A steep wooden staircase leads down from the cottage to the dock. In late May, the lake is already wide open for the season, and the air is warm as we sit on the dock enjoying the view. Falcon Lake stretches out in front of us, peppered with islands and surrounded by pine and granite.

“A lot of Manitoba is prairie flat,” says Caleigh Christie, owner of Falcon Trails Resort inside Whiteshell Provincial Park. “But where we are, it’s quite rugged. There’s bedrock everywhere.”

The Whiteshell is in the province’s southeast corner — almost at the Ontario border. The landscape shifts from open prairie to exposed shield rock and dense boreal forest as you drive east from Winnipeg.

While we are visiting in the warmer months — as do so many Manitobians who come to the Whiteshell for summer recreation — Falcon Trails Resort actually has its beginnings as a winter destination.

The ski hill behind the cabins was built in 1959 by the provincial government.

“There were lineups. It was super popular. Many, many Manitobans learned to ski there,” Caleigh tells me. By the 1990s, though, it was struggling, and the province was preparing to close it.

Caleigh's parents were living in the community of Falcon Lake at the time, running a carpentry business and building cottages. When the government invited proposals to keep the hill running privately, her mother saw a practical solution: build cabins so people could ski and stay.

In 1996, the family secured a 21-year renewable land lease with Manitoba Parks and began construction.

"I was eight years old, the middle of three girls. So we were six, eight and 10 years old, a really young family, and my parents were still running a construction company," Caleigh says. "It's a huge credit to my parents, who saw the opportunity and took the risk."

The entire family continues to be involved in the business today, having just renewed the lease with the park in 2017.