mother fernie

[yeti]

migrants,

i know there are a few out there. preparing for the annual pilgrimage. schooling, making coin, travelling. anxious to be back in the valley for another ski season. sometimes checking into this board, living in fernie vicariously through the webcam.

fellow migrants, if you are fortunate enough to make the trek and ‘live’ for another season, let’s have a simultaneous wide grin, day dreamin about a big fernie dump. everyone at once now…powder.

a lot of us come for the season, love, live and leave – globetrotting, back to school or back to the block (or worse, an office) to make some coin, only to return with the snow the following winter. i think many of us have come to realize how special this place is.

i always feel i take so much more from fernie during the stints i’ve lived there than i put in. i’m making a call to all to give back to mother fernie some of what she’s given us. many of us share a passion for the mountains, that has drawn us here – but we all have other interests, skills. this is how i think we can contribute to our community.

this is the seed of what i’ve got in mind, wholly welcoming any ideas,

a skills swap

a series of classes, sessions, demonstrations, call them workshops i guess, led by a seasonal local for the community. it it might breakdown like this:

– courses area free and open to all fernie locals
– courses are open to all seasonal locals, provided they lead a workshop, or contribute in someway the community
– fernie locals also invited to share their skills and knowledge
– lastly, it might be a good idea not to have any workshops in direct competition with local businesses.

maybe the question arises, who’s a fernie local and who’s a seasonal local. i don’t intend to offend, but there should be some objective standard. i bounce around so much, i’m not a reliable source to suggest what defines where one’s from. maybe we could go with a driver’s license or health card with an address in winter’s paradise. everyone else would be a seasonal local (hey don’t be offended, it’s way better than tourist). by the way i fall into this category even though every time i see those three sisters in my rearview mirror i feel part of me is being amputated.

there may not even be a need to discriminate (what an awful word). the way i’d see it go down anyway, people would self monitor their participation and contribution. no one would be going around asking for id or anything. the main idea would be a chance for us all to enrich our lives and at the same time the fabric of fernie.

i’ll leave you with a list that a few of us have put together on what we could offer or what we’d be interested in:

– astronomy, baking bread <really any kind of cooking>
– shodo, origami, knitting, sewing
– ski wax, bike maintenance
– kootenay horticulture
– a book club, secrets of the legend of zelda
– storytelling <someone wants to know do any scandinavians know the story of limmenkynan (excuses the spelling)>
– photography, dance, book binding
– maybe it doesn’t have to be an instructive session, scrabble/cranium/chess/go tourney or group. maybe a foose championship?
– tarot card/palm reading
– teach something of your culture or country

stockholm to sapporo, adelaide and auckland, le belle province, even those in onterrible – let’s hear your comments, ideas, suggestions.

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