History

Discover Heritage with the Fernie Museum this Summer!

Image courtesy of Rebecca Hall (Fernie District Historical Society)

On the corner of 2nd Avenue and 5th Street is the Fernie Museum, a heritage building packed with Fernie’s history. The building itself is an important part of Fernie’s – and Canada’s – story, having been part of a nationwide financial scandal that contributed to the failure of Canada’s Home Bank in 1923. Pick up a heritage walking tour brochure from the Fernie Museum or Visitor Information Centre and discover all of Fernie’s historical buildings, including: The Fernie Court House, an award winning chateau-style structure completed in 1911, or Fernie City Hall, the former headquarters of The Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company. One of the few buildings to survive the Great Fire, this Dutch barn style building served as a place of refuge during and after the fire. The Museum also offers Guided Walking Tours, and will host a new art exhibition: In This Together, by Michael Hepher this summer.

Legend of the Ghostrider

A slice of local legend, the shadowy Ghostrider watches over the Elk Valley from the side of Mount Hosmer. According to the legend, a man named William Fernie was prospecting in the area in the 19th century when he came across a young Ktunaxa woman who he saw wore a unique piece of jewellery, a necklace made of shining stones: coal. He learned where the coal came from after striking a deal with the woman’s father, a local Ktunaxa chief, where he promised to marry her in exchange for the information. But, he backed out of the deal and refused to marry the woman, angering the Ktunaxa chief, who then put a curse on the valley that would bring fire, flood and famine. Disaster followed, with Fernie requiring to be rebuilt multiple times both physically and in spirit. Whether the curse had anything to do with the disasters is one for the legend, but the City of Fernie still requested Chief Ambrose Gravelle and members of the Ktunaxa to perform a curse lifting ceremony in 1964. On sunny summer afternoons you can see the shadow of a horse and rider on the face of Mount Hosmer, and the legand says that the rider is the young woman who Fernie refused to marry, and the shadow walking beside is that of her father, forever watching over the valley.