No one was injured in a fire Tuesday that has closed Knight Inlet Lodge north of Campbell River.
Lodge accountant Barbara Callander told the Mirror Tuesday that staff were scrambling at mid-day to take care of their guests. Details of the fire were expected later in the day after the Mirror deadline. All Callander would say is that the lodge “is non-operational.”
Spotty initial reports suggest the fire may have started overnight in the kitchen. Owner Dean Wyatt was enroute to the lodge Tuesday morning.
Situated 60 kilometres from the mouth of the inlet the floating lodge is tucked into Glendale Cove, one of the few protected anchorages in the inlet. At full capacity the lodge will hold 30 guests in 12 rooms. Normally, there are about 20 guests on site.
The lodge is an assortment of construction styles dating from the early 1940s when the original float housed a logging camp. Recent construction has provided modern buildings for guest accommodation.
Knight Inlet is the longest fjord on the coast. Dean and Kathy Wyatt pioneered lodge-based bear viewing in the early 1990s and have been ardent champions of grizzly bear and salmon stewardship and conservation in Knight Inlet and the Broughton Archipelago.
