SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Somba K'e Lodge, the former residential addictions treatment center on Dettah Road, will look very different once Coromandel Properties and Pure North Canada are done with it.

The 36-room Skywatch Lodge and Spa, shown here in a design rendering, was designed by Yellowknife architect Simon Taylor. - photo courtesy of Deneen Allen

Currently in the design stage, the Vancouver-based partnership is investing $25 million to create Skywatch Lodge and Spa, a 36-room luxury five-star resort complete with dining room, destination spa and heated outdoor infinity pool. The lodge is set to open in spring 2018.

The price tag for a night's stay is $1,100 per person per night, all inclusive.

"It's actually quite reasonable when you break the food and beverage and the spa and excursion out of that rate, it's actually a pretty normal room rate," said Deneen Allen, Skywatch's development project manager.

The end result will be a combination of renovation, new construction and pre-fab construction, taking down the main part of the former treatment center, but utilizing some of the auxiliary structures. She described the target market as "soft-adventure travellers."

"They want to have an adventure during the day with a local Dene guide. Or they want to try dog-sledding, or they will go on a strenuous hike, but when they're finished that they don't want to sleep in a tent. And they don't want to sleep at the Days Inn. They want to have a certain level of style, the whole package," said Allen.

The other thing they want is authenticity. Allen said the hotel will depend on existing tour operators, especially the indigenous communities nearby, to create that experience.

"We're using a lot of traditional and local foods and foraged foods and local suppliers, and hopefully Yellowknives Dene First Nation will be a good supplier of some of those things," she said.

Yellowknives Dene First Nation chief Edward Sangris said his community is on-board. He said they were consulted on the project.

"We told them they have to work with our members and they have to work with the Tlicho Corporation," said Sangris.

Allen agreed that consultation was "critical."

"We want them to participate," she said. "They're excited about using our knowledge in hospitality to help them with their product in interpretation. We can't ask them to do something they don't want to do or they're not ready to do. We can keep putting the opportunity in front of them, and we can work with them."

Sangris sees it the same way, describing the tourism industry as a way to help continue aspects of his culture.

"We need the tools to showcase our culture and our tradition," he said. "They have made commitments ... We'll hold them to that."

The lodge will include about 20 part-time positions and 20 full-time positions.

Allen described the aesthetic as "rustic elegance."

"We're in Yellowknife, and you know, people are in their snow boots and they want to put their feet up on the sofa, and they don't want to have to worry about making the floor dirty or something like that. So it's approachable luxury," she said.

Skywatch is the first in a series of 10 luxury resorts planned to open across Canada. The next will be in the badlands in Alberta, followed by a historical lodge in the rocky mountains. Allen said developers conducted a market study last fall to make sure the market could handle a destination like this. She said Skywatch is positioned to compete with Iceland for luxury travel - complete with the hot soaking infinity pool, where people can sit to view the aurora. She describes Iceland as the biggest competitor for that kind of tourism.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment found the number of tourists arriving to view the aurora rose 48 per cent from 2014-15 to 2015-16, with total visitors to the NWT rising 11 per cent.

"The main activity at Skywatch is staring into space, literally," said Allen.

She says the developers saw a gap in the Canadian market for luxury wilderness travel, and jumped on it.

"We are a bucket list destination, we're going to be a destination lodge, so people will come to Yellowknife because of Skywatch."

Executive Director of NWT Tourism Cathie Bolstad said while she was hesitant to comment because she hadn't seen Skywatch's business plan, that gap might be there in Yellowknife.

"What I'm comfortable saying is that we see people flying in on learjets to have an experience. We see people spending $40,000 or more for black-tie events that are taking place in beautiful outdoor wilderness spaces," she said. "There's an appetite for a unique niche market to have very exotic experiences that cost a lot of money in pristine wonderful places ... and they're willing to pay for that."

Sangris isn't so sure. He laughed when he heard the price of a room.

"I don't know about that!" he said.

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