Steve and Debbie Overguard, owners of Sundre-based Alberta Adventures - a professional outfitting company. (Supplied)

By Sheldon Spackman and Troy Gillard

INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS CAN'T VISIT

Alberta outfitters hammered by border closure

Jun 1, 2020 | 5:44 PM

The ongoing closure of Canada’s border with the United States is continuing to have a major impact on outfitters in Alberta.

Steve Overguard, who owns Sundre-based Alberta Adventures along with his wife Debbie, says they’ve lost a significant amount of business due to the COVID-19-induced border closure.

Overguard says his company does most of its business with customers from the United States and around the world.

“We’re hurting big time,” says Overguard. “We still have to pay for our allocations, which means the right to take hunters (into the field). We still have to pay for that one way or the other and when the border is not open, there’s no way we can get reimbursed for that money.”

After an initial one-month grace period of not having to pay those fees, Overguard says they’ve now come due. He says it’s not fair that government receives fees paid by outfitters, but outfitters still can’t do business with most of their customers to offset those expenses.

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“It’s really wiping a lot of outfitters out,” he exclaims. “We understand the border being closed big time, but it’s the social distancing that’s really hurt the tourism, whether it’s hunting, fishing, trail riding, or whatever. It’s a big part of Alberta, the tourism.”

Following the expense of promoting Alberta Adventures and the industry itself in the United States just prior to COVID-19, Overguard says his company is now in danger of shutting down permanently after 40 years in business.

“Right now we’re struggling because we have to pay for our fuel for instance to haul all that in on a winter road,” says Overguard, “So I hauled it in and I had people booked for fishing and hunting and so I hauled that in in the winter. We have to pay for that upfront and then we can’t get no people, we’re out that money.”

A sign of hope for Alberta’s outfitters is the reopening of some national parks on June 1, albeit with limited access and services while maintaining physical distancing measures.

“Our business here we have 10 cabins and they are 30 metres apart and everybody has a boat and everybody is apart,” he points out. “The place is cleaned up before other people come in, and the plane they fly in on is cleaned and sanitized as well. So it’s a good way for families to come up and still be able to enjoy the outdoors.”

According to the Alberta Professional Outfitters Society (APOS), Alberta’s outfitters were some of the earliest pioneers of the tourism industry in the province, with the first guided hunts taking clients into Alberta’s rugged backcountry in the late 1800s.

Today, the society represents 500 professional outfitters and nearly 1,600 hunting guides, creating a total economic contribution of $105 million annually. APOS became the delegated administrative organization for the outfitting industry in Alberta in 1997.

“In the long run, I’m sure that now with oil being down, people are relying on this tourism and it’s another part of it that’s just going downhill,” warns Overguard. “I don’t really know the answer to it except we don’t want anyone to get sick, so we can open the borders and operate!”