I’ve been in Fernie for a little while now, so here’s an update. The snow in Fernie (and all of western Canada) has been pretty bad this season. The huge temperature swings (especially the insanely hot days) have been turning even the rare big dumps into puddles and later, into huge sheets of ice. This pattern has obviously not been conducive to the pillowy mounds of powder we’d been hoping for, and at one point we were even considering cacelling the trip alltogether. While in Victoria, we kept up with the weather reports and decided to risk it, despite the avalanche warnings. The day before we arrived, it was a balmy 11 degrees in Calgary and it poured rain in Fernie. When we got here, there were only a few patches of slushy snow around and many people had surly looks on their faces.
I felt bad for the people we met who were only going to be here for a few days. They felt obligated to go up no matter what and came back to the hostel that first afternoon soaked to the bone, freezing and miserable. We decided to wait it out, at least for a little bit, and concentrate on getting a place to stay and finding a job before heading up the mountain.
I just read over what I wrote and realized that it sounds pretty sad. Let me assure you that I’ve actually been having a great time! The lack of snow has kinda sucked, but we’ve had beautiful blue, clear sunny days that have allowed us breath taking views of the mountains that encircle the town, we’ve met some great people, like Doug and Megan from Australia who we roomed with at the hostel, I got to see my very first live hockey game (the Central Texas Blackhawks vs. the Fernie Ghostriders), and went to see Jazzberry Ram live in concert!
We also went to Fernie Alpine Resort’s annual cardboard derby, where teams build vehicles entirely out of cardboard and duct tape and race them down the half pipe! It was hilarious! Here is a photo of some clearly deranged individuals who decided to go down the mountain in a cardboard hot tub!!!
With the help of the lovely Heidi at Fernie Real Estate, we managed to find a cute little one bedroom house just a few blocks from the centre of town and one block from the ski shuttle after two days here. It’s not fancy, but there are views of the mountains from every window, it’s all ours and after living in Japan for a few years, it seems positively roomy!
Now all that remains is to find a job and get some snow!!
LATER...
I’ve finished my resume and it has started to get colder. I have done some job searching, but as the season has not been that great this year, businesses are not hiring as many seasonal employees as usual. I’ll keep trying, but in the mean time, we’ve had some snow and the weather forcast calls for more...yay! I bought a pass the other day and have spent a few days on the hill already. It is a little icy and the conditions are reminiscent of Vermont, rather than the deep heavenly powder I got used to in Japan. But Fernie has something that neither Vermont, nor northern Japan offer, and that’s incredible terrain. I think I could board here for an entire season and probably never cross my own tracks, except at the bottom! I’m really excited to try as many of the runs as I can(well maybe not the double black diamond tree runs). I think that’s it for now!
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