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Indian millionaire transforms Canadian dead town
Indian origin millionaire Krishnan Suthanthiran who purchased Kitsault, a dead mining town, is transforming it into an eco-touism centre.
Indian origin millionaire Krishnan Suthanthiran has just purchased a Canadian movie-making company. But it is not just another acquisition.
His plan is to let the world know through a documentary perhaps that a dead mining town - which he bought for $5.7 million last year - is going to rise like the phoenix to become a prized eco-tourism destination in Canada.
Heli-skiing, spa, fly-fishing, an artist colony, a conference spot, hiking, you name it and the town of Kitsault would have it all.
In May this year, Councillors of the small town of Terrace, British Columbia, were informed that Suthanthiram was well on his way to making a dream destination out of the nearby place that was abandoned 22 years ago.
The founder and CEO of Best Medical, a Virginia, US-based company - who has now acquired the Vancouver, British Columbia-based ATV Productions - had purchased Kitsault late last year.
Students at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) are excited to have connected with Suthanthiran to survey the possibilities of converting his acquisition into an eco-resort; and this July 26, ATV Productions announced it was bought out by the millionaire in a "strategic partnership" that would allow the company to showcase Kitsault and other tourist destinations in Canada.
Local paper Terrace Standard has said that Indian Nisga'a tribe leaders felt positive about working with Suthanthiran to build back Kitsault.
Nisga'a Lisims government president Nelson Leeson said: "He recognizes the opportunity that's afforded by us working together. ...He'd like to see us play a real pivotal role in opening up the area so the whole northwest benefits..."
Suthanthiran's plans for building a resort with heli-skiing, fly fishing and eco-tourism, Leeson said, mirrored the tribe's ideas.
"It's along the same lines as what we have planned," Leeson said. "Together we can really make this thing fly if we enter into the potential partnerships. ...He's an East Indian fellow...you know how Indians think alike," he joked.
The scenically beautiful Kitsault is about 500 miles northwest of Vancouver, with towering hills, lush valleys, a coastline, and numerous single family homes, apartment buildings, restaurants, a community pool, all waiting eerily to be inhabited.
A doer rather than a talker, Suthanthiran, who left India when he was 15, first landed in Canada, got his engineering degree from Carleton University where his alumni donations and a scholarship help out, bought the town in what many see as his way to give back to the country that taught him at some stage in his life.
After months of being written up in Canadian media, the Washington Post, Suthanthiran's neighbourhood paper, has run a big piece on local businessman recognising his simple lifestyle and frugal habits and noting his spate of acquisitions, the most colourful of all, being the purchase of Kitsault.
