picks up, we want to upgrade our fuel system—get a canopy,” Ryan says. “Maybe start some more businesses for people in the community and go from there.”
A close community of people are dependent on the long-term viability of the Shepherd’s Inn, and the inn’s ability to adapt to the fluctuations and changes in clientele has served the business well. But it’s Don’s attitude toward the relationship between the business and the customer that offers insight into why the inn has grown and survived since the early 1980s. “You gotta know the pulse of your business,” he says, “in order for your customer to understand that pulse.”
Previous images: Korey Ollenberger and Lory Dille bought Pink Mountain Campsite and RV Park in 2000. The couple met in the mid-1990s when Lory was working as a cook at Mile 175 Buckinghorse River Lodge.
Previous images: Korey Ollenberger and Lory Dille also acquired Sikanni Chief (this page) in 2013. “[Pink Mountain] was really busy with the oil patch, the campers and everything,” says Lory. “We needed more space, plus there’s water wells [at Sikanni Chief] in the back, which benefited our trucking company.”
Mile 175 Buckinghorse River Lodge
The Buckinghorse River Bridge crosses over a narrow, whiskey-coloured body of water that travels west to east. Depending on the snowmelt, rainfall and time of year, it flows fast and high up the banks, or it’s the opposite. On a mowed grassy rise north of the bridge, on the west side of the highway, there are four signs: Bucking Horse River “Just Good Homestyle Food,” reads one, and below it, Buckinghorse River Lodge “Eat at the Buck” and Over 1,000 Truckers Can’t Be Wrong. To the right of an AFD cardlock sign, an automated fuelling depot that is accessed using a fuel card (like a credit card), is a For Sale notice.
Previous images: Vel and Howard Shannon have owned Buckinghorse River Lodge since the mid-1990s. Howard (pictured at bottom) swears that the lodge is only as popular as it is due to his wife’s cooking.
In 1999, Vel and Howard Shannon bought Mile 175 Buckinghorse River Lodge with Howard’s son, Lance, and his wife, Kim. Vel and Howard are now the sole proprietors. When they bought the lodge, it was in need of a lot of repairs. Although the Shannons have put a lot of time and money into renovations, Howard insists it’s the menu that really put the lodge on the map. “The lodge is as well known as it is because of Vel’s cooking,” Howard says. “It’s all her homemade recipes—that’s why people come back.” Over one thousand truckers can’t be wrong.
“For Sale” signs are a common sight along the Alaska Highway.
The Shannons took a roundabout route to lodge ownership. They lived in Fruitvale, British Columbia, where they ran a restaurant, and Howard had a welding, fabrication and forestry-related business. “That’s where I was born and raised, down there,” Howard says. “When they did the NAFTA thing, it totalled my business.”
The family moved to Fort St. John, where Howard got a job as a mechanical superintendent. Howard became frustrated by the lack of initiative at the company where he worked and took two weeks off to go hunting in the Buckinghorse area. Two months later, the Shannons were co-owners of a lodge. “I wasn’t looking for anything at the time,” Howard says. “It was a pretty good job, I was making eighty thousand a year. My dad thought I was absolutely out of my mind when we bought it.”
Some people might say that Howard is a person comfortable with taking risks: in the 1970s, he was a drag racer, building and racing his own cars. “I probably spent the price of three homes doing that,” Howard says. “I was an addicted drag racer—I spent almost all my waking hours doing that.” This addiction led to temporary separation from Vel. Once Howard gave up the cars, the couple reconciled and have been together ever since.
The Shannons have two sons who live on the property with them. In fact, of the ten to twelve people who work and live there, only one is not a family member. “We have a cook, she’s from Prince George. She’s been with us for twelve years.”
The dining room at Buckinghorse River Lodge is an old US Army barrack.
Howard describes Buckinghorse River Lodge as a seventeen-year reno project. The previous owners had the property for ten years, but it needed numerous upgrades. “The first thing we had to do was the water—two people couldn’t have a shower at the same time, and the water was this colour,” Howard says, pointing to the brown tabletop. “It’s a well system—it wasn’t treated or filtered or anything. Just raw water right out of the well.” Then there was the electrical. “Whoever was here had no idea what the hell they were doing,” Howard says. “They never fixed any outlets, just ran one extension cord to another one—I took fifteen or sixteen extension cords out in the first month.” Then the single-pane windows needed to be replaced. “When they built these old places they didn’t worry about the cold, they just put more wood on the fire.”
The Shannons are conscientious about conserving energy and have considered solar and wind power, but installing the infrastructure is too costly. As at most lodges along the highway, the power is supplied by two diesel generators. These are kept securely in steel shipping containers with fire walls built in at either end. The Shannons have good reason to house their generators in a near fortress-like building. Since 1999, they’ve had two generator fires; the first was in 2005. “That cost us just about half a million dollars in equipment, supplies, generators, fuel tanks, lawn mowers, quads,” Howard says. “There was a fifty-by-eighty-foot shop and I lost three generators.” They had been storing building supplies for renovations and lost all of those. “Doors, toilets, windows, sinks. We’ve never really recovered from that.” The second fire was in 2014, and that time the generator was brand new. Again, the family lost everything at a quarter-of-a-million-dollar cost. “The last fire I almost quit, but I just couldn’t.”
The Buckinghorse River Lodge’s history begins decades before the Shannons’ ownership (and generator troubles). The site of Buckinghorse River Lodge was a river crossing on the pack trail between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John, and in 1935, Wes Brown, a hunting-guide outfitter, and his family built a hunting lodge on the bank of the river. During the construction of the highway, the US Army used the site as a camp. The lodge at that time was on the east side of the highway, and to accommodate the fly-out hunting trips, an airstrip was built where the present-day parking lot now lies.
The lodge’s years on the east side of the highway were the busiest time in the business’s history. There was a restaurant, a liquor store, a gas station and rooms for rent. Wes moved what is now the lodge dining room, and an original US Army barracks with its coveted fir flooring, to the west side of the highway to use for his guiding business.
The Shannons have never guided any hunting trips out of their lodge, and they’ve had their busy and their slow times. As with many
