Starting in 1929, the lodge site was a base for a mineral exploration company, the Dominion Explorers. Their buildings were later purchased by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and a trading post was established in the mid 1930s. Oblate missionaries built the small mission church at the trading post in 1935-36.
The Bathurst location was on the route of coastal patrols from Cambridge Bay by RCMP constable Glenn Warner. When Glenn and wife Trish heard that the church was to be decommissioned and abandoned, they petitioned to purchase the building from the church as a private retreat, in the 1960s. With partners Fred H. Ross and Lyle Hawkins, they also bought the trading post, and transformed this historic site into a lodge offering natural history tours.