BC Business
The duo recently hosted over 3000 guests on their 144-acre property on the Akisqnuk First Nation Reserve.
Life Story: Emily Slobodzian and Faro Burgoyne met while working at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort in 2016 and started dating shortly after. A couple of years later, after a few big trips, they decided not to go back to work and to instead start a campground on a plot of land on the Akisqnuk First Nation Reserve that was gifted to Burgoyne by his father.
“We just knew it was something we would do together,” says Slobodzian. “So we started getting everything together for the campground in 2019: business plan, made an application for funding, talked to the Nation, started building in the spring. That’s how things got going.”
And did they ever. Today, the 144 acres of property hosts a huge campground as well as eight log cabins, a massive disc golf course and an area designated for a music festival with stages and roads and permanent structures.
Slobodzian and Burgoyne live on the site and over the years have had a number of friends join them by building cabins in exchange for helping host events. “No one really pays us rent but more so helps us out with building stuff,” says Burgoyne. “We have projects on the go all the time.”
Bottom Line: The duo recently hosted a music festival with over 3,000 guests all camping onsite and made close to six figures in revenue from camping reservations last year.