Great River Journey has been granted more time to prepare a restructuring proposal to avoid bankruptcy.

Yukon Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower granted the 45-day extension Monday.

The high-end tourism operation was heralded into business at a plush gala event back in February 2007. There were promises of a solid gold economic plan, with extensive involvement and investment by both the private sector and four Yukon River First Nations.

Great River Journey was to introduce a new and elite level of wilderness tourism to the Yukon.

Before its fall into dire straits, for instance, for 2010 it was offering Yukon River excursions of five days and four nights for $5,500 US, or seven days and six nights for $6,500.

But this winter, company president George Asquith announced the company was drowning in debt, and needed additional government and private investment to pull through.

It never came.

In an interview outside the courtroom Monday, Asquith said Great River Journey stopped taking bookings in January for 2010, and has returned the 60 or so deposits it had received by then.

"We are now focused on relaunching this thing for 2011,” he said. "That is what we are focused on now.”

Asquith said they need to raise $2.5 million in new investment to make their proposal fly.

If you asked the scores of local businesses who are owed money, they're more interested in seeing the company pull through than banging down the door to collect, he said.

Back in February when the Whitehorse Star first revealed the Great River Journey's dire straits, Asquith explained scheduling delays in construction hurt the project initially. The worldwide economic crash, he insisted, crippled it.

Even the more affluent traveller tends to reign in expenditures in times of uncertainty, Asquith said back then.

The company president said yesterday he and others who've invested remain convinced the business model is viable, and would have proved so initially but for the crash in the economy.

On April 30, Great River Journey filed its notice of intention to prepare a financial proposal for its creditors to save the company and avoid bankruptcy.

Under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the company had 30 days from the end of April to put the plan together and sell it to creditors. In a sworn statement filed with the court Friday, Great River Journey indicated it needed more time, but there was hope.

"The debtor has been pursuing the involvement of an investor or group of investors to enable a proposal to be prepared and filed,” reads the statement sworn by George Abakhan, a licensed trustee under the bankruptcy act who was hired by Great River to oversee the restructuring efforts. "The trustee expects that the proposal will focus on the involvement of investors who have interest in the underlying assets and the existing business undertaking.”

In his affidavit, Asquith said he just hasn't had enough time to secure the additional investment.

"However, substantial progress has been made towards that objective,” says his sworn statement.

Whitehorse lawyer Grant Macdonald told the judge Monday that if his client was not given the 45-day extension to put together a proposal, the company would enter bankruptcy. Entering bankruptcy, he said, would mean all assets – three new swanky river lodges and accompanying guest cabins, fancy river boats at $250,000 a piece, etc – would be swallowed up by the secured creditors. Macdonald said there would be nothing for the 76 unsecured creditors.

"So in my submission, it would be appropriate if the extension was granted,” he told Justice Gower.

Court documents indicate the outstanding debt equals $10.4 million, of which $9 million is owed to the three secured creditors: $2.75 million owed to the Business Development Bank of Canada; $5.13 million owed to the group of private investors under the name of Great Northern Journey, which includes $800,000 owed to Asquith personally; and $1.12 million to the four First Nations who invested – the Kwanlin Dun First Nation of Whitehorse, the Ta'an Kwach'an Council of Lake Laberge, the Selkirk First Nation of Pelly Crossing, and the Tr'ondek Hwech'in Han First Nation of Dawson City.

In addition to the money Asquith is owed as a secured creditor, he is also owed another $193,373 as an unsecured investor.

The list of money owed to the 76 unsecured creditors ranges from the $712,000 owed to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, down to $136 for Yukon Explosives.

The Tr'ondek Hwech'in's MacKenzie Petroleum, for instance, is owed $19,504, and Yukon Quest veteran Frank Turner and his Muktuk Kennels is owed $525.

When Asquith called out for a life line this winter, it included a request for further financial assistance from the Yukon government, which has already granted $500,000-plus under its small business development program. It also asked that the Business Development Bank write off a significant portion of its loan.

When Asquith was asked yesterday if a restructuring proposal would still require a write-down of the $2.75 million federal loan, all he would say is that a successful plan would require the involvement of the Business Development Bank.