In Dense North Woods, Sunshine Makes Sense for Powering Lodge

PHOTO CREDIT: DAN FINK
In remote and beautiful British Columbia, solar electricity promises to provide one answer to a fishing lodge's electricity problems.

By Dan Fink
On and Off the Grid

Published March 18, 2010

Those of us who live off the grid unfortunately tend to get a bit smug about it at times, snickering at “townies” who panic after a spring storm knocks out their electricity for a mere two or three days. My home battery bank can handle that easily, and I can squeeze out a few more days before running the backup generator by using the laptop instead of the desktop computer, not running the dishwasher or certain other appliances, and playing cribbage instead of watching movies.

There are those rare souls out there, though, whose everyday lifestyle makes most off-gridders look like first-winter townies stuck in a snowbank by comparison. Alice and Hannah Belford are two of them – they homesteaded on the shores of Damdochax Lake, in a remote British Columbia river valley 135 miles from the nearest city, when Hannah was 4 years old. There are no roads and no power lines within 75 miles. A float plane or helicopter is the only way in or out.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAMDOCHAX LODGE
Electricity is hard to come by when
you're 135 miles from the nearest city.

The Belfords have since developed their homestead into an exclusive catch-and-release fly-fishing destination, the Damdochax River Lodge, thanks to the pristine wilderness environment and huge population of spawning steelhead, salmon and trout in the lake and river. Hannah is now one of the top steelhead guides in North America, and Alice is still the remarkable hostess of all things Damdochax.

Steelheaders fly in from all over the world for the autumn migration, hopping from the lodge to the remote river camps via helicopter, and summer trout fishermen marvel at the miles of untouched river they have all to themselves. Other guests stay simply to watch and photograph grizzly and black bears, moose, wolves, birds and even wolverines, while enjoying Alice's home-cooked meals and fresh-baked bread hot out of the wood cookstove and served under the old-school, rustic charm of gas lights and kerosene wick lamps.

Modern Conveniences?

Rustic charm works great for the guests, but wears thin pretty fast when you are responsible for feeding, lodging and guiding four to six guests for a week. A commercial guiding operation of this caliber needs some electricity – two-way radios for safety must be kept charged, and satellite Internet also provides the only phone service. A washing machine is needed for muddy clothes. All the structures are constantly being improved each summer, so electric power tools are required. And the entire staff really wants to install a dishwasher!

But gasoline for the small generators located at each camp costs over $25 a gallon after flying it in by float plane, then by helicopter to the more remote camps. Kerosene and propane for lighting and water heating are even more expensive.

PHOTO CREDIT: DAN FINK
A wolf has left its mark
near the lodge.

“Kerosene lamps are both smelly and fragile,” Hannah Belford told me. “We have to buy new glass lamp globes by the case.

“We worry about guests who don't have experience in properly setting and using kerosene lamps,” Ms. Belford continued. “We're constantly cleaning blackened glass on lamps that were set too high.”

The Belfords already have a portable solar PV module and battery system that can charge their two-way radios, but the big lighting, Internet and other electrical needs of up to six guests and five staff will require a major investment in renewable-energy equipment. However, the gasoline, kerosene and propane costs are a major investment too, and one that recurs each year. Where to start?

Hannah and Alice started out right, by doing their homework. They read books, read Internet articles, and contacted solar-energy equipment dealers. But the calculated system costs were coming in far too high, and transportation costs via float plane and helicopter could easily exceed the cost of the equipment itself. So, they decided to consult a professional before making a decision.

Get a Site Evaluation

You wouldn't dream of buying a home without first getting a thorough, detailed report from a home inspector. Structural problems, dangerous wiring and plumbing nightmares that you might miss are often obvious to a trained professional. It's the same with designing a renewable energy system – do-it-yourself only goes so far.

MAP CREDIT: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY,
NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY
An insolation map showing how much
sun the lodge region gets on average.

I know, I know, in a previous column for Sunpluggers.com I wrote about how to perform your own quick and dirty solar site evaluation. But I also said that this was only a small part of the whole picture. A professional site evaluation may cost you money, but that might be refunded later if you purchase a system. And even if the result is “This is not a viable site for a PV system,” you've still saved thousands of dollars from not buying what would have been nearly useless PV equipment.

The Happy Results

At Damdochax the results of the site evaluation were surprisingly positive. The premature and dismal results of a “quick and dirty” assessment showed an average of only one full sun-hour per day, thanks to high latitude (56.5 degrees north) and local weather patterns (temperate rainforest). That's usually a “don't bother with solar power” sort of situation.

However, the lodge and remote camps are only occupied from June to November, and my sun path measurements showed good exposure during the summer months when guests are there, despite tall trees. The computer software calculated the optimum locations and azimuths on which to point the arrays at each location to dodge tree and mountain shadows. The lodge's own weather records and on-site GPS data compared with ground truth data from the nearest airports indicated the weather wasn't nearly as rainy as the rough insolation map showed.

The Belfords' system installation commences this summer, and is planned over a multi-year period. Each year as they invest more into renewable energy, smaller system components will hop down the canyon to the more remote camps, with new equipment coming in to the main lodge location at the lake. Both wind and hydro power sources are being considered for future years. By 2011, the Damdochax staff may even have the luxury of a dishwasher at the main lodge.

There are other, more unusual issues involved with the power systems at Damdochax, too. Grizzly bears will try to actively disassemble entire systems into shreds when nobody is home, so components must be stored securely indoors or mounted up out of reach during winter, and outdoor wires have to be protected.

Batteries must be trickle-charged or they will freeze, but low winter sun angle (at some remote camp locations, there is no direct sun for two to three months at a time) and deep snowdrifts can render PV modules ineffective. So, batteries must be moved by helicopter at the end of the season to a central location for winter charging from a special bear-proof PV module mounted above any possible snowdrifts. Large PV modules, long PV rack rails, and wind turbine tower sections won't fit in the float plane and must be hauled in via helicopter sling load. The list goes on...

Since my visit to the Damdochax, any time I'm feeling even slightly smug about my off-grid lifestyle here in Colorado, I think about Alice and Hannah. These women built their dream from the ground up using only saws, nails and determination, and are still living it.

Editor's note: Columnist Dan Fink is a friend of the Belfords and is assisting with their solar installation on a voluntary basis.

PHOTO CREDIT: DAN FINK