The Turkey Diaries: Why Are We Doing This?

Trying to win at the internet, one camera at a time. Photo: Melanie Martin.

There is a practical reason for The Turkey Diaries, and we may as well let the cat out of the bag.

It's because of a little friend we all know intimately.

Google.

More specifically, it's our latest attempt to convince Google that The Wild Turkey Inn is a real and interesting place where people might actually want to stay.

Apparently, one of the ways to do this is to "regularly add useful, original content to your website." It turns out that writing one website in 2019, occasionally changing a few photos, and then expecting the internet to simply know that you run a charming little heritage inn in Rossland is not a particularly sophisticated digital marketing strategy.

Who knew?

So here we are.

We have also recently embraced dynamic pricing, which means we've handed over yet another small piece of our decision-making to an algorithm. Apparently this is what modern innkeeping looks like.

We are not aspiring influencers. We don't particularly want internet fame. Neither of us has any desire to start saying things like link in bio, jumping in place and having our background change, or holding tiny microphones while we tell you where to get the best coffee in Rossland. And I sincerely hope no one ever asks Mike to film himself pointing at words appearing above his head.

We are simply two Gen X-ers trying to win, or at least achieve a respectable draw, at the internet.

The goal is fairly straightforward: we'd love more people to discover The Wild Turkey Inn, particularly outside the very busy ski season. If that means I spend some of my summer holidays writing stories for Google, so be it.

And if, somewhere down the road, enough lovely travellers find us that Mike can spend a little less time doing hard physical labour as a carpenter, even better. Mike turned 60 this past June, and so far it appears to be permanent.

Anyway, that's the business reason.

But it's not the whole reason.

Because once we started thinking about what we could actually write about, we realized we've accumulated a surprising number of stories.

We've lived in this strange old house for years now. We've learned bits and pieces of its history. We've met descendants of people who lived here more than a century ago. We've hosted skiers, artists, musicians, conference speakers, workshop leaders, families, dogs, birthday parties, dinners and gatherings. We even held a crib tournament as part of a stag and doe, which was such a roaring success that it may become a regular feature. Next spring, we're hosting our first wedding.

The inaugural Wild Turkey crib tournament. It got competitive.

We've watched Rossland change and not change. We've travelled quite a bit ourselves and developed fairly strong opinions about what makes a place memorable.

There are also the stories of this little corner of British Columbia: mining and mountains, old buildings, local characters, artists, trails, restaurants, huckleberries, snowstorms, smoky summers, gardens, dogs, and whatever else catches our attention.

So The Turkey Diaries will probably be a bit all over the place.

Which feels appropriate.

For the next couple of weeks, you'll mostly be hearing from me because I'm a teacher and am still clinging to the final days of summer holidays.

After that, entries may become somewhat less predictable.

You may also, on occasion, have the incredible privilege of reading Mike's thoughts. He is officially co-author of The Turkey Diaries, whether he fully appreciates the implications of that title yet or not.

We don't intend for this to become a stream of articles telling you the Ten Best Things to Do in Rossland or repeatedly explaining why you should book a room with us.

There may occasionally be a useful list. Google does seem terribly fond of lists.

And you should book a room with us.

Mostly, we'd like this to be a place for stories about the Turkey, Rossland, the Kootenays, travelling, people, places and the various things we find interesting enough to tell someone else about.

And yes, perhaps Google will notice.

Perhaps more travellers will find us.

Perhaps Mike will someday get to retire one of his tool belts.

We're keeping our expectations reasonable.