HER father called it Wild West; she made it into a rainforest resort.

Ms Joanne Jardim is rightly called the pioneer of tourism in Guyana.

She remembers the date as if it were yesterday. May 16, 1980 it was when, with the help of her husband, Max, she began the task of fulfilling her father’s dream to make something out of the beauty of Guyana that he felt so much passion for.

On that day, Max and Joanne, went through the trail of the jungle of the 98-acre plot of land that she had inherited from her father.

On that day, she pointed up the hill and told Max: “That’s Wild West”. Wild West was the name her father had given to the plot.

Today, `Wild West’ is the Shanklands Rainforest Resort in the Essequibo River, named after her father.

Ms. Jardim, now 70, came to Guyana when she was seven. She was born in Canada, from the union of her father, who is of Scottish parentage and English mother.

Her father went to work in Canada, but could not stay there.

“He loved Guyana, he really did, and he came back, and he died here, he never went back”, Joanne said.

“He loved this country and I think his love for the country is what got me going as a child. When he used to go to the interior (because he was engineer), I used to go with him, because I liked the jungle. He showed me Guyana for what it really is”, she said in a low-pitched voice.

Joanne has gone to Kaieteur overland 13 times!

And so, at an early age, she got a feel of Guyana, and the desire in her to do something finally materialised, thanks to her father.

During her teenage years, word has it that Joanne was one of Guyana’s top models, possessing a deep passion for design and swimming.

At age 19, she returned to Canada where she studied design in textiles.

Three years later, she returned to Guyana and became the head of the Sewing Department of Singer Sewing Machine Company.

It was then that she married Max.

Joanne’s father bought the piece of land that is now the Shanklands Rainforest Resort.

He died before he could transform the raw jungle that it was then, into what Joanne has made it today.

With her kids overseas on study, Joanne was bored at home. She told Max she would go out and get a job. He went against that, suggesting that she do something with her father’s land in the Essequibo.

“Yeah!” Joanne lightened up, “what an idea!”

Then came the May 16, 1980 trip and a rainforest resort was soon on its way.

At first, Joanne and Max would make weekend trips to clear the jungle. But the weekend trips became too short for her. Max would therefore return to Georgetown and Joanne would stay up on the hill, all by herself. And with her dog.

Soon, persons from the river started to notice Joanne and came to ask for work.

Those whom she employed were strictly told not to cut anything unless she had marked it, because she was very particular about what trees she wanted to remain and what not.

When her workers were gone, it was Joanne and her dog all over again.

“All by myself in the bush,” she remembered.

And that’s when people started calling her “the mad white woman on the hill”!

“They thought I was crazy. You know, me alone on top of this hill, under a piece of tarpaulin, in a hammock. I sometimes thought I was crazy” she laughed.

One Christmas, her present was a chainsaw, wrapped by a beautiful red bow!

Max taught her how to do it, and when she got up to Shanklands, Joanne remembered creating quite a storm.

A “white” woman in her fifties, in Guyana, working a chainsaw in a jungle? Who wouldn’t get hysterical with laughter?

Making a paradise in the rainforest

Reminiscing, Joanne brought to life precious memories she had in creating the resort.

“We used to have such a good time. We used to sit and cook big pots of cook-up!” she recalled.

“What are you doing, Mrs. Jardim, really, what are you doing here,” the guys would ask her.

“I’m making a paradise in the rainforest,” she would tell them.

“It sounds good, but I don’t know that its going to happen,” Joanne remembers one old man saying.

Joanne persevered to live out her father’s dream and even learned to make charcoal to sell so she could pay the workmen she hired.

Today, the Shanklands Rainforest Resort invites visitors to “come and enjoy the power of the natural world”.

The tropical getaway, it is set among sprawling well-kept lawns, punctuated by beautiful gingerbread cottages, named after indigenous wildlife.

The resort teems with wildlife, with sightings of over 210 species of birds, seven out of the eight primates, spectacled caimans that “walk down the road”, “Charlie” the big old alligator, and a host of others.

“Our jungle has lots of animals. I can hear them at night and smell them when I’m walking,” Joanne said.

The drive behind it all for Joanne was creating something in Guyana for Guyanese to go and relax and for them to see what they could do in their own country.

“What I really want is for young people of Guyana to appreciate what we have. Our country has it. Tourism to me showcases your country. We have wonderful people in our country. We are very hospitable. We are pleasant. We like meeting people. Our young people need to know that people are coming to our country and enjoying it. I want for our people to realise that we have something, we do have something - we have a beautiful country”, Joanne stressed. .

Lifetime achievement
For her pioneering work in tourism in Guyana, Joanne received the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO)’s lifetime achievement award for Guyana, in celebration of the CTO’s 50th Anniversary.

The awards ceremony was held recently at the grand Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, USA.

The occasion was special and Joanne had every reason to savour the moment.

“I never thought I would get something like this in recognition of what I did and it means an awful lot to me”, she said.

“The most important thing about it was that I was representing my country. I was not representing Shanklands, I was representing Guyana. And anybody who has the chance to represent their country, must know it’s a great honour,” she told the Chronicle after she received her award and returned to her homeland.

“I love Guyana. I believe in it. It was the first opportunity I had in my life to represent my country and it was just wonderful. I was overwhelmed”, she added.

“When it was time for Guyana and I heard ‘Guyana’, tears came to my eyes, I had to be very careful not to start crying to make my make-up run,” she recalled.

“It was just wonderful to step out there. I had the sash of Guyana on me and the military man (a member of the Barbadian Royal Police) walking with the flag next to me, it was just unbelievable, it really was. When I saw all these countries and their guests and their Prime ministers and their ministers there, and they are all looking at Guyana, I thought, ‘these people are now going to realise that Guyana has something’. We are on the map, you know, we are there!” Joanne said.

Joanne would love to see more visitors to the Shanklands Resort and has a five-year plan to build four more rooms, a dining room, a huge hall for weddings and conferences, and more.

For Joanne, the CTO 50th Anniversary award has given her added zeal to go on, for she is by no means done.