CBC FEATURES KORE
The national news agency showcased KORE this week.
CBC and a number of other news organizations featured the Kootenay Outdoor Recreational Enterprise Initiative in a recent article penned by Canadian Press reporter Amanda Stephenson. The piece was also picked up by the Financial Post, Globe and Mail, and a number of smaller news agencies.
Titled “Craft Gear From Here: How BC mountain towns are growing a recreation-based manufacturing industry,” the article describes KORE as being Canada’s first craft gear-makers alliance and how small businesses that are making gear for outdoor enthusiasts are bringing jobs and entrepreneurship to the Kootenays. KORE’s chair Matt Mosteller is quoted as saying, “We’ll have one or two [new businesses] joining us now every week. It’s massive growth that’s happening now.”
Cam Shute, Dark Horse Innovations
The story also features engineer Cam Shute of Dark Horse Innovations in Nelson who says one of the reasons he lives in the Kootenays is because it’s so easy to get out and test his designs. “If I’m working on a ski binding project that I’m developing myself, I can go out and test it in the morning and come back and make a change to the design that same day,” he says.
Another person interviewed for the article is Ximena Diaz Lopez, project officer for the Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C. who speaks to the fact that, in Canada, the concept of outdoor recreation as its own industry is still relatively new. “Tourism is part of the outdoor recreation economy, but the outdoor recreation economy’s a bit broader,” she says. “When it comes to makers and manufacturing, KORE is the first of its kind, at least in B.C., but they’re inspiring similar initiatives in other areas.”
Powder Matt Mosteller, KORE chair
Stephenson compares the KORE initiative model to a similar one in Asheville, North Carolina, a US community that has reinvented itself from a centre for heavy industry to a hub for outdoor recreation, in part due to the presence of the Outdoor Gear Builders of Western North Carolina, a consortium of more than 80 businesses that produce gear for river paddling, hiking and biking.
To read the CBC article in its entirety, visit CBC.ca/news.
To learn more about the gear manufacturers represented by KORE, visit the Makers section on this website.
