Nature and Outdoor Tourism Ontario

Marg is the current president of NOTO and past recipient of the prestigious Bob Giles Award for her contributions to the resource-based tourism industry. She is the Owner, Operations Manager and Director of Maintenance of Sudbury Aviation Limited. She has been Owner of her company since 1981.

Sudbury Aviation owns two DeHavilland Beaver aircraft, one Cessna 185, and two Cessna 172’s (school trainers). Apart from the "titles", Marg is a working owner, flies her favorite Beaver aircraft C-FHVT and occasionally gets booked on the Cessna 185 too. In her words “I am the company bookkeeper, marketing agent, organizer, and most of all the ‘motivator’ to all my wonderful happy staff!”

Marg is married to Terry Hyland, who she says gets tired just thinking about what she does, loves his lazy boy, and owns Hyland Carpet.

Sudbury Aviation operates fourteen remote outpost camps and a flight school out of their air base on Whitewater Lake in Azilda Ontario. When not running her business, Marg is very involved in volunteer committee work including the Provincial Resource-Based Tourism Working Group, Zone 10 Fisheries Management Council and the Spanish Forest Local Citizens Committee.

Sue is owner & operator of Crane’s Lochaven Wilderness Lodge, located on the French River. Sue’s lodge has been a NOTO member for over 30 years. She was elected to the NOTO Board of Directors in October 2008 and appointed Treasurer in October 2009.

Sue had a positive experience with NOTO in spring 2003 that she likes to share because it resulted in an exceptionally valuable outcome for her business. It was her first year operating the lodge together with her husband Ed so when they heard of a NOTO meeting being held at the Cleveland Sport Show, they thought it might be informative. At the meeting several topics were discussed including the gas rebate program. Sue’s lodge had not been enrolled in the program and so when she enquired she discovered that the lodge was entitled to the current year rebate and 4 years prior based on their gas purchases. As a result, Crane’s Lochaven Wilderness Lodge received a healthy rebate that arrived the week before opening weekend in 2003.

Sue feels her membership with NOTO is essential. In her words, “It is important to keep abreast of the issues we face and it is reassuring to know we can contact NOTO and get the answers we need, particularly during the season when we do not have much time for research.”

Sue represents the South Region and is willing to attempt to answer any questions or concerns from NOTO members in her region so feel free to contact her any time.

Al is the current Past President of NOTO and has served on the NOTO Board of Directors since 2001.

As a second-generation tourist outfitter Al has over thirty years experience in the nature and outdoor tourism industry. Al’s wife Doris is also a second generation outfitter. They have a son and daughter. Al and his wife took over his parents resort in 1994. It was a traditional fishing resort that they diversified to offer their guests a range of eco-tourism experiences, especially moose and bear watching, and this helped double their business about four years after taking over. Their resort is remote with 85% of guests arriving by wilderness train and the rest by floatplane. The resort is 206 miles north of Sault Ste Marie via the Algoma Central Railway on a secluded island, on Lake Wabatongushi in the southwest corner of the Chapleau Game Preserve. The resort employs 15 people and hosts approximately 1100 guests per year between mid May and September.

Besides serving on the NOTO board of directors, Al is a past member of the national board of the Canadian Ski Patrol where he was responsible for on-trail training of Cross Country Ski Patrollers for all of Canada. Al served in a number of other positions during his sixteen years with the Canadian Ski Patrol.

Al is the webmaster for his operation and maintains three websites for his business that receives a combined unique visitor rate averaging 370 people per day. His current recreational interests are cross country skiing, telemark skiing, snow machining, ice fishing, wildlife study, bird watching, photography, snorkeling, fishing, mountain biking and kayaking.

John has lived in Cochenour Ontario since 1942 and has operated Sydney Lake Lodge for the past thirty years. He has served on the NOTO Board of Directors for the last nine years – five years as Secretary Treasurer of the association. John was a member of the Northwest Region Resource-Based Tourism Task Team that was established by MNR in 2006 to address the issue of outpost bed capacity reductions in the region at time of transfer. John was instrumental in helping bring this issue to the attention of government and helped instigate the infamous Ignace meeting in July 2005 that attracted more than one hundred outpost operators at the height of the operating season. John also serves as a NOTO tourism industry representative on MNR’s Northwest Regional Advisory Committee since 2004. He is Past President of the Kenora District Camp Owners Association and currently serves as a director. Over the years John has been involved in numerous tourism issues and initiatives and he is always in search of solutions for the many challenges faced by the industry. John received the Bob Giles Award from the Ministry of Tourism in 2006 recognizing his many contributions to the betterment of tourism in northern Ontario. Outside of his tourism involvement, John has been a director of the Red Lake Hospital Foundation for the last 17 years.

Dave’s experience in Education has given him an understanding of how governments and government administrators think, act and make decisions. This knowledge and experience has been useful in working with his fellow NOTO board members and staff on a variety of internal issues.

Dave believes strongly that the industry must continue to develop capacity and strategic partnerships with government and other organizations in order that our natural resources can be ‘protected’ and sustained in a manner that will permit our industry to flourish.

Betty has been involved in all aspects of resource management planning for more than 30 years, and was one of the principle tourism representatives in the negotiations with Ministry of Natural Resources and the forest industry that led to the Tourism and Forestry Industry Memorandum of Understanding in 2000 for the Resource Stewardship Agreement process. She currently sits on the Nagagami Forest Local Citizens Committee as a tourism industry representative. Betty also served as the tourism representative on the northeast regional round table during the Lands for Life process.

Betty is the CEO and principle share holder of the family business, Watson’s Algoma Vacations Ltd. which owns and operates a fly-in lodge and a charter air service based in Wawa, Ontario.

Jocelyn has been working in the insurance industry since 1998 and joined the Gougeon team in February 2007. She brings energy and tenacity to the Gougeon team working with the Commercial department as an Account Executive. She is currently working towards her CIP accreditation. Jocelyn grew up in Sudbury and then moved to Ottawa to study Business Insurance at Algonquin College where she lived afterwards until recently.

Jocelyn is married and a mother of two young boys; she enjoys watching her children participate in various sporting activities. She is a Can-Fit-Pro Certified Group Fitness Instructor and works off any remaining energy by teaching group fitness classes and training for various marathon/triathlon events.