FIVE DAYS · ONE TEAM · CHANNEL ROCK, CORTES ISLAND, BCYour team is capable of more than its roles allow.
A five-day wilderness program for leadership teams and boards. On a remote stretch of the BC coast, people step out of the parts they’ve been playing — and come home seeing each other, and what they can carry together, in a new light.
Why teams comeMost teams know each other by their job descriptions.
Over years, a team settles into a story about itself — who leads, who worries, who fixes, who stays quiet. The story is efficient. It is also small. On the coast, that story stops working: the tide doesn’t read titles. What replaces it is the reason teams come.
Narrative consolidationPeople are seen anew
Shared difficulty rewrites the story a team tells about itself. Colleagues see capacities in each other that the office never asked for — and the new story travels home.
Role redistributionLeadership moves around
On the water and the land, the person who knows what to do changes hour by hour. Senior people practise following. Others discover they can lead. The team finds capability it had been leaving on the table.
Restoration & aweCapacity comes back
Days of real challenge, without screens, in a place that dwarfs everyone equally. Attention, steadiness and generosity return — the raw material of every hard decision a board makes.
“[Pilot attendee testimonial — the moment they saw a colleague differently.]”
[Name] · [Role], Restore Human01The five daysThe wilderness is the medium. Your team is the subject.
Every day is designed around one question: what is this group capable of, together, that it doesn’t yet know about? Wilderness skills are how we get there — not the point.
Sunday eveningArrive by water
The water taxi drops you on the rock. Phones go quiet. Dinner is cooked for you.
Days 1–2Learn the ground
Tides, weather, boats, fire, first aid. Everyone starts as a beginner — which is the first thing that changes a team.
Day 3Hand over the lead
Roles rotate deliberately. New voices set direction; familiar ones learn to back them.
Day 4Take it on together
A shared challenge sized to stretch the whole group — and only possible if everyone is used well.
Day 5Carry it home
The team names what it learned about itself, and decides what it will do differently on Monday.
02Proven on ourselvesWe ran it with our own team first.
In September 2026, the coaching team of Restore Human — a ten-year-old movement practice with studios in Vancouver and Victoria — spent five days at Channel Rock. This is what it looked like.
“[Testimonial on seeing a teammate in a new role.]”
[Name], [Role]“[Testimonial on what the team took on together.]”
[Name], [Role]“[Testimonial on what changed back at work.]”
[Name], [Role]03The placeWild days. Comfortable nights.
You don’t need to be a hardcore outdoorsperson. No tents on wet ground, no dehydrated dinners. Channel Rock — a boat-access property on Cortes Island, on Klahoose territory, once home to the writer Gilean Douglas and stewarded since by the Pinchot family — gives us real cabins, real beds and good food. The challenge is in the experience, not the endurance.
Lodging — multiple cabins, real beds
Food — a dedicated chef, every meal
Getting there — ferry, then private water taxi
Experience needed — none
04The evidenceDesigned, not hoped for.
Every day is built around eight mechanisms from the research on teams, stress and the natural world.
Co-regulation · Role redistribution · Eustress · Parallel communication · Environmental awe · Neuroplasticity · Attention restoration · Narrative consolidation
Experiences of awe make people more generous and more cooperative.
Piff et al., 2015 · Journal of Personality & Social PsychologyLeaders who show humility build more engaged, better-performing teams.
Owens et al., 2013 · Organization ScienceTransformative multi-day shared experiences leave lasting increases in generosity toward others.
Yudkin et al., 2022 · Nature Communications05PreparationThe work starts months before the boat.
Each participant gets four one-on-one sessions with a Restore Human coach, at our Vancouver or Victoria studios or with a partner coach near where they live. We see where each person is starting from and give them a plan, so the week can be about the team rather than anyone’s fitness.
The four sessions are included. Anyone who wants to keep training with their coach afterwards can arrange that directly, at their own cost.
2027 seasonOne team at a time. A handful of weeks a year.
This work doesn’t scale, and we don’t try to make it. Each program is built around a single team, with the whole island to itself.
Group size — up to 12 people
Facilitation — two facilitators for every six
Format — Sunday evening arrival, Monday–FridayIncluded — lodging, meals, water transport, gear, safety cover
Before & after — [pre-program interviews · follow-up session]
Included — lodging, meals, water transport, gear, safety cover
2027 weeks · provisionalMay 24–28 · June 21–25 · August 17–21 · September 13–17
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