A Carrot River outfitter has won an award for her efforts to promote tourism.
Angela Schmitt, the co-owner of Redwillow Outfitting, received the Fred Heal Tourism Ambassador Award at the 28th annual Saskatchewan Tourism Awards of Excellence Gala April 5.
The other nominees for the award were Gail Kesslar from the Cypress Hills Destination Area near Maple Creek and the Watrous Manitou Marketing Group.
“The other nominees were very high caliber, so I have to say, I was very shocked when my name was called to come up and receive the award,” she said. “It was a very big surprise.”
Schmitt is active on the board of Carrot River Economic Development and the Carrot River Inn, and was the east central representative with the Saskatchewan Outfitters Association, where she was involved with a project with the Saskatchewan Tourism Education Council to develop a professional hunting and fishing guide certification program.
The award winner has a business background and originally was from Regina. She moved to the Northeast with her husband Larry, who’s from the Carrot River area, to raise their family. She has owned Redwillow Outfitting for 25 years. It was the landscape and the nature of the Northeast that inspired her to get involved in promoting tourism.
“As a person with eyes from the outside, I have always envisioned this to be such a place of attraction for other visitors. I guess it’s just a personal passion of mine.”
Part of what she has done is educating people that have grown up in the region to understand there are tourists that are looking for experiences that they take for granted.
In 2007, she was part of a group that spearheaded the creation of Carrot River Economic Development. Support from the Town of Carrot River and the RM of Moose Range mean staff could be hired for the organization. Among other things, the organization promotes tourism development in Carrot River and created the town’s Saskatchewan’s Outback brand, which was rolled out in 2016.
“I’ve always felt there were a lot of tourism opportunities for the Carrot River area that could be tapped into.”
Now the organization is beginning to implement tours of the region and help local business owners make their business look more pleasing to tourists.
“It takes a long time to get the whole community on board,” Schmitt said. “If you want to be a tourism-friendly town, your community has to support that because not every community wants to have extra visitors – it’s just not a high priority for them. You really do need to have that community engagement before you blaze forward.”
Schmitt also said she credits the people who are on Carrot River Economic Development’s board and its co-ordinator, Maggie Doerksen, for the successes the organization has seen.
