What is the name of your business?

Canadian Outback Rafting

Tell us about your business pre-COVID-19.

We have been a cornerstone of the Squamish tourism community since the early 90’s. We offer a mixture of day and overnight rafting trips here in Squamish. We’ve been heavily involved with programs like the firefighters burn camp and provide hundreds of donated rafting gift certificates to local charities. Prior to COVID-19 we had a peak season staff of about 40.

Tell us about the impact COVID-19 had on your business.

We have had to shut down and lay off all members of the team.

Do you think your business will make it through this? How long can you hold on for?

We will make it through this, and every decision we have made from day one has been based on lasting as long as necessary until re-opening

What was the hardest part of temporarily closing your business? OR, if you managed to remain open, what has been the hardest part so far, for your business?

The largest impact has been refunding all of the bookings we worked for over the winter. I do believe the refunds are fully deserved, but the expenses of generating those bookings and the staff hours contributed to them will never be recouped. It is one thing to have all income stop, but to also have a massive negative outflow was very rapid and unexpected.