How better to proudly boast about some of the innovative business practices currently taking place in the Corridor than stand on a ‘soap box’ beside the highway and yell it at the top of your lungs to the thousands of visitors travelling on the Sea to Sky highway during May long weekend. This past May long weekend, we did just that!

The Squamish Sustainability Corporation extended an invitation to businesses in the community that currently offer innovative technology, promote innovation, or operate a business in an innovative manner. Exhibit space was made available in and around the Adventure Centre on the Saturday and Sunday, 9-5pm daily. As well as the many exhibits set up outside, Saturday night featured “Innovation in Film”, and a “Community Innovation” display was personed inside the Adventure Centre.Some of the outdoor exhibits included hybrid automobiles from our two local car dealerships; Sea to Sky Ford and Greg Gardner Motors. The six cars on display all showcased fuel-efficient technology including the latest in hybrid vehicles. Along side of these road travelling technologies, was an airborne amphibian airplane built right here in Squamish by Hans Schaer of SeaStar (www.seastaramphibian.com) . Mr. Schaer was on hand for most of the weekend along with some of his aeronautical engineering students to answer plenty of questions on his uniquely designed, world class, aircrafts.A hard-to-miss exhibit outside was a miniature home constructed and displayed by Cathy and Tom of West Coast Weather Barriers Limited. Tom and Cathy, along with their 12+ employees have had a very busy first year in business. Recognizing a need for better, innovative practices and technologies in the building envelope construction, they set out to take advantage of the severe weather conditions we have in Squamish to provide a product and service that is gaining national recognition. To showcase some of the latest innovation, they built a small home and had it on display outside the Adventure Centre.

The “Innovation in Film” showcase on Saturday night was on par with the great exhibits on display outside. Steve Rogers, a fairly new resident of Squamish from Northern England, entertained an intimate crowd in the Adventure Centre Theatre. Steve fresh back from a seven day shoot chasing tide racers around the coast of BC with his filming partner Bryan Smith (also from Squamish) presented two shorts movies. The first was a biography on his involvement with film, his love of kayaking, his world travels, and the innovative practices he needs to employ to get the shots he does. The second was footage of kayaking he had shot from all over the world. As a winner of the Edinburough Mountain Film Festival and finalist in Banff, Steve really opened the eyes of all that were on hand while sharing some spectacular kayaking footage from our own backyard.Feedback from everyone that attended demonstrated an appetite for more events like this in the future. With so many innovative practices, techniques, and inventions currently being generated right here in Sea to Sky country, you can bet we will have an even bigger and better Innovation Squamish next year.

(to get involved in next year’s show, please contact David Thomson, Business Development lead, dthomson@squamish.ca)