An extieror street view of Skwachways Lodge in Vancouver
Craig Minielly—Aura Photographics

Skwachàys Lodge

Vancouver, Canada

Although Canada’s indigenous population has exploded over the past decade, its cultural contributions are often overlooked. Not so at Skwachàys Lodge, a boutique hotel—featuring 18 guest rooms and a rooftop sweat lodge—that provides affordable housing to 24 First Nations artists, who work and live on-site. The result is a facility that immerses guests in Native art—they can take classes on beading, tribal art and spoken-word poetry—and also empowers the people who create it. Skwachàys has already used hotel profits to launch an in-house gallery space; soon, it will start helping indigenous artists sell their crafts online. —Abigail Abrams

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