by Nancy Gardiner
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 06/97) - Creating a world- class wildlife viewing lodge in Nunavut takes more than determination -- it takes lots of boat trips and hard work.

Sila Lodge is located above the salt water beach of Wager Bay, on the northwestern shore, about 80 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, just north of Rankin Inlet.

Celebrity visitors find the spot alluring, according to co-owner John Hicks.

"The most famous ones of late are the second richest man's family in the world (a member of the Rockefeller family), fashion models Cheryl Tiegs, Naomi Campbell, Walt Disney people and a software man, world-renowned wildlife photographers, and John Hicks' mother Jenny."

Hicks' mother-in-law, his mom and his wife's grandmom are buried in the area. "People lived and died up there," he says.

From the lodge's dining room window, guests can often spot caribou grazing below in the meadow.

The brainchild of John Tatty and Louis Pilakapsi, starting the lodge took some unusual turns.

Tatty and Pilakapsi, approached Hicks 10 years ago about starting up a hunting lodge in the Wager Bay area. Hicks was involved with different lodges in Manitoba and had a business background.

"They came to me with a package. I was busy with Nunasi Corporation, so I let it go for a year," Hicks recalls. "I had a little apprehension about the wildlife. I felt they (the partners) were reliving their youth."

"We went up there and it was quite a surprise. We saw lots of wildlife and they weren't running away, so I proposed a naturalist lodge for photographers or others to experience it. There were caribou up there, almost every species and polar bears with no fear probably because there was nobody hunting in the area, and wouldn't know what man was."

But the concept of a naturalist lodge as opposed to a hunting lodge was too new to them at first, says Hicks. "They were used to hunting all their lives."

Finally, they agreed.

"You put it together as a package and run it for three years and see if it works as a naturalist lodge," they told Hicks.

So, Hicks and his two partners approached Economic Development. The project would cost $780,000 to barge up materials and the threesome had to take out half the money in the form of a loan, plus put about $100,000 in equity into the venture, says Hicks. The government came up with $230,000, he adds.

In order to get materials to the site from Rankin Inlet, the group had to transport everything in four aluminum boats. In one and a half months of tedious boat hauls, 96 tonnes of material was planted on the beach and a runway was built. A northern firm was hired to supervise an electrician, plumber and painter and the rest were local hires.

And it's been working for the past 10 years, without hunting.

"It's a semi-oasis and we'd like to keep it like that," says Hicks. "They're getting rarer all the time."