29 May 2025
From Wildfire to Wild Beauty: How Horses and Healing Landscapes Are Putting Canada Back on the Map for Ranch Retreats
Where horses are family, the forest is sacred, and the landscape is healing in real time.
In the summer of 2017, a rank 6 wildfire — the most extreme classification — tore through Siwash Lake Wilderness Resort & Ranch, a 10,000-acre family-run ranch in British Columbia's interior. The forest was incinerated, the land stripped to bare clay, and much of the wildlife either fled or was displaced. It was one of the worst wildfire seasons in Canada's recorded history, but out of that devastation has come something extraordinary.
Eight years on, Siwash Lake is a place of profound ecological regeneration — and one of the most unique luxury ranch experiences in North America. Think Yellowstone, but softer, more soulful, and with a deep reverence for the land and animals that make it home.
Why Siwash Lake Is Canada's Quiet Pioneer in Regenerative Travel
In a world where everyone is “rewilding,” Siwash Lake is doing it the old-fashioned way — letting nature take the lead. Fireweed was the first sign of hope, carpeting the scorched earth with vibrant green and magenta just months after the blaze. Today, a new forest is rising; shimmering aspen groves, wild rose, willow, and fruit-bearing shrubs now fill the landscape once dominated by towering conifers.
The wildlife has responded in kind. Moose and deer populations are thriving, feeding on the nutrient-rich growth. Wetlands, once dry, are now teeming with frogs, river otters, and even the elusive western painted turtle. Birds of prey — kestrels, harrier hawks — and songbirds rarely seen before, like meadowlarks, have taken up residence.
“There's a view now that never existed before,” says Marshall Fremlin, Head of Wilderness at Siwash Lake. “Contours of the land we never knew were there. And at night, the sky is wider than ever. It feels like the stars came closer.”
Siwash Lake has embraced this transformation fully, building Star Camp accommodations for immersive stargazing and designing every ride, hike, and moment around what the land is becoming — not what it was.
A Stand for Horses and Home
The story of rebirth at Siwash Lake isn't only about trees and trails — it's about courage, too. As evacuation orders loomed in 2017, owner Allyson Rogers made a heart-led decision: she would not leave her horses. They had never left the ranch before and the idea of loading them into cattle trucks and penning them at a rodeo ground three hours away felt more harmful for them than staying.
So, Allyson, her son Marshall, and a small team stayed behind. They placed the horses in their favourite paddock by the lake and spent time with them, warning them daily, in her words, that “something was coming”, and whilst the flames got closer, she stayed with them. Not a single horse was harmed.
Today, the horses at Siwash Lake are more than a riding program to discover the wilderness — they are family. Their care is rooted in intuition, gentleness, and deep respect. “The horses here work differently,” says Allyson. “They're not tools. They're teachers.”
Why Canada? Why Now?
With so much attention on ranch experiences in the U.S. — many of which lean heavily into commercialised versions of cowboy culture — Canada remains surprisingly under the radar. Siwash Lake is making a compelling case for that to change.
It's luxurious but grounded. Family-run but world-class. Remote but accessible. And perhaps most importantly, it's relevant — offering an answer to our collective craving for nature, connection, and purpose.
As travel trends shift towards transformation and regeneration, Siwash Lake stands as a living, breathing example of both. This is not just a ranch holiday. It's a masterclass in resilience — from the land, the wildlife, the horses, and the people who never gave up on them.
Press Contact:
Phoebe Oliver
PR for Siwash Lake Wilderness Resort
phoebe@equinecollective.co.uk
www.siwashlake.com
