What I have learned in Fernie...

10. The Book Exchange - I discovered the book exchange when I walked into one of my favorite places to grab a coffee in Fernie, Tea and Coffee House, and noticed a small shelf of books. There are a few shelves like this around town and the deal is, you can take a book for free as long as it's in good condition and you also contribute to the book exchange. This was a great way for me to 1. take some unnecessary weight off my own book shelf and 2. read free books. I love it!

On top of that, there is another program where you can register your book and see where it goes around the world. Once I find out what this is called, I'll post it.

11. Ski and Snowboarding videos follow you everywhere. You could be sitting down in a restaurant for dinner, browsing a store or grabbing a coffee at a local cafe and guarenteed you will see a ski and/or snowboard video on the walls of each location...just staring you down. It's unbelievable. My roommate, Mike Tonge, is a ski patrol guy at Fernie Alpine Resort and after a long 10 hour work day at the hill, he can come home and put on a ski video while he eats his McDonalds take-out dinner; never tiring of the same DVD. How do they do it?

Rod keeps saying to me "That's a ski town for you."

And then I remember: ohhh yeah. I moved to a ski town.

12. Free camping galore. Growing up in Ontario, I'm used to planning months and months ahead of time for a weekend camping trip and paying good money for it too.


In and around Fernie, there is ample amounts of camping locations and most of them are completely free and empty. Can you tell I'm excited for summer? I'm looking forward to spending my weekend, any weekend we choose, in a cool remote spot on a lake with hardly anyone around. Now that's my idea of camping!