when it finally did become available, they had a time limit within which they had to spend everything. This created a huge amount of work in a very short time, but Faro and his friends became more efficient with each cabin built, and by June 2021, they had eight cabins ready to rent.

The cabins were an instant hit. There were bookings every weekend and they were full on long weekends. People were enjoying themselves and leaving great reviews. But opening during a pandemic does not come without its challenges, and there was fear that COVID would hurt business. Much to their relief, travel restrictions meant more people travelling within BC, despite the pandemic. This and COVID relief grants offered through Indigenous Tourism BC and other provincial programs, kept Raven’s Nest Resort and Campground in business.

Since opening, there have been plenty of new additions. They now have a disk golf course that has hosted two Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) sanctioned events, and they have continued to host festivals on site, though with much more success. Back in 2017 when they first held an event, there were about 500-600 people in attendance. How does that compare to the most recent event in 2022? This year they welcomed roughly 3,000 guests. They plan to host the event annually, with three permanent stages on the property, an industrial kitchen for staff, and plenty of additional spaces set up for the festivals. Faro’s success was recognized by BC Business, who named him and Emily two of their 30 under 30. A well-deserved award following a great deal of hard work and proof that believing in dreams, taking risks, and really going for it can pay off regardless of where your journey begins. Neither Faro nor Emily had come from well-off backgrounds and always had to make their own way. Faro’s is a truly inspirational story of what you can achieve when you refuse to let life’s challenges hold you back. We celebrate your success!