Fernie is a Dream Town

When I decided shortly after college to quit my new job in New York City, it was for just one more full season of skiing. Ingrained in my head was a clip from an old Greg Stump movie, of deep, deep powder, filmed in Fernie, BC. To make my one season worth it, I flew to Colorado and promptly hitched a ride north with a fellow skier I didn’t know.

A thousand miles later, we pulled into a little town where snowbanks hid the buildings and stop signs had to be dug out. I bought a season pass at the end of my first day skiing. The fact that I didn’t know anyone in town, have a place to live, a car, and couldn’t work in Canada didn’t even register. Fernie seemed like the kind of place where one could work that stuff out later.

Incidentally, this little valley got the most snow in North America that season. And I could blame Fernie for the fact the fact that ‘one more year of skiing’ has stretched to a decade. But what I really should do is thank it.

Why?

Fernie draws people for a few reasons, foremost among these being the snowfall. Relentless storms, coupled with stellar inbounds, side and backcountry terrain in the Lizard Range are Fernie’s stand-out assets. Fernie has a terrain park, but the focus here is on big mountain. Still a bit off the radar, mellow, ripping locals abound, and attitude is best left in other ski towns. The sense of community in Fernie is strong, although there is a transient element, many skiers who grew up here stay, as well as those who arrived in search of powder.

Yet, for a lot of long-time Fernie denizens, summer beats winter. Fishing, beautiful weather, mountain and dirt biking, kayaking, bbqs, and hiking keep people busy, and draw a big crowd for whom summer sports are tops. Fernie-based pro telemarker Martha Burley sums that part up, saying,“In the end this makes more people want to move here for the winters because there is so much powder still and no one to ski it!”

Fernie also holds the Smith Optics Fernie Freeskiing competition and a plethora of other local ski comps.

Jobs

All the usual ski town service industry and construction jobs can be found in Fernie, thanks to a plethora of amenities. Going from seasonal work to any semblance of a career is not easy, but it can be done. The deal in Fernie: the economy still has a reliance on coal-mining. Some locals make a good living mining and then get out and shred hard, but Fernie is steadily growing its tourism economy. The growth has opened plentiful opportunities for entrepreneurs and industrious individuals to open ski and tourism-related businesses. (The mines are booming and are having challenges finding workers)

Housing

With its strong heritage as a coal mining town and year-round population of about 6,000, tidy little homes surround Fernie’s main drags. Historic brick buildings line the streets, and most skiers team up and rent houses; condos or apartments are much less common. Fernie is inevitably getting more expensive as word gets out. Like many ski towns, housing prices have skyrocketed since 2000, yet remain relatively cheap for a ski town at $350,000 on average. The average rental is about $430 a month. Deals can be easily found; check out the rental section in this community site. Or you can hole up at the Raging Elk and go shred every day, you’ll soon have plenty of friends to ask for help first hand.

Partying

Along with big, fat, dumps, one other thing Fernie does not lack for is fun—maybe too fun—locals. A lively crew of international ski bums call Fernie home, and Fernie is a main stop for live music in BC. You can start at the Griz, the place to après at the base area, and the Northern generally wins it for late night fun, but there’s a growing plethora of fun bars and restaurants. For people with their eye on the powder alone, this is a great thing. “There’s a whole clubbing scene now which keeps lots of people off the slopes and on the dance floor,” is Burley’s local take on the revelry.

Eating

Fernie does well on the gastro scale as well with a variety of ethnic eateries, and newcomers like Picnic are pushing the high-end, trendy culinary scene in town. For a small town, it boasts specialties like a chocolate shop, cheese shop, and amazing bakeries. The best beef jerky you’ll ever eat is found at the Fernie Meat Market, one of the two local butcher shops, which will also pack wild game for successful local hunters.

By Brigid Mander
Source: http://www.skinet.com/skiing/

They both deeply care about their respective communities and are relentless in their efforts to make their communities better.

Mayor Mary G, a mom, who raised four kids, has a list as deep as the coal veins of the Elk Valley, of the good that she has done for Fernie as a community activist, volunteer, council member and now mayor. There are not many mayors who have stopped traffic on major highways to do good for their community. In fact Mary G, not only stopped traffic on highway 3, a major transport route from Alberta to BC, in a bid to save services at the local hospital, but she also stopped the flow of water, when an outside company came into Fernie with a proposal to bottle the local mountain fresh water for export. Not only a champion for social causes but a leader who understands the critical need to keep stability between resources, nature, and tourism so people have vital jobs, hunt, ski, fish and enjoy the outdoors.

Just over the Rockies, snugged tight up in the foothills of the Purcell Mountains, on the banks of Mark Creek, lies Kimberley. Kimberley Mayor Ron McRae is reaching to the stars for positive community change. Mayor McRae is a champion of economic development and is looking at all options from light industrial park to a major solar power project called the Sun Mine to move Kimberley forward. Mayor McRae understands the importance of paying tribute to the past and building for the future as he clearly understands the importance of Kimberley’s history and people but also is working hard to bring out the Social Capital of the more recent arrivals, who have moved to Kimberley to enjoy its natural assets. Mayor McRae is gifted with the ability to bring out the best in people and align the community behind positive projects that will make a difference.

Too often all you hear is the negative talk about politicians but in the East Kootenay Region of British Columbia, we are fortunate to have talented leaders who are making a huge difference in their respective community.

Source: http://blogs.vancouversun.com

The bakery will be moving to 641 Second Avenue, the same building that was once home to Fernie Quality Bakery.

Loaf Bakery will be carrying out renovations over the next few months before moving the cafe and store to the new downtown location.

“There have been a lot of rumours flying around about where we might be moving, and we are really excited to have this new, central location – especially as it is the former Fernie Bakery which feels very appropriate,” said owner Phil Gadd.

“Until then, it’s business as usual at our present location but we will keep you updated on our renovations, which are being carried out by the great team of architect Nick Vale of LeBlond Partnership, quantity surveyor and project manager Dorian Medlicott of Medlicott Homes and structural engineer Clark Weber.”

Source: By Angela Treharne – The Free Press

Just what makes a classic ski town? It starts, naturally, with skiing and snowboarding so good they attract people like youth-bestowing fountains. Then add an inviting mountain burg steeped in ski heritage, amenities, and culture. These are the 25 best. For insider tips, we asked local luminaries where to stay, play, and party, whether you’re on a budget or indulging. —Aaron Teasdale

Fernie, British Columbia, Canada

Best For: Adventurous skiers with a hunger for the steep and deep

Though it serves up some of the most spectacular terrain and best snow in all of Canada, this historic mining hamlet of 4,217 people tucked into the far southeastern corner of British Columbia still somehow flies below the greater ski-scene radar. Which isn’t a bad thing—its wide-open alpine bowls, knife ridges, and daredevil chutes are rarely crowded, and fresh tracks can still be found in afternoons on powder days. For many skiers and snowboarders it hits the Canadian sweet spot, with more consistent powder than Whistler and warmer temperatures than Banff.

Similar to its American cousin, Whitefish, a hundred miles to the south, Fernie is a small, funky town with a tiny yet charming downtown. Restaurants are eclectic and unpretentious, the old train station has been converted to an arts center, and ski bums abound. It’s the kind of town where old skis are turned into fences, benches, and coat racks. Thanks to new developments at the base of the hill and in town, lodging options at all price points abound, from hostels to luxury lodges.

Fernie Alpine Resort overlooks the Elk River Valley from 4.5 miles outside town, clinging to the sculpted faces of the Lizard Range. Its five distinct bowls will keep advanced skiers and snowboarders drunk on adrenaline all day, while the new chairlift to the summit of Polar Peak opens up hundred-mile mountain views and 3,497 feet of vertical drop. Diehard powder addicts can head up to the Bear Lodge of Island Lake Catskiing, a few miles past the ski area, for world-class cat skiing.

Ask a Local

Brian Bell came to Fernie in 1993, living in his van, to ski for a winter and never left. He’s been running the Mountain Adventure Skills Training Program at the Fernie Campus of the College of the Rockies for 15 years. Here are his recommendations.

Best Digs

Budget: The Raging Elk Hostel in downtown Fernie

Swank: The Lizard Creek Lodge on the mountain is ski-in, ski-out.

Best Eats

Cheap: Big Bang Bagels—get the “Mr. Fernie” on a whole wheat salty top.

Gourmet: Picnic Restaurant + Social has beautiful ambience and the slow-braised buffalo ribs are fantastic.

Best After-Ski Party Spot

The Griz Bar right at the hill has the best nachos in town and great acoustic après-ski bands. Be sure to ask about the naked table sliding.

Best Rest-Day Activity

Hang out sipping espressos at Bean Pod, the best coffee (and handmade artisan chocolates) most likely in the Western Hemisphere. Then go fondle all the beautiful skis at the local ski shops in historic downtown Fernie.

Fernie’s Classic Ski Run

“Sky Dive nonstop, top to bottom. By far the best fall line on the hill,” says Bell.

READ MORE: http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/trips/best-ski-towns-photos/

Photograph by Ryan Creary, Corbis

The ex boy-band babe and regular Saturday Night Live guest celebrated his 31st birthday at Island Lake Lodge, a backcountry resort specializing in high alpine skiing accessible only by snowmobile.

Employees of the resort were tight-lipped Sunday, offering few details about their high-profile guest, but one snowboard shop owner confirmed that Timberlake had made an impression on shop staff when he came in to buy some ski gear.

“One of our employees had quite the interesting experience,” said Commit Snow & Skate owner Adam Laurin. “It was one of those ‘no way, no way, that’s not him’ moments.”

But staff were a little less than blown away by the Grammy Award winning artist credited with having “brought sexy back.”

“He was smaller than (we) thought. And he was going around with a bit of a beard,” Laurin said.

No word whether Timberlake had any starlets on his arm to help celebrate his birthday, but chefs at the resort where he stayed did prepare a custom birthday cake.

Rumoured to be an avid snowboarder, Timberlake may have sought the mountain town for the plentiful powder, including more than 50 centimetres of fresh snow that fell in the past week.

“He was cat-skiing,” confirmed another Fernie resident and ski shop employee. “They take you up into different areas and drop you off, no chairlift, no tracks, and you get to make clean lines.”

But if Timberlake had hoped to lay low for a few days in the picturesque mountain town, he may not have quite succeeded.

“There was a lot of talk in town. Lots of word of mouth. A lot of people had heard about it or knew about it,” she said.

Source: mpotkins@calgaryherald.com

901 Fernie is a $30 million restoration of a 1908 schoolhouse, located in Fernie’s historic downtown. Parastone transformed the iconic building into condominium residences and vacation rentals complete with a spa and wellness center inside.

The spa space at Spa 901 was designed by spa consultant, Karen Vonkeman and 901 Fernie architects, the LeBlond Partnership, who collaborated on the Solace Spa at the Fairmont Banff Springs. The spa and wellness center is owned and operated by Shelly MacGregor, president of Apex Massage Therapy, who operate two wellness facilities and SpaGoes, a mobile spa in Calgary.

With $2 million in restorations and construction, highlights of Spa 901 include: Fernie’s only infrared saunas, five treatment rooms, a couples fireplace treatment room, co-ed and women-only fireplace relaxation lounges, outdoor hot pool, and men and women’s change rooms. Spa 901 will combine unique and traditional therapies and treatments including therapeutic massage in a variety of styles, aesthetician services and bath soak treatments.

“The restoration of this incredible landmark building is amazing and so well planned,” says Shelly MacGregor, president, Apex Massage Therapy, “We were excited at the opportunity to create a truly unique spa and wellness center in this iconic building and beautiful space.”

With richly appointed reception and dressing areas and beautifully outfitted treatment rooms, every detail of the 6600-square-foot spa says luxury and tradition. The same commitment to quality and design that went into restoration of the 901 Fernie has gone in to creating Spa 901.

“Apex Massage Therapy’s track record and professional approach made them a great choice for 901 Spa,” says Simon Howse, general manager for Parastone, “A spa and wellness facility like this in a mountain resort town like Fernie benefits the local community and helps attract tourists.

Spa 901 will be open to the public in February and access is through the main schoolhouse doors on 2nd Avenue, in Fernie, B.C.

The new truck replaces a 22 year old Ford HUB triple combination fire truck that had exceeded its service life and Fire Underwriters’ Survey certification for first line response vehicles. The replacement vehicle is expected to provide fire protection service in Fernie and area for the next 20 years.

The City had originally budgeted $400,000 for the replacement fire engine. Net of taxes the new Rosenbauer fire truck cost $334,243 or approximately $1,400/month over its expected 20 year service life. Under the terms of the rural fire protection agreement, property owners in the rural fire protection will contribute approximately 1/3 of the cost of the new engine.

Chief Ivany said, “With the new truck we will be able to provide more efficient and effective fire protection services, particularly in the rural fire protection area and in the City as development moves away from the core and into hillside areas. The evolution of features and usability of firefighting equipment over the last 2o+ years is remarkable and member safety will be enhanced with this new truck.”

The terrain, which includes alpine bowls, gladed trees and an extensive road network, is ideal for both catskiing and ski touring. “We have always known our property is great for touring and are very excited to offer the opportunity to a wider audience,” said guiding manager Niki LePage.

Multi-day stays will include all food and accommodation.  Island Lake will offer packages for all levels of skiers from beginner to expert. Ski touring will be available as single day trips or as two, three or four day tours starting in April.  Each day starts with a snowcat-ride into the ski terrain to get as much elevation as possible.

Island Lake Catskiing is located in the Lizard Range of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, 10 kms from Fernie B.C.  Island Lake offered ski touring in the mid 80’s and for the past 24 years has been providing catskiing experiences for skiers and snowboarders.

Also added this season, there is a new Calgary to Fernie shuttle bus.  You can travel for as low as $52 or save more by bundling a lift ticket and bus ride together.

Telluride is located remotely in southwestern Colorado, set in a box canyon, characterized by Old West/Victorian architecture and a wide main street, overshadowed by a ski mountain in the Rockies, spooked by the legend of the bloody raccoon skin, home to a film festival that last September attracted the likes of Colin Firth, Laura Linney and George Clooney.

Fernie is located remotely in southeastern B.C., set in a box canyon, characterized by Old West/Victorian architecture and a wide main street, overshadowed by a ski mountain in the Lizard Range of the Rockies, spooked by the legend of the Ghostrider, and home to a film festival in February that, well, gives free popcorn to kids and “is dedicated to filmmakers who spark awareness of mountain cultures.”

In other words, no Clooney, but who knows, the way Fernie is trending.

Trains hauling coal blast haunting bellicose horns while trudging through Fernie in the middle of the night, a reminder of the resource-based economy past and present. That economy has diversified from mining to tourism and recreation, driven by the skiing and spiced now by an emerging entertainment and shopping scene. Downtown, there’s a growing sense of West Coast culture meeting Alberta petrodollars as Calgarians – three hours’ drive and several radar traps away (watch out: the Longview, Alta., trap is notorious) – arrive in droves on weekends.

Fernie Alpine Resort, the tourist magnet owned by Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, celebrated its 50th year of skiing with the opening of the Polar Peak chairlift last week.

The chair takes skiers and boarders for the first time to Fernie’s ridge line and drops them into Currie Bowl, one of five open bowls spread across the terrain. The lift extends the resort’s vertical metres to 1,082, its skiable in-bounds acreage to 2,550, and number of marked runs to 140. The ski mountain offers plenty of everything – glades, bumps, wide-open bowls, skinny double-diamond chutes through craggy boulders.

To survive, though, ski resorts are increasingly installing infrastructure for families. Fernie is no different, with a terrain park in place, an aerial park and zip line to come this summer. Still, the snow is the resort’s primary asset, with a dump of about 12 metres last winter. Nearly 150 centimetres of joyous, whoop-inducing powder dropped just this past week (43 cm in one night alone).

When our family visited just before Christmas, though, the conditions (grrr) ranged from hard-packed to windswept, and these office-softened legs were grateful one day to see how the downtown core, once deemed a lost cause for seasonal business, is gradually luring people from the slopes and cross-country trails.

I walked into the General Store building on Second Avenue, the main drag, to shop for souvenirs in a clothing store. But a shop tucked in the back caught my eye – especially a painting by Laura Nelson. Turns out the shopkeeper, Michael Hepher, moved his family to town this past summer and, in October, opened the Clawhammer Letterpress and Gallery, showcasing works by local artists, as well as his own three-dimensional pieces. We chatted for a while about Fernie, I left, and later arranged to have the painting shipped to Ontario. Definitely a no-pressure sale.

“People here seem to love unique, one-of-a-kind merchandise and shopping experiences,” Hepher told me later. “Downtown Fernie is becoming a destination in and of itself.”

Fernie has twice burned to the ground, the last time in 1908 when a forest fire claimed 100 lives. It was rebuilt with stone and brick, and today entrepreneurs are gradually transforming the heritage buildings into restaurants, shops and lofts. You can walk through the downtown core in about 15 minutes. Highway 3 fissures through town on its way to the ski hill. On both sides, the old clapboard miners’ shacks are gradually disappearing in favour of modern rebuilds, especially along the Elk River where fly fishing is popular in summer. Most remarkably, the old high school in a scuzzy-ish part of the downtown core was developed into 901 Fernie, a collection of luxury lofts and condos priced between $600,000 and $1-million, with some available for rent.

“There’s an invisible magical factor in Fernie with the combination of the people, place and determination,” says Nelson, the artist. “From all those hard times, a definite spirit lingers in the old Fernie-ites. People try to make a go of it in Fernie, and that means being creative.”

Several years ago, volunteers saved a crumbling railway building by moving it across the tracks and transforming it into the Arts Station, where paintings surround diners in the popular breakfast spot, the Blue Toque. The community effort triggered a movement that now appears full steam ahead as people migrate to Fernie to take up permanent residence. Once a meat-and-potatoes, rough-and-tough mining town, Fernie is in irrepressible transition.

At the Beanpod, raw cacao beans are stone-ground in a 1948 granite mélangeur and turned into $7 bars over five days. An individual melt-in-the-mouth bonbon tasted so incredible it made me yearn for a glass of Okanagan cabernet. Grand Fromage makes its own cheese, the Essential Yoga Studio offers more than 30 classes a week, and microbrewer Fernie Brewing Co. fills 1.98-litre “growlers” on the spot, European-style. (You won’t ever go wrong with the Buck Wild lightly hopped golden blond.) The Yamagoya sushi restaurant still serves the “best rolls this side of Vancouver” (as deemed by aficionado Bruce Dowbiggin, The Globe and Mail’s sports media columnist), the new Fernie Cattle Co. restaurant advertises grass-fed SPCA-certified meats and sustainable seafood, the Picnic Restaurant serves house-made elk chorizo, and the Northern Bar & Stage is a first-class sports bar with live keno and (eat your heart out, Ontario) a half-price wine night.

Aside from Albertans, the resort attracts skiers and riders from Britain and the American Midwest, and visionaries – led by eighty something Heiko Socher, who took the first chair up this season at the resort he developed – who see even greater potential. Island Lake Lodge, accessed on the north side of town, already offers world-class cat-skiing and has received regulatory approval to install a chairlift and expand hilltop accommodations. Get this, though. Socher has proposed a development, Heaven’s Gate, to transport skiers from a downtown gondola to Coal Ridge south of town, as you might experience in Italy or France.

While oil-and-gas companies dream of coal-bed methane production out in those hills, others, in this evolving ski village, see a different future, this one fuelled by a snow-white dream.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com
Written by tom maloney