Rocky Mountaineer Vacations' Guest Lounge Blog

Whistler Mountaineer on BBC

Invest 5 minutes for this video with front end footage of the Whistler Mountaineer. seen several times on BBC TV in the UK - by a total audience of 6 million+.

Luxury Retreats Business Story

I had the pleasure of spending an hour in my office with a young Canadian man named Joe Poulin.  Eight years ago, living at home and working out of his bedroom, he stumbled upon a concept of renting luxury villas, first in the Caribbean and now around the world.  Up to that point, he had never travelled more than an hour from Montreal.

Joe's company now had product ranging from $200 a night to $45,000 a night in over 50 countries. His business is serviced from 4 offices around the world and carries over 100 employees. The rest of this fascinating story can be found here.

And it is fascinating, because there are still niche businesses that provide powerful value to clients and customers.  In the age of technology it doesn't matter where you are located but the business standards (great service and product at a fair value price) you set will determine success or failure.

And Joe's future? I would say pretty bright.  He turns 27 years old next year.

Salmon Poems?

"Every fourth year (2006, 2010, 2014...) during September and October, the quiet banks of the Adams River 405 km (251 miles) inland from the Pacific Ocean, becomes the scene of a natural miracle.

In these peaceful, colourful days of early fall, the normally quiet waters of the12-km (7.2-mile) river turn turbulent and crimson as over two million sockeye salmon - fish returning from a life's journey that takes them far out into the ocean - pour into their home waters to spawn and to die."  Read the full story.

The world's largest sockeye salmon run by the Shuswap Lake area is the inspiration for some of our guests to compose (sometimes) humourous and creative poems honouring one of life's great struggles and accomplishments.  The winning poems, as choosen by fellow guests is bestowed with the Order of the Salmon pin.

Thanks to Mr. Allan Cole from Enfield in the UK who sent his version through our Guest Lounge. Have a read!

SERPENTINE PERFECTION.


It leaves its resting place at dawn
And slowly winds its way through towers of steel.
Picking up speed where dying salmon spawn,
Where seals play and eagles swoop and wheel.

Snaking now across flat plains and springs,
Snatching snacks whilst looking for the prize -
That elusive glimpse of horns or wings;
Not to be eaten, but devoured with its eyes.

Passing rivers, mountains, lakes and pine
At dusk it stops and sheds its skin,
Which then is taken on some other line
Whilst it rests, the journey's final stage to win.

From the snow-capped mountains high
It descends again to metal pinnacles austere.
For now its final resting place is nigh,
That serpentine perfection - the Rocky Mountaineer.

Alan E. Cole