Blast from the past: Photo tour of Rivers Inlet Fishing Lodge

Pat Ardley’s bestselling memoir, Grizzlies, Gales and Giant Salmon: Life at a Rivers Inlet Fishing Lodge, tells the incredible story of Pat’s years building and running a fishing lodge in remote Rivers Inlet with her husband George.

Over three decades, Pat and George built and expanded their home and the lodge that would become a world-renowned, sought-after destination.

Here, Pat takes us on a tour of Rivers Lodge through the years.

“I loved gardening. The little greenhouse that I built while George was away for a week was not large enough for all the heat-loving vegetables that I wanted to grow. George had enough good logs to build a long, narrow float on top of which we built a 50-foot greenhouse across one long side and two crew rooms with a bathroom behind the gardening area. We needed logs with lots of floatation to carry the four wide and deep heavy soil filled planter boxes as well as two dozen five-gallon pails full of soil and various other large wooden boxes that I built for two apple trees and an extensive herb garden.

One of George’s favourite things to do was beachcomb for logs that we could use for floats, building or for our kitchen stove and living room fireplace. One day, he towed home a 40-foot log, and we burned that thing for years! We later found out that someone had stolen a fir log from a log dump on Vancouver Island, and the logging company it belonged to hired a helicopter and pilot to find it. Apparently, the stolen log was worth $60,000.

We were always adding on. One morning, George cranked up his chainsaw and started sawing through the front wall of our living room. A solarium-type window had just arrived on the freight boat so we could add an extra three feet to the crowded room by extending the wall out for the new window. The extra space added much-needed elbow room at the dining tables.

Over the winter of 1987, George cut down massive cedar trees from a nearby public timber sale. We built two huge floats. One was for the new lodge and one for a new guest house. We started laying the stringers on April 12. Then we nailed down decking and started construction of the buildings. As our start to the fishing season approached, we added more crew to help. We finished the lodge and guest house as our first guests were arriving at our airplane float on June 12.

We had freight dropped off at the lodge every two weeks during the winter and weekly during the summer fishing season. In the early days, we met the freight boat in Darby Channel, or later, when we had a float anchored in the main bay, the boats could tie up there to off-load freight. We received building supplies, boats and motors, fishing gear, pallets of beer and wine for the summer, frozen food and bait, fresh produce and dry goods. Morning, noon and middle of the night, George, and later our son Casey, was always ready to spring into action to retrieve deliveries. If we had a lot of freight arriving, we pushed a float out to the dock where the freight was off-loaded, then pushed the float back into the lodge with the work skiff. George built a fibreglass barge with a small motor on the back to use when there wasn’t too much freight.

I am filled with pride at the beautiful lodge that we created over the years. The guests and crew that we kept safe and happy. The beautiful wilderness surroundings that we left as healthy and pristine as when we arrived 37 years before, and the memories that my children and I will cherish forever.”

—Pat Ardley

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Pat Ardley was born on the Canadian prairies but had a life of adventure on the West Coast with the love of her life, building the legendary Rivers Lodge in Rivers Inlet. In 2012 she sold Rivers Lodge and is now settled in West Vancouver, BC.

Want to hear more stories from Pat? Meet her on Thursday, April 5 in Squamish, Friday, April 6 in Pemberton, Friday, April 13 in Sechelt, and Saturday, April 14 in Powell River.