WORLD OF ADVENTURE AWAITS IN ‘FUNKY’ NELSON
From the outdoors to the arts, southeast city will charm anyone
When you talk about hidden gems in beautiful British Columbia, they don’t get much more hidden than Nelson — quite literally.
Nestled in a narrow, steep-walled valley in the Selkirk Mountains along the western arm of Kootenay Lake, the city of 10,000 residents is not particularly easy to reach.
“You have to make an effort to get here,” says Dianna Ducs, executive director of Nelson Kootenay Lake Tourism.
But when you get there, you are treated to a place that has everything, from all the adventure or more sedate recreational activities you can imagine to historic and artistic charms to restaurants suited to every palate.
With more than 350 heritage buildings — more per capita than anywhere else in the province — dating back to the late 1880s and a more recent history that saw settlement in the 1960s by mostly well-educated Vietnam War draft dodgers, Nelson is also a hidden gem because of its close-knit community.
“It is a magical place” with a “funky vibe,” says Ducs (who lived many years in Calgary), citing people like herself who visit, only to pull up stakes to move to Nelson.
Ducs says the appeal of the region includes “smart, environmentally and socially conscious residents,” with a large number of artists and artisans, as well as entrepreneurs who start up businesses when they see a gap.
The natural environment includes 104-kilometre-long Kootenay Lake (take the 35-minute Kootenay Lake ferry for free) and activities from hiking, golfing, biking and paddling to fishing, caving, rafting and zip lining.
There’s also world-class relaxing. Nelson has four microbreweries and more restaurants (72 of them) per capita than San Francisco or New York — “and they are all good,” Ducs says.
Nelson has been “discovered”: National Geographic named it a best emerging ski town (Whitewater Ski Resort gets almost 12 metres of snow annually) and Maclean’s magazine named it one of its top 10 places to see in Canada for 2014.
Most tourists come from Alberta and B.C. (summer), Europe (spring), and the U.S. Pacific Northwest (fall). In winter, Americans go cat skiing while Calgarians take the Powder Highway. Route 95A connects seven ski resorts, including Revelstoke, Invermere, Golden and Kimberley.
Nelson isn’t the Kootenays’ only tourist magnet.
Heidi Korven of Kootenay Rockies Tourism says Albertans generally make up 50 to 75 per cent of visitors, because of driving proximity to places like Radium (two hours), Invermere (2.5. hours) and Kimberley (four hours).
When Revelstoke Mountain Resort’s Pipe Mountain Coaster (take the gondola up the mountain and come down in bobsled-like cars on tracks) opened last summer, Korven says it saw six to seven times the anticipated numbers.
Albertans are also significant owners of recreation properties, from ski hill condos to lakeside homes, in the East Kootenay region — but not in Nelson, which welcomes tourists and new fulltime residents but discourages ownership of properties left vacant much of the year, Ducs says.
Darren Close, president of the Kootenay Real Estate Board, says “it’s lifestyle” in a region with beautiful weather, an abundance of lakes, ski hills, golfing and campgrounds.