"Not in the Public Interest": Revelstoke Backcountry Community Sinks Plan for Major Heli-Ski Lodge

After more than two years of planning and a fierce, months-long public backlash, a proposal to build a major all-season heli-ski resort in the mountains north of Revelstoke has collapsed, with regional directors voting unanimously to deny the rezoning it needed to proceed.

What was proposed

Selkirk Tangiers Heli Skiing (STHS) had applied to rezone a 65-hectare parcel at Mars Creek, off Highway 23 near Lake Revelstoke and roughly 45 kilometres from town, from small-holdings residential to commercial resort land.

The company had owned the lot since acquiring it from a private seller, and had spent more than two years pursuing the rezoning through the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD).Branded the Mars Creek Wilderness Lodge, the proposed development would have included 100 guest units, 50 staff units, 12 camping spaces, a spa and wellness centre, an après-ski bar and dining facilities, and a 10-berth marina with boat launch.

STHS also pitched the site as a hub for a wide range of activities beyond heli-skiing itself — cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, biking, hiking, fishing and kayaking — and, by the company's own description, it would have been the largest development of its kind anywhere between Revelstoke and the Mica Dam.

A quiet start, then a loud finish

The application had, for a long stretch, moved through the approval process with relatively little public friction: it passed first reading in August 2024 and cleared second reading the following March.STHS had also sought to reassure skeptics the previous summer, telling Black Press Media it had no intention of adding helicopters or expanding its heli-ski tenure further into the Selkirk or Monashee mountains, and that it wanted to preserve the forested character of the Mars Creek property.

That relative calm broke down over the winter. Snowmobilers who spotted the rezoning notice at the Mars Creek site raised the alarm with the B.C. Snowmobile Federation, worried the project could encroach on land long used for sledding and other backcountry recreation.

In a March post, the BC Snowmobile Federation acknowledged it had heard from riders and community members with questions about what the proposal could mean for access to, and future use of, the surrounding backcountry — terrain that has historically supported snowmobiling alongside other recreational uses. Social media amplified the concern quickly, drawing in a wide cross-section of the local outdoor community.

Three hours of public testimony

The rezoning ultimately came to a head at a June public hearing at the Revelstoke Community and Aquatic Centre, where the proposal became the central item of debate. Over the course of nearly three hours, sledders, environmentalists, anglers, hunters, rural property and campground owners, and longtime locals raised a wide range of objections to STHS's plans for the land.

Power source becomes a flashpoint

Among the specific concerns raised was the question of how the proposed lodge — despite housing potentially hundreds of guests and staff — would actually be powered. Area B director David Brooks-Hill argued it was troubling that a development of this scale had no defined power source and might end up relying largely on diesel generation, which he noted would run counter to STHS's own stated intention, a year earlier, of operating the lodge mostly off-grid. Brooks-Hill characterized the shift from what he described as a small existing cabin on a modest parcel to a diesel-powered resort of this magnitude as a severe change — and one clearly not supported by the public record before the board.

A unanimous rejection

On Thursday, August 20, when the CSRD board of directors reconvened, Brooks-Hill tabled a motion to deny third reading of the zoning and Official Community Plan amendment the project needed.The board denied that third reading unanimously, effectively killing the rezoning and, with it, the project as proposed. Area C director Marty Gibbons backed the motion, framing the board's central question as whether the development was genuinely in the public interest — and concluding, in line with the rest of the board, that it was not.

What it means going forward

The rejection leaves STHS's Mars Creek property zoned as it was before the application began — small-holdings residential, not commercial resort land — meaning any future attempt to develop the site at this scale would require starting the rezoning process over from scratch, and would likely face the same organized opposition from the snowmobiling, environmental and local-resident coalition that mobilized against this bid. For a region that has built much of its winter tourism economy around backcountry access — spanning heli-skiing, snowmobiling, ski touring and cat skiing operators alike — the episode stands as a pointed reminder of how quickly a major land-use proposal can unravel once competing backcountry user groups perceive their own access to public land is at stake.