Our Owners
Cindy Bank
Cynthia (Cindy) R. Bank worked at a hospital as a respiratory therapist practitioner. Cindy was a graduate of the Michener Institute in Toronto, Ontario, and completed her post graduate courses at Waterloo University. During this time, she established and managed the respiratory therapy departments in two Ontario hospitals, prior to developing cardiopulmonary services in the home care field. Her main purpose was to visit clients that are physically unable to travel to their physician, which took her to the rural areas of Ontario. Following this, she officially retired and moved into their sailboat “Niska” full time, along with her husband, Heiko. Together, they sailed the Great Lakes for 10 years.
The couple was always fascinated with Newfoundland, and decided to move here in 2007, after falling in love with the Twillingate area. They also brought their sailboat with them. Cindy was in Twillingate approximately 2 hours before purchasing her dream home on the ocean in Purcell’s Harbour. The next day, she purchased what was to become Rum Runners Roost. They began their retirement career in the tourism industry, where they specialized in nutritional health.
After settling for a few months, and greatly missing her canine companions, the couple decided to adopt three dogs from the Gander SPCA. All three dogs had a history of abuse, which began the emotional and physical rehabilitation of their new family members. Cindy makes all of the dogs’ food from scratch. The recipe was developed by her veterinarian Dr. Stephen Choles, at Guelph University in Ontario. The dogs are completely rehabilitated and have made wonderful companions to Cindy and Heiko. One of their three dogs, Sam, returned the favor to Cindy when she fell into a bog, and pulled her out.