Marine Link Tours and the M.V. Aurora Explorer celebrated 30 years of business on June 3, capping it off with a donation of $2,500 to the Discovery Passage Aquarium.
"Marine Link Tours actually started as the brainchild of my ex-partner, Al Meadows," says Guy Adams, the owner, during a speech on the Aurora's deck. "We went hunting for this boat (M.V.
Aurora Explorer) and found it in Fort McMurray. Al cut a deal with the present-time owner at the time and the owner delivered it to us in British Columbia and we operated it from 1993/94 on tours but we actually started moving freight in 1991 when we got it." Adams says Meadows first approached Adams and another partner, Tim Campbell, about getting into the passenger business in 1991.
They both replied by asking Meadows if he was "nuts." Meadows, as Adams puts it, dragged them into the tourism industry. After the first year as a passenger business, which they sold out in "record time" in 1994, Meadows gathered his two partners again and said they needed to raise the rates.
Again, Adams and Campbell asked if he was "crazy" and said the rates were already too high. The rates were raised and they sold out their tours once again. This happened during the next season.
By the third season, when Meadows gathered them again, they told him "just to go ahead and raise the rates". "So, that was the inception of Marine Link Tours. It was Meadows' brainchild, Tim Campbell and I were along for the ride and it's been a pretty good ride," says A.
