In 1890 Fredrick Turner spoke before the US Congress declaring the frontier was tamed. The westward expansion reached the west coast of North American. His measure was a population of one person per square mile. In 1890 some light spots remained in the expansion.

Shortly after 1990, Dayton Duncan, reading that speech with an accompanying illustration showing the population density of the time, wondered at those long ago white spots of less than under one person per square mile. On looking at the 1990 census maps he found the same areas lightly populated. 138 counties in the US held populations of less than one per square mile.

On a whim, he bought a Chevy Suburban and hit the road to visit each of those counties. The resulting book “Miles from Nowhere”, is more a meditation on the reduction of society to the least common denominator in rural areas. This is no “Travels with Charley” or “Blue Highways”. Dayton does not bemoan the loss of rural life, but observes how it’s changed historically and adapted to modern days.

His smallest common denominators becomes a hairdresser, a video store and a post office. In the last 10 years, we’ve lost the video store to NetFlicks.

I thought of this the other day walking down Victoria Avenue when I overheard a conversation. A woman was talking about a town she’d recently visited. “Like it was a small town, eh? It didn’t even have a Timmy’s”

I wonder where Fernie sits on the spectrum of “small towns”?

We have a Timmy’s. We have a MacDonald’s. A Boston Pizza. An A&W. A Dairy Queen. A Subway and soon a Starbucks. On the ski-hill we have Kelsey’s and another Starbucks (in a minor key branded as Slopeside)

Plus we have another 20 some restaurants that are just “Local” to Fernie.

So where are we?