Our Story ✨

We’re brothers — Shelby and Jaymie — and we started The Mountaintop to showcase a better way of living.

Because we were tired of living in broken systems.

Go to school, get into debt, get a job to pay for it and the house you hardly spend time in because you’re too busy working.

Grocery stores filled with fake food. Real food doused in poison.

People getting sick at a faster rate. Huge increases in diseases that didn’t even exist before.

Mental health at an all-time low. Depression doubling every generation.

More connected through our phones than ever before… yet so disconnected from what’s real.

I saw it coming when I was 13 years old. I wrote down my dream to live in the forest, grow my own food, and spend my time with animals or walking through an orchard, pondering the questions of life and self.

The Real World Hit 💥

Then the real world hit. Get that job. Pay those bills.

Try to keep up but you feel like you don't have enough time. Try to get ahead so you can catch a break and take a breather, but feel like you don't have enough money.

We felt stuck, and it took its toll.

Shelby was crushed by crippling anxiety from high stress, working long days, partying too hard, and eating cheesecake for every other meal.

He thought a doctor and a pill would fix it. That was his awakening.

Depression, complex PTSD, gut health issues — you name it, I had it. I had perfect health all my life, and all of a sudden it hit me.

Deciding To Do Better 🌱

We tried everything. We sold our house and spent over $100k on health bills between us.

We had to let go of our old lives, leaving behind partying and old friends with bad habits.

And we realized how difficult the new lifestyle was.

For every 10 things we tried, maybe 1 worked.

It was the simple things. The age-old traditions.

Some of which led us back to our Indigenous roots.

Time in nature. Sweat lodge. Eating real food. Exercising. Sauna. Cold plunge. Breathwork.

Actually relaxing for once. Reading books. Learning about ourselves. Connecting with our spirit.

Connecting with others who were like-minded.

Piece by piece, we realigned ourselves with what we loved.

We saw our friends going through it too. Some weren’t so lucky and went too far down the wrong path.

The Dream 🌄

So instead of sitting around and complaining about all the things we thought were wrong with the world, we did something about it.

We figured the best way was to buy land, start from scratch, and build a new way of living — a way where the lives we wanted were baked into our environment.

We dreamed of creating a place so powerful it could reignite the spark in people — their will to live, their mindset, their health, their energy.

Give them the space they need to reinvent themselves and get aligned with what they want in life.

A place where you can be held by the land and community, where body, mind, and spirit are revived.

We didn’t have the money (after my business went bankrupt during COVID), but we knew from all those long hours running businesses that we could get it if we built a plan.

We shared our dream, scraped it together, and went for it.

Buying The Mountain 🏔️

We bought undervalued land everyone else thought was unusable. It was all we could afford.

We showed up with a truck and some tools and had no idea what we were doing.

Everyone told us we were crazy.

No toilets. No power. No water. No cell service. No wifi.

First, we built shelter. We lived in tents and bunked inside a shipping container — 51°C in the summer, -30°C in the winter.

We basically lived on baked potatoes that first year.

Then we added solar. Drilled a well. It wasn’t much, but every little upgrade felt like pure luxury.

From First Guests To International Success 🌍

We held our first retreat. Then another. Indigenous drum making and ceremony with our Elders. Breathwork. Women’s circles. Men’s groups.

Guests hugged us with tears of joy, telling us the land was life-changing. That made every hard day worth it.

We hosted workshops with some of the world’s best regenerative land designers. (We couldn’t afford them, so we sold tickets and used the money to bring them here.)

By year three, people were flying in from around the world to attend.

We’ve hosted glamping tents on Airbnb for five years, holding a 4.8-star rating in every category with heartfelt reviews.

From mountaintop proposals to impromptu long-table dinners with guests — this place has created countless memories.

What It Is Today 🌟

Reinvesting everything, finding creative financing, pouring in sweat and faith, and never giving up — we built what you see here today.

Alongside an amazing team of dedicated people.

Luke, our Operations Lead and Founding Partner, sold his home in Saskatchewan, moved across the country, and built a home here for his family.

The ultimate commitment to line up one’s actions with one’s beliefs.

Through it all, we’ve met some of our best friends.

Our Inspiration & Your Invitation 🙌

Each year we host Friends Weekend. It started with 7 of us in the forest with no clue.

This year, it was 60 people — some people flying in from three different countries because it's that meaningful for all of us.

We ate food from the land, sat in ceremony, shared stories and had deep conversations, hit the sauna, laughed until it hurt, cried if we needed to, and laid under mountaintop stars dreaming together.

That’s our inspiration: to make your stay here as magical as that weekend. To care for you in the same way.

To have you return, walk the orchards and notice how the trees have grown. To see each other like old friends.

We may never be “done” building. Whether it’s planting trees, digging ponds, or raising unique new spaces like treehouses, there’s always more.

But that’s what makes it special, is being a part of the journey.

Keep It Sacred 🕊️

This isn’t just a place to rent. It’s our home. A space sacred to many.

It’s home to our animals and four-legged guardians.

It’s built with every ounce of life force we could muster.

So we invite you here and ask you to preserve that energy.

Things won’t be perfect — we’re off-grid.

If you’re looking for a five-star hotel with white-glove service, this isn’t it.

But if you’re ready to feel nature and accept her lessons — rain or shine, bugs or wind — and see what our great adventure is about…

We’ll see you soon.

Much love,

Jaymie

P.S. My 13 year old self would be proud. We did it.