construction below the tasting room, where a natural amphitheatre is being built into the hillside, surrounded by grapevines, which should accommodate 500 to 1,000 for a wedding, concert, play or other events. Trails will connect it to the tasting room and winery, and Louie envisions such educational venues as teepees and pit houses along those trails to attract and educate tourists and visitors, with possibly native artisans as well.


Adjacent to it, he plans to construct an underground cave for aging. With winery construction completed and the 2015 vintages fermenting in the stable of stainless steel tanks within, the vineyard asleep for the


winter,construction of the tasting room and amphitheatre underway, Louie’s attention has now turned to his new distillery, which is a maze of pipes, gleaming copper tanks and the apparatus to connect it all. Plans are for a scotch-style whisky first, since it will need to be aged in sherry oak barrels for at least three years, but ultimately, he expects to add lines of vodka and of gin; coolers and liquors using local fruit such as cherries. Indigenous Spirits is licensed as a ‘cottage distillery’ and can produce up to 50,000 litres a year, using grains from Armstrong and other local ingredients. There’s a rapidly-growing micro- brewing and distilling industry underway in the Okanagan, he notes, and the more there are, the more tourists will be interested in coming here to explore those flavours, he believes. Plans call for a micro-brewery adjacent to the distillery, beginning with one label to get started, and he already has on-site, the first glass bottles for a sparkling mineral water, sourced from a pristine 500-foot deep aquifer in a safe, secure area not far away. “The water tastes superb. It has already been medically tested and it meets and exceeds world standards for a mineral water,” Louie notes. This venture is inspired by his daughter Cassandra’s native name, Lap- Cheetw, meaning ‘a water spillway, through rock, for a small stream.’ The name will be incorporated into marketing the Indigenous Sparkling water, which should be available by next summer. It will also be used for a sparkling wine that has yet to be made, notes Louie.


Marketing of all these beverages is an area Louie feels he may have an advantage over the competition.


18


“Around the world, indigenous peoples have suffered like we have and we want to focus on them. We see products being made and traded around the world now. “We can work together to buy and sell within indigenous communities around the world,” he explains.


For instance, many tribes in the U.S.


now operate casinos, with ancillary facilities.


He says all B.C. licences for operating


each of the beverage ventures are in place, just as they would need to be for any other winery or distillery.


“Not a cent from government went into any of these ventures,” he emphasizes.


However, with his legal background, Louie hints there may be some tax advantages in the future. This vision began as Louie neared his mid-60s and began to think of his future and that of his four children. As an elected chief, he is not eligible for a pension upon retirement, unlike the band’s staff members.


“And, I see these as enterprises I can leave for my family.”


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