Here at Coast Mountain, no one is more integral to our business than Cedar and Luna. Without them, the experience just wouldn’t be the same.
Cedar is a full-time resident of the lodge on Read Island and acts as the official welcoming committee for all multi-day guests. He’s a true local, born and raised on Read Island – his mother actually belongs to our cook Shawnai, and Ralph and Lannie have had him since he was a pup. His gorgeous golden coat gives away the fact that he’s mostly Golden Retriever, but his father was actually half Bernese Mountain Dog, which explains why he’s the size of a small pony.
But Cedar is a gentle giant. In the summer you’ll most often find him sunning himself on the deck amongst the flowers, escaping the heat in his cave he dug just outside the lodge, or trotting around collecting pats and compliments from every single person in sight. If you can’t find him, then just start making egg salad – within a minute, he’ll peek around the kitchen doorway, hoping for his favourite treat of boiled eggs.
Despite living on a small island, Cedar is a very sociable dog. When he was younger, he used to run off across the island to visit the neighbours’ dogs, but with wolves roaming the area those journeys are discouraged. Luckily, he’s visited regularly by his best friend in the world, Luna.
In contrast to Cedar’s gentle nature, Luna is an absolute firecracker. If she’s on Read Island when you arrive, you’ll first meet her when she hurtles down to the dock to greet you with enough energy to power several houses. Otherwise, she hangs out at Discovery Islands Lodge over on Quadra Island with her humans Kate and Albert. (She essentially owns the place, and acts accordingly.)
Luna joined the family back in 2015 via the BCSPCA, when Kate and Albert saw her online and just knew she was the one, so drove six hours through a snowstorm from their winter home of Nelson to pick her up in Vernon. She now fits into their lifestyle perfectly, spending her winters as a powder hound in the Kootenays and her summers fully embracing the island lifestyle. She’s a real water dog and seems to be in and out of the ocean constantly, regardless of the weather. She loves stand-up paddle boarding, either with a willing human or drifting by herself, and she’s even happy to jump in a kayak and be paddled around. You don’t often find her laying down doing nothing – she’s constantly up and about, watching for squirrels or minks, goading Cedar into play-fighting, and generally patrolling her domain.
While we know Cedar’s whole family tree, Luna is a bit more of an enigma. From the beginning, staff and guests have tried to guess her heritage, suggesting breeds like Bernese Mountain Dog, Newfoundland and Dutch Shepherd. Some even wildly predicted that she could be part bear (because of her thick dark coat) or part seal (because of her big eyes and facial expressions). But no one could be sure.
Finally, Kate and Albert sent off to get her DNA tested (yep, that’s a thing you can do) – and the results flabbergasted us. Turns out this magnificent mutt is 25% German Shepherd, 25% Rottweiler, 12.5% Siberian Husky, 12.5% American Staffordshire Terrier, and 25% unknown – so she’s still keeping a bit of the mystery for herself!
Truth is, it doesn’t matter what breeds Luna or Cedar are. These big-hearted dogs are such a central part of our lives and we love them so unconditionally that in our minds, they’re the employees of the month every single month of the year.
Written by: Lauren Fuge
