John Ritchie and Hideaway Adventure Grounds: Always looking forward

By Laura Mushumanski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – Our enthusiastic Metis brother John Ritchie of Hideaway Adventure Grounds shared that “when you have a dream, share it loud and proud, that’s what people grab onto.” This knowledge that Ritchie walks with came over time, after his own adventures led him to open his business, located on “160 acres of unspoiled wilderness within Kikino Metis Settlement in Northern Alberta.”

After living in big cities for quite some time, Ritchie moved back to his home community and started learning land-based skills. While having a background in financial accounting and economic development, at the age of 50 years old, John wanted to make his dream a reality.

The beginning of Hideaway Adventures Grounds was a humbling experience for Ritchie—and also a learning adventure he was about to dive deep into. At first, there was no power and no running water like the days of hard knocks of kohkom and mosom in the bush, leading him to learn traditional skills in the bush that our ancestors used to survive.

Back in 2015 Ritchie was managing campgrounds as a contractor with his own company. That led to an opportunity to work with the Friendship Centre in Lac La Biche forming partnerships with Alberta Parks while creating authentic Indigenous Experiences, then traveling to Sydney, Nova Scotia in 2016 for an International Indigenous Tourism Conference and sharing stories in Indigenous ways on Indigenous terms.

In 2018 Hideaway Adventure Grounds got started. “Bring your own tent” caught wind, and the first of its kind, “Metis tents on a Metis Settlement… took off right away.” Ritchie formed an alliance with Indigenous Tourism Alberta to help grow and promote Indigenous tourism in Alberta. And then Covid came to town.

While everyone was in shambles of what to do, so was John. This opportunity “gave time to catch-up, slow down, and develop programs… [I had to] reach my head out of my ass [and get to work],” he said.

As time went on, Ritchie continued to come up with innovative ideas that supported his understanding of both Indigenous Economic Development and Tourism as part of Indigenous Reconciliation and Resurgence. John then launched Hideaway Trading Post, “the stars were in alignment,” he met with fellow Metis Traders and created a Metis retail selling space for tourists and learners to engage in Metis culture.

When Covid restrictions let up, Ritchie started to host Indigenous youth camps, providing space and teaching youth outdoor survival skills, including building shelters by engaging and working as a team. These alliances that John formed became an influential part of Indigenous Economic Resurgence—as the economic driver for the province of Alberta. He started to grow collaborations and actively support community initiatives with community partners.

Fast forward to 2024, Hideaway Adventure Grounds grew in magnitude to have four trapper tents on decks with tin roofs, four new cabins with electricity, four additional trapper tents, and two tipis, “narrowing in on ‘what is hideaway’ while focusing on engaging in cultural experiences and activities.” These endeavours, along with mentorship within Indigenous Tourism has led Ritchie to prepare for upcoming Rendezvous Canada, showcasing Indigenous Tourism as an opportunity to invite the world traveler into the heart of Northern Alberta and Kikino Metis Settlement.

Over time Ritchie learned to reach out and ask for support from community. He started to market Kikino Metis Settlement as a tourism destination and work with Travel Alberta for product development as his Hideaway alliance to “share cultural knowledge with people… People come to learn and like to talk to me and listen [to my stories].” John’s overnight success took 10 years in the making and is still a continuous process of learning and growing alongside a team.

Looking back, Ritchie acknowledges how far Indigenous people have come since contact. He remembers his mother not talking about culture, “it was shunned upon—it wasn’t shared, honoured or talked about, [we] lived culture, but it wasn’t explained to us … I did not realize how much survival skills my mom taught us. Even living in the city, I knew how to process a pig’s feet… to this day I won’t eat hedge cheese.”

“I grew up with these things,” Ritchie shared after reflecting on culture and what it means to him. And to this day, John is still in “amazement of what I discover and rediscover of who we are… we still grow as long as we choose to move forward. That is what makes us [Metis] so different and why some are successful and some not… [My] definition of success changed over the years [into] having the freedom to do what I want to, when I want to do them.”

Over the years Ritchie engaged in cultural understandings and ceremony that led him to “finding that teacher person within me… culture and teachings helped to share life in a positive way with youth.” But prior to coming to this awareness, during junior high, John came to terms with becoming either a social worker or a financial planner. His decision was based on “not wanting to be what people took away [from our communities].” Fast-forward a few decades later and within the past 6 years, Ritchie has never “worked so hard and tirelessly, [yet it has been] so rewarding” because he chose to make his visions a reality.

Never viewing himself as an educated person, advice that John shares for entrepreneurs is “don’t put too much value in that stamp of approval,” it is your efforts and lived experience that contribute to your knowledge, and like many—after all this time, “I didn’t think I had anything to say.”

 

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