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Our Partners

At the Chilcotin Ark Institute, we know the importance of collaboration in conservation. That’s why we work with and support a number of partners who all operate in the Chilcotin Ark. You can find out more about each of them here:

Chilcotin Holidays

Our conservation trips are facilitated by our partner, Chilcotin Holidays. Trips with Chilcotin Holidays are more than a vacation. Each wilderness experience is a vehicle to facilitate their guests’ connection with nature, stewardship of the wilderness and personal empowerment.

Throughout the spring and summer runs wilderness experience and conservation focused ranch and camp based trips as well as horseback guide training and sustainable horse logging programs. Wilderness experience conservation trips can be horse or hike based. Every guest and student to Chilcotin Holidays learns about the conservation of the Chilcotin Ark and gets involved in conservation projects. Sustainable forest management is the main focus of the horse logging school. Students of the guide school learn how to conduct conservation projects and share these with their guests during trips.

Wilderness Training Academy

We partner with the Wilderness Training Academy to offer a wide variety of online courses and training programs to students who want to invest in their personal development, learn new ways to connect with nature and become an empowered conservation steward.

The Wilderness Training Academy currently offers two programs that have a specific focus on conservation, created in partnership with the Chilcotin Ark Institute. They are the Conservation and Stewardship mini-course and the Wilderness Steward Training Program. The other courses, Wilderness Mentor Guide, Community Philosophy, 3 Pillar Course Bundle and English as a Second Language, also have a conservation focus and educate all their students about the Chilcotin Ark, inspiring them to become wilderness stewards.

Trails to Empowerment

The Chilcotin Ark Institute is part of the Trails to Empowerment community. Trails to Empowerment is the physical and online community behind our Three Pillars of Nature Connection, Nature Conservation and Personal Development. Their website shares this philosophy with community partners, the public and potential guests, students and interns through the media of blogs, podcasts and videos.

They offer transformational wilderness internships, facilitated by Chilcotin Holidays and the Chilcotin Ark Institute. Interns come from all over the world to join the community, develop their personal and professional skills, deepen their connection to nature and learn how to conserve nature. Each intern has the opportunity to get involved in ongoing conservation projects or create their own, teaching them industry related skills in conservation and stewardship.

Bridge River Valley Accommodation

Bridge River Valley Accommodation is the host for our research facilities. Researchers, interns, volunteers and guests who want to have a wilderness experience and play their part in the conservation of the wilderness they are benefiting from all benefit from this accommodation.

Whether they stay at our ranch based research station or one of our 25 wilderness research base camps, they will experience a true connection to nature, play their part in conservation and enjoy personal development experiences along the way. BRVA offers a self-guided cabin circuit, linking 5 mountain cabins. This circuit provides a sustainable alternative to heli-biking for experienced back-country bike riders who want to experience the Chilcotin Ark under their own power.

Woodlot 366 and Community Mill

We partner with Woodlot 366 and Community Mill for forest management of their small scale select-logging woodlot. Woodlot 366 is managed for wildlife habitat, carbon storage and the production of value added products milled onsite using Community Mill’s sawmill.

Selective logging and horse logging is used to reduce the impact of logging. Only 1% of the total Douglas fir tree volume is harvested annually which allows 99% of the forest to continue storing and sequestering carbon. Leaving limbs in the forest allows them to decay naturally and for nutrients to be absorbed back into the soil, which are then used by other trees to grow. This makes the forest carbon negative, which can be used by carbon positive companies to reduce their environmental impact in the form of carbon offset credits. Milling long-lasting, high-quality value added products onsite eliminates long travel times to mills.

Stewardship Foundation

Our partner, the Stewardship Foundation, promotes sustainable natural resource use through Evergreen Stewardship Plans from the Chilcotin Ark. These plans are created from government-created or government-supported data.

These Evergreen Stewardship Plans are used to set the direction for ongoing management of the Chilcotin Ark so that the area can continue to be a biodiversity hotspot and sanctuary for wildlife into perpetuity.