Day 31: Fernie

Date: Thursday, June 15, 2023
Zero day in Fernie, BC

I woke up warm and dry!  Had I not had a friend in Fernie, this would DEFINITELY not have been the case!  So I have to thank Laura a thousand times for:

1. choosing to live in Fernie
2. Agreeing to let me stay with her

I woke up and immediately set about blogging.  I was four days behind on posts and they start to weigh on me after a few days.  It feels like I haven't done my homework.  Laura had to go in the office and so I started typing at 7am.  By noon I had completed 5400 words and set the posts to release over the next few days.  While typing I set my tent out to dry in the mild afternoon sun.  After a few hours I again had a fully functional tent rather than a ball of soggy plastic!

I'd realized I had left four tent pegs in Kimberley and wouldn't be able to tent without them, so I had to go into town to buy more.  Thankfully Fernie is a mountain town and had plenty of gear shops.  Once Laura was done work we drove the short distance into town.

When we reached the main street I saw someone from the back who was stopped on their bike and was looking at their phone.  I immediately recognized them and jumped out of the car so quickly that it might have been moving.  I'm sure Laura was VERY confused.  But I had found Dan!

The person who I had tented with in Gray Creek and who had passed me at the start of the climb that day and I never saw again.  "You made it over!" I said.  "You survived!" he replied (remember, I was behind him and he didn't know if I'd managed to get over).  We chatted about the experience of climbing 1500 meters by bike and he set off to get dinner.  I was happy to have some closure on what had happened to him!

We found the gear shop, grabbed pegs, and then grabbed some groceries.  We wouldn't be having dinner for a few hours and I was peckish, so we grabbed gelato and went to a local park and enjoyed the sunshine by the Elk River.  The rain of the previous day was well clear, and Fernie revealed itself to be surrounded by mountains!  I never had a car while living in Calgary and rarely made it out to the mountains, so Canmore was really the only town I knew that was nestled in the mountains.  The fact that Fernie (and so many others in BC) shared this trait made my mind boggle.  I totally get why Laura wanted to live there.  I was back in the Continental Rockies and they are a different beast from the mountains in the Interior or the Coast.  It was spectacular.

We'd been invited for dinner at the house of a friend of Laura's: Lee.  Lee made steak, salmon, vegetables, and garlic rice.  He'd BBQ'd the steak and salmon and it was glorious.  Charcoal is very difficult to beat!  He'd also made fresh bread and again I was hard pressed to think of anything better pulling apart a warm roll.  We chatted over dinner and I learned more about Fernie and life in the mountains.

After dinner we walked into town and I managed to steer us in the direction of confection: ice cream!  A double scoop from the local shop and we walked along the Elk River again.

Everyone in Fernie owns an expensive looking and fully capable mountain bike, and the town has built a dirt track for them to practice on.  I managed to snap a picture of someone getting some air!

I got a picture of us all together at the end of the walk.  That peak with clouds on it is called "Batman" (but also maybe it isn't...the debate was never settled).

Thank you to Lee for the wonderful dinner!  He's a real chef who tossed it together after a long day at work and it was pitch perfect!

Lee told me about the work they do in the mine he works at.  Teck (a mining company) is a big employer in this town, and a lot of people work directly or indirectly in mining.  Lee showed me a piece of coke (coal refined to burn at VERY hot temperatures).  I'd never actually seen it before, so was very interested to hear about the process of mining and refining it!

Laura and I said goodbye to Lee and went back to her place.  I started packing and prepping to leave in the morning.  I washed my bike glasses which were a little dirty from the ride in the rain...

We had tea and chatted until it got dark and none of us could stay awake anymore.  Another great day off in another beautiful mountain town and in good company (and TWO ice creams!).  It had been another day of memories and good company!