Fernie, British Columbia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the electoral district named Fernie, please see Fernie (electoral district).
- For other Kootenay-area ridings, please see Kootenay (electoral districts).
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Motto:
In monibus ad flumen (Latin: In the mountains by the river) |
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| City Information | ||||
| Established: | 1897 | |||
| Area: | 16.05 km² | |||
| Population:
City |
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| Population density: | 287.3/km² | |||
| Time zone: | Mountain: UTC -7 | |||
| Postal code span: | V0B 1M(0-6) | |||
| Local area code: | ||||
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Latitude: |
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| Elevation: | 1010 m MSL | |||
| Government | ||||
| Mayor: | Randal Macnair
List of mayors of Fernie, British Columbia |
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| Governing body: | Fernie City Council | |||
| MP | Jim Abbott | |||
| MLA | Bill Bennett | |||
| City of Fernie | ||||
| 1(sc) According to the Canada 2001 Census. Template help Edit Template  |
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The City of Fernie is located in the southeast corner of British Columbia, Canada, surrounded by the Canadian Rockies. Founded in 1898 and incorporated in July 1904, the municipality presently encompasses a year-round population of approximately 5000 although the population drastically increases throughout the winter. An additional 1500 live outside city limits under the jurisdiction of the RDEK.
Fernie lies on the Elk River, along Canada's southernmost east-west transportation corridor through the Rockies that crosses the range via the Crowsnest Pass, 40 km to the east. As the largest and oldest community in the immediate area, Fernie serves as something of a regional centre.
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[edit] Geography
Fernie is the only city-class municipality in Canada that is fully encircled by the Rocky Mountains. To the north of the city lies Mount Fernie, Mount Klauer, Mount Trinity (most commonly known as the Three Sisters), Mount Proctor and Mount Hosmer. To the east is Fernie Rige, to the southeast Morrissey Ridge and Castle Mountain and to the southwest the various peaks of the Lizard Range.
The Lizard Range is home to Fernie Alpine Resort, one of the largest ski resorts in Canada, and the noted backcountry resort of Island Lake Lodge. Unique weather patterns tend to bring much more precipitation to the area than one might typically find this far inland, making the area a mecca for powder skiing.
Summer in Fernie is generally far quieter than the winter months, though mountain biking, fly fishing and golf are increasingly important tourist draws.
[edit] Mining History
While the slopes of the mountains are presently the focus of economic activity, until comparatively recently residents of the area were more interested with the mountains' innards. The vast Crowsnest Coal Field lies just to east of the city, and Fernie owes its origins to nineteenth-century prospector William Fernie, who established the coal industry that continues to exist to this day. Acting on pioneer Michael Phillipps's twin discoveries of coal and the Crowsnest Pass a few years earlier, Fernie founded the Crows Nest Pass Coal Company in 1897 and set to work at once. A townsite was laid out at a broad bend in the valley where the Elk River is intersected by its tributaries Coal, Lizard and Fairy Creeks; the Canadian Pacific Railway was built through the valley shortly thereafter and a downtown core emerged parallel to it. Underground coal mines were dug 10 km away from the townsite in the narrow Coal Creek valley and until 1960 a small satellite community known as Coal Creek stood adjacent to them. A variety of other mines were sunk into the coal fields in a fifty kilometer radius in the following two decades. No mining was ever carried out in Fernie proper; coking of Coal Creek coal was carried out at the townsite, but otherwise the town developed into an administrative and commercial centre for the burgeoning industry. Forestry played a smaller role in the local economy and a local brewery produced Fernie Beer from brewery creek (mountain spring water).
Like most single-industry towns, Fernie endured several boom-and-bust cycles throughout the twentieth century, generally tied to the global price of coal. The mines at Coal Creek closed permanently by 1960 and the focus of mining activity shifted to Michel and Natal about twenty-five kilometres upriver, which sat on a more productive portion of the Crowsnest Coal Field. Kaiser Resources opened immense open-pit mines there in the 1970s to meet new thermal coal contracts for the Asian industrial market, predominantly for use in blast furnaces. Fernie would remain an important residential base for mine labour, along with the new communities of Sparwood and Elkford that sprung up much closer to these new mines. Today, Fording Canadian Coal Trust operates all five open-pit mines, shipping out unit trains (often with more than 100 cars) along the Canadian Pacific Railway through Fernie to the Pacific Coast, where the coal is loaded onto freighters at Roberts Bank Superport in Delta.
[edit] Architectural Heritage
After a disastrous fire leveled much of the downtown core in 1904, the fledgling municipal government passed an ordinance requiring all buildings in the area to be built of 'fireproof' materials like brick and stone. Consequently, a new city centre rose from the ashes sporting brick buildings along broad avenues that would have looked more at home in a sedate and refined Victorian city rather than a rough-and-tumble frontier coal town. They were short-lived, however, as a second, larger inferno swept through the city on August 1, 1908. Whipped up by sudden winds, a nearby forest fire burnt its way into a lumber yard on the edge of the community and sparked a Dresden-style firestorm that melted brick and mortar and essentially erased the entire city in an afternoon. There were few casualties, however, and for a second time a stately brick downtown core rose from the ashes. Today, these historic buildings, most of which still stand, are a treasured and distinctive feature of the community.
[edit] Local Media
[edit] Newspapers
- Fernie Free Press -Weekly Paper
- Kootenay News Advertiser -Monday,and Friday
- East Kootenay Extra! -Weekly Paper
[edit] Radio Stations
- 99.1 FM - CJDR, Rock
- 92.7 FM - CFBZ, Country
- 97.7 FM - CBTN, CBC
[edit] Television Stations
[edit] Notable People
The following people were born in Fernie
- Bill Lindsay, NHL Player
- Shane Churla, retired NHL player
- David LeNeveu, NHL Player
- Jennifer Delich,Alpine Resort Player
- Alex Lifeson, guitarist of Rush
- Emily Brydon, Canadian Alpine skier
- Joe Bybar, KIJHL Player
- Xavier Majic, Hockey Player
- Jason Krog, NHL Player
- Francis Hockley, Retired NHL Player
- Stan Smith, Retired NHL Player
- Ralf Socher, Alpine Skiers
- Jackie Hellard, Golf Player
[edit] See also
- Isabella Dicken Elementary School, Fernie
- Max Turyk Elementary School, Fernie
- Fernie Secondary School, Fernie
[edit] External links
- OurFernie.com - A community Co-op
- OurFernie.com - A community Co-op-Forums
- City of Fernie
- Fernie's Premier Website
- Fernie Community Forums
- Fernie Alpine Resort (commercial portal)
- The Arts Station - Home of the arts in Fernie
- Fernie Free Press
- The Cedars
- Fernie outdoor webcams
- Vouge Theater
- Max Turyk Elementry School
- Fernie Ghostriders
- CJDR-FM,99.1-THE DRIVE
- Fernie and Sparwood Taxi Ltd.
- Fernie Fix
