Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2018 - 45

Courtesy Michael Mathews / The Backpacker (x3)

ployees and customers even worse than the
daily operation of his stores. Area residents
experienced weeks of recovery with deep personal and financial losses. Several members
of his community waited for months to receive settlements from their insurance companies, while others didn't receive payments
for a year and half. With such a traumatic
blow to the incomes of so many customers,
business suffered right along with a lagging
economy. And though The Backpacker withstood no structural damage, the stores' employees still had to put their lives back together. Mathews and his staff organized a
Go-Fund-Me campaign to help provide a bit

of relief for those who had difficulty coming
back to work due to hardships at home.
"Business does get affected in the short run
and you're trying to make payroll and you're
trying to make cash flow and you want to make
sure that people who can't come to work because of these circumstances are getting their
sick pay," Mathews says. "You want to make
sure that you're keeping the business running
and doing your part to contribute to all these
people who need help."

UNDERLYING OPTIMISM

Andrew Dickson, owner of Napa Valley Paddle,
could not return to his shop in Petaluma,
California, for more than two weeks during the
2017 Tubbs Wildfire. His home was spared, but
he lost a barn where he stored several paddleboards and other items of his retail inventory.
Though Dickson was able to secure a disaster

RALLYING FOR RELIEF
After the 2016 floods, The
Backpacker sold off gear
and apparel donated by
manufacturers-the Louisiana
retailer had planned to give
the product to local shelters
but they had stopped taking
donations by the time it
arrived-and raised $17,000
for Habitat for Humanity.

relief small business loan to cover some of his
losses, he laments the sudden end to a productive season of outdoor recreation full of promise most of all.
"We were in the process of a new grand architecture, a new merger in Napa with a paddle fitness coach. We had a lot of press. We had been
in the local newspaper. We had a pop-up store
on the dock. And we had just come off the fourth
annual Napa River paddle day," Dickson says.
"So basically we lost all of our momentum."
Napa Valley Paddle was on course to actuate years of strategic planning. Dickson says
his business had just implemented dedicated
fly fishing and kayak fishing programs to introduce visitors to a $400 million restoration of the
Napa River. The Napa River-Napa Creek Flood
Protection Project, a Civil Works initiative orchestrated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
created a unique opportunity to meld the inter-

ests of environmental protection and the business of outdoor recreation. The concept of a living river takes under consideration the various
factors of flood mitigation while creating natural habitats for fish and wildlife.
"This Living River concept was developed
here on the Napa River, and it was the first time
the Army Corps of Engineers recognized environmental benefits into their cost-benefit analysis," Dickson says. "The fishery here has greatly
improved. The otters are back. It's coming to life.
So this fishing program during peak fishing season lines up perfectly with the end of our busy
season. The best fishing of the year here begins
in September. October is the best month into
Thanksgiving. The fire wiped out all of that."
Kayaks and stand-up paddleboards went unused through the fall and into winter. Ironically,
preparations in advance of a potential flood
could do nothing to prevent the destruction of a
wildfire. Just as retailers cannot predict the rise
and fall of the stock market or booms and busts
in the economy, there's really no way to truly prepare for the worst in a natural disaster. But as
purveyors of products and services in an industry they truly love, outdoor retailers still can't
help but be optimistic.
"We've just picked up four Hoby Compass
Mirage Drive fishing kayaks and I've got a professional kayak fisherman who will fly out for the
tides. The tides this year are perfect for fishing,"
Dickson says. "It was a really brutal winter for
us and a brutal fall. We're getting over it. We're
going to do great and the future is bright." O.R.

Summer 2018 / OUTDOOR RETAILER 45

Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2018

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