Victoria company creates community through sharing outdoor gear

If there’s one well-known aspect of Island culture, it’s that people here love to get outside. A lot.

But some activities come with the need for expensive or specific gear that doesn’t get used frequently, like a once-a-year surfing trip to Tofino.

If you don’t want to drop hundreds of dollars on a new wetsuit or snowboard, a new Victoria website is geared to create a community of sharing among outdoor enthusiasts. Meerkat, founded by Rod Mackinnon and Matthew Haniak, launched earlier this month and has been in development since November—but really, it’s been years in the making.

The duo have been buddies since high school in their hometown of Montreal. Mackinnon moved to Victoria over two years ago to access the Island’s nature. Haniak frequently comes out to visit so the two can explore BC.

Mackinnon didn’t have a lot of disposable income when he arrived in Victoria, making it challenging to get the gear he needed to explore. When Haniak would visit, they would need double the equipment.

They knew it was a problem many people deal with when looking to get outside, especially when entertaining visitors. The two had always wanted to create a project that would encourage sustainability and help people lower their carbon footprint. The idea for Meerkat was born.

“This kind of arose out of a need for ourselves, and we saw that it could have kind of the climate mission as well,” Mackinnon said.

Creating community with outdoor enthusiasts

The name Meerkat was inspired by the animal, known to share duties among their small packs.

“We kind of just one day Googled animals that share,” Haniak said. “The first thing that came up was that meerkats share amongst themselves. They’ll have one who's in charge of getting the food and sharing with the other ones.”

This sense of communal borrowing was what Mackinnon and Haniak wanted to capture with their company.

There’s no exchange of cash for lending or sharing on Meerkat; instead, people receive credits every time they lend an item, which can then be used to borrow other users' items.

“We're trying to avoid people, for instance, going to the store to buy something new that they're only going to use once a year, if even again,” Mackinnon said. “So we still want to keep a little bit of that friendly community, casual nature that comes with borrowing and lending with a friend.

“It's not a rental marketplace, because it's really more that you lend out of the goodness of your heart to support someone and give them the opportunity to adventure, have an experience, create a memory.”

Meerkat is an invite-only members club, which Mackinnon and Haniak say adds a level of trustworthiness and security to the platform—everyone has essentially been vetted by members or by Mackinnon and Haniak.

The duo plans to give out invitations at events or while they’re walking around town. They’ll also share these invite opportunities on their Instagram, so those interested in becoming members will know when to meet them. There’s a waitlist on the website that’s available for anyone to join. The two also plan to launch an app sometime in the next year.

For now, Meerkat is solely for the Greater Victoria region. But Mackinnon says they hope to see their project grow throughout the Island and, maybe one day, the rest of Canada.

“As we start, we want to focus on the local community and be more narrow and deep. [We want] to make sure that we have a strong presence here in Victoria,” Mackinnon said.

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Correction: An earlier version of this story said the app was available. It has not launched yet; gear sharing is done through the website.