The Cheakamus Centre
Tell us about your business and why you should receive this award!
Environmental stewardship is at the heart of Cheakamus Centre. Located within a 165-hectare ecological preserve in Paradise Valley, our work is built around protecting the natural environment while creating opportunities for people to learn from it, understand it and develop a lasting connection to it.
For more than 50 years, Cheakamus Centre has provided immersive environmental and outdoor education. Our forests, ponds, streams, spawning channels, teaching salmon hatchery and working farm are not simply features of our site. They are living classrooms where thousands of students and visitors each year learn about ecosystems, biodiversity, salmon, food systems and the relationships between people and the natural world.
A significant part of our environmental impact comes through education. Students step outside the traditional classroom to experience ecological concepts firsthand. They can observe salmon returning to local waterways, investigate forest and pond ecosystems, learn about wildlife and explore where food comes from on our farm. These experiences help turn environmental concepts into something tangible and personal.
Our approach also recognizes that environmental learning is inseparable from place. Cheakamus Centre is located on the traditional territory of the Skwxwú7mesh Nation, and Indigenous perspectives and connection to land are an important part of learning at the Centre.
By protecting an extraordinary ecological site and using it to inspire environmental understanding and stewardship in generations of learners, Cheakamus Centre creates an impact that extends far beyond our property.
