Local baker Rebecca Kameika dreams of opening a tapas, wine and dessert bar in town. Joe Osterling wants to promote sustainable tourism with outdoor expeditions across Southeast Alaska.

Now they’re both one step closer to realizing their goals, as recently named finalists for a regional business award.

Kameika owns Costa Brava Bakery & Patisserie, a sweets-selling side gig she started in 2020 that has become the borough’s biggest wedding-cake supplier. Osterling runs local tour operator SEAK Expeditions, which offers a slate of skills-based sea kayaking, packrafting and hiking trips in northern Southeast Alaska, from Chichagof Island to the Alsek River. The two businesses are among 12 tourism-related companies in the region named as finalists for Spruce Root’s 2022 Path to Prosperity award.

“I applied hopefully to win the $25,000, but also I would like to brainstorm with other people about my ideas,” Kameika said. “Not just my friends, but other business owners, people in related field(s) and with more experience — experience outside of Haines.”

Early next month Kameika and Osterling will join the other finalists for a business “boot camp” in Juneau to receive one-on-one coaching and advice for crafting business plans, which finalists will submit to judges in December. The 2022 award is only for tourism-related businesses, “in an effort to promote sustainable and regenerative tourism in our region,” according to a Spruce Root overview of the program.

Osterling, a carpenter and sea kayaker who moved to the upper Lynn Canal more than a decade ago and started SEAK Expeditions in 2017, said Path to Prosperity’s sustainable tourism focus aligns with his plan to partner with communities that are interested in developing small-scale tourism industries but lack resources like trained guides.

“We have this partnership that we’re working on with Kootznoowoo Inc. over in Angoon — to bring some guide training into the community of Angoon. That fit really well with what Path to Prosperity was all about, this whole regenerative tourism idea,” Osterling said.

Through the Kootznoowoo partnership, SEAK Expeditions led a packrafting trip this summer across Admiralty Island with local children who had never packrafted before or done the cross-Admiralty trail, Osterling said. He added that his goal is to run more expeditions next year in partnership with Kootznoowoo and to see if other communities want to develop similar small-scale tourism models. They could “dictate” what their local model looks like, Osterling said.

Regarding the award, Osterling said $25,000 would help, but “I think it is more than the money.” He looks forward to “building a business plan and having somebody look at that and evaluate it” as well as the opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs and gain exposure to fresh perspectives.

Kameika said she would use the award to help fund a kitchen and start her restaurant. “It’s very expensive to build a kitchen,” she said, adding that it’s $40,000 just for a frying hood.

“My idea that I’d love to do … is wine, tapas and dessert, which I think would just be so fun and different. My mother is from Cuba, so I grew up eating a lot of Cuban and Spanish food,” Kameika said.

In addition to the start-up costs, Kameika said a concern is the limited foot traffic in Haines — something that has made it hard for restaurants to stay open year-round.

But Kameika said she loves the community, where she settled in 2019 after quitting her job in Atlanta and road-tripping north. And Costa Brava has taken off in the last two years.

Kameika said she’s finally generating income from the business, having designed and baked 14 wedding cakes this summer, up from six last year. Her original plan was to sell baked goods at the farmer’s market but, she said, “I have not sold at a single farmer’s market this year just because I’m too busy to do that.”

Earlier in the summer Costa Brava won a $5,000 grant to work on branding. When Kameika isn’t baking, she works full-time remotely for a marketing agency. She’s hoping Path to Prosperity and the connections she makes through the process will enable her to spend more time realizing her culinary dream.

Other finalists for this year’s award include a vintage photo and costume rental business in Skagway, a medicinal mushroom farm in Juneau and scooter rental outfit in Wrangell. Awardees will be announced in February.

Four Haines businesses have won the award since the first competition in 2012: Port Chilkoot Distillery and Fairweather Ski Works in 2014; Mud Bay Lumber in 2018; and Foundroot in 2019. Two Haines businesses, Adventure Harvest and Spruce & Birch Acres, were finalists for last year’s award but neither ended up winning.

Over eight years, more than 300 businesses and start-ups across Southeast have applied for the award, and 19 have won a total of $610,000. Last year’s winners were an immersive cultural tour company and retail crafts shop in Kasaan and a Ketchikan-based startup that does maritime excursions for disabled people.