After 13 years, I’m wintering in Canada again….. I’ve grabbed this winter, and my new home town of Fernie, by the gangoolies…..
My old skiing mate Bob wanted me to winter in Fernie. Bob and I have hung out a fair bit the last couple of years. The planets aligned and Fernie worked out. But Bob lives in Montana. So 100 days ago I moved to town and didn’t know a single person.
One of the reasons for moving to Fernie is the lack of people, which also means lack of lines at the ski lifts. I didn’t quite appreciate how few people there are on the ski hill. The first two weeks of skiing (I skied 11 of the first 14 days the mountain was open) I didn’t share a chairlift with another person…….
I was so lonely, I downloaded audio books to listen to on the chairlift. I also had nobody to take photos of me, so I took a bunch of selfies….
On the positive side…. I did get to explore and ski all these runs on my own. The photo below shows 4 runs that I skied one powder day/morning. All but one of them, I got first tracks in. I like this lonely business!!!
Since I have no friends I could go skiing in the back country and not have to ask or wait for anyone…. bingo!!! First up I had to test out my gear….
The Ski Maker had to send me up some gear and it all worked out on the trial run, so I thought I should amp it up a little bit. I decided to skin up Mt. Fernie. A few days earlier a fella got in an avalanche up there and hopefully he will be OK (as of the writing of this, he might not be OK, fair dinkum, he got in a wee bit of trouble).
2hrs from leaving the house I get to the top of this ski run/avalanche path that nearly ate that fella a few days earlier. I’m thinking… no, not for me. But I put my skis on and I tinkle about and I see all this pretty powder. I cut the run (trying to create an avalanche from above) and it doesn’t slide. I jump around for 20 minutes and I see a way I think I can ski this thing and be safe.
It is still scary as hell!!! But I think I’ve got it. I start down, I make one tastey turn, it is thigh deep powder…. then I make another turn, then I double eject out of my skis and face plant.
What a monkey I am!!!
Here is a photo from the bottom of the run…. this will get skied again this season.
White line is the skin up, blue is the run down.
After sitting on chairlifts enjoying my own company, I thought I should branch out and meet some people. So I joined the Legion, it is like an RSL in Aussie/NZ. Lovely people, most of them in their mid 80’s. I made the mistake of going to my new ‘club’ on a Saturday and they were having a meat raffle.
$50 later, I won…. what I won was $10 of meat.
Part of why I joined the Legion is that they have a piano and I needed somewhere to practice. On Wednesday afternoons, I go to Legion with my sheet music and do some practice.
Lately, there has been a bit of a posse of mid 80’s ladies at the club on Wednesday afternoons…. they offer to buy me beer to play the piano. Of course I don’t accept, I tell the old bitties I prefer scotch.
One Wednesday afternoon, while playing the piano and drinking free scotch, I get a call from my mate Bob, he wants to introduce me to some friends of his in Fernie. I agree to meet these Canadian guys, Trent and Adrian, at the local ice skating rink.
Here I am giving these two guys advice on ice hockey…..
Of course I don’t have any ice skating or ice hockey skills – they don’t call it ice hockey in Canada, they just call it hockey.
The crew that Bob has introduced me to have been just wonderful during my first 100 days. I no longer listen to audio books on the chairlift because of all the people they have introduced me to. And…. I don’t have to take selfies anymore…..
I’m 100 days in, it was all Bob’s idea and his crew have been amazing. I’m really liking this place, this last photo I took this afternoon.
