Go Cranberley - Summer 2023

SUMMER 2023

JULYFEST TURNS 50.

Love, lagers, and legends of the ball. Der retrospektive.

Page 38

STATE OF OUR LAKES KOOTENAY LOWLIFE LUKE NAVROT BC’S BUSINESS BOSS EARTH’S BEST MOUNTAIN GOLF? DON’T BE A WAKE WANKER

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We Support Kimberley Trails Teck’s Legacy Properties team is proud to support the community’s enjoyment and use of Kimberley’s extensive trail system through sponsorships, land use agreements, and in-kind support for trail infrastructure and maintenance. Learn more at www.teck.com/sullivan

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contents

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12 MEDIA

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BACK OF THE TRAIN GANG

Our hometowns garner the gaze of the NY Times, Globe and Mail, and Canadian Press. How come?

ACES HIGH

OMA GAWD

13 BUSINESS

Fort Steele train technicians Jeff Roshau, Harold ‘Skip’ Cavanagh, Eugene ‘Gene’ Roshau, and Rob Bohan. “We want young people to learn this while we can still teach it to them,” says Gene, “because you never know. I might not be here next year.”

Photo by Jesse Heinrichs.

cover photo JEFF PEW

BC Chamber of Commerce president and former Kimberley kid Dr. Greg Thomas

15 HERITAGE You hear a train a-comin?

16 ADVENTURE Cranbrook/Kimberley cycling’s got a one million-dollar plan.

Where’s the best mountain golf in the world? Hint: You’re up.

Luke Navrot: Kootenay Lowlife’s high thinker.

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52

OUR LAKES. OUR LEGACY.

WHATCHA DOIN’?

What’s happening to the East Kootenay’s beloved waters?

Cranbrook rodeo, Creston’s Cirque Luzdalia, Kimbo’s Tora Bora, plus farmers and markets in Jaffray and Invermere.

38 DANKE SCHÖEN FOR THE MEMORIES A multi-writer, community-recollected, archived-photo romp through 50 years of JulyFest.

19 LAUGHS If you're a comedian, you're likely to love, and be able to locate, Cranbrook.

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 7

Meet Our ~

CONTRIBUTORS

8

28 For the headwaters, a hug—

SARAH STUPAR

JESSE WINTER

ASHLEY DODD

BRITT BATES

A former Cranbrook resident and comedian, Sarah does a lot of stuff—acting, dancing, burlesque, stand up, and occasionally, indie wrestling. With headlocks and body slams and such.

She also writes articles like the one in GO Cranberley’s Spring 2023: Mess With The Sheep. Get The Horns. In this issue, Sarah reflects on the fact that while lots of Canadians can’t find Cranbrook on a map, comedians always can. Why? Check out her latest yarn on page 19, You Laughin’ At Us?

Photographer Jesse Winter travelled to Cranbrook this spring to document a story on the ʔaq’am First Nation’s traditional fire knowledge for The Globe and Mail. He’s reported from north of the Arctic Circle to the mangrove forests of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. His work, which as of late has focused on government accountability and social justice issues, has appeared in The Guardian, Toronto Star, National Post, and Ottawa Citizen. You can see his worldly work at jessewinter.net...or just turn to page 12.

Ashley’s had a full career as a graphic designer and illustrator for nearly 20 years. She’s worked on bigdeal branding projects for the Vancouver International Airport and 2010 Olympic Games, corporate giants’ Boston Pizza, BC Hydro, and...Wallinger Avenue heavyweights Stoke, Fulfill, and Wildsight. She grew up in Kimberley with dreams of blowing this popsicle stand for the big city, but after living those dreams, returned to this gem of a small town she calls home to raise her family. Ashley’s been GO Cranberley’s designer since 2019, and you will see her work on every page of the magazine you are in fact reading.

Britt Bates is an entrepreneur and digital marketer who writes for small businesses and organizations including the Columbia Basin Trust, the Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative, and many entrepreneurs across North America. Born and raised in Kimberley, in a family that’s been in town for generations, she now lives just over the Purcells in Nelson. She’s an avid reader, novice flower gardener, certified beach bum, and an all-day companion to a blue-eyed border collie. Britt captained this issue’s humungous JulyFest Der Retrospektive research and development team; turn to page 38 to scour their findings.

Summer 2023

| GO CRANBERLE Y

While many East Kootenay lakes are grappling with increased traffic and changing environmental conditions, Columbia Lake has remained relatively recreation conflict-free.

Photo by Dave Quinn.

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GENERAL INQUIRIES

darren@kootenaymedia.ca jesse@kootenaymedia.ca monica@kootenaymedia.ca Reproduction, in whole, or in part, is strictly prohibited. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or duplicated without the written permission of the publisher. All rights reserved on entire contents. GO Cranberley Magazine makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes and is not responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions. The opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors.

GO Cranberley Magazine is published four times per year and is printed in Canada.

GO Cranberley is published by: Kootenay Media 2023 Ltd.

PUBLISHERS EMERITUS Karen Vold | Grady Pasiechnyk

PUBLISHER Darren Davidson

SALES & DISTRIBUTION Jesse Heinrichs | Darren Davidson

DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION Ashley Dodd

COPY EDITING & SOCIAL MEDIA Monica Karaba

CONTRIBUTORS Jenny Bateman

Angela Lacroix

Dave Quinn

Britt Bates

John Lyon

Sarah Stupar

Kevin Brooker

Mike McPhee

Jesse Winter

Jesse Heinrichs

Sarita Mielke

Ethan Krueger

Jeff Pew

Hot Story— The Globe and Mail covered some of the the ʔaq’am First Nation’s prescribed burn, thinning, and harvest earlier this year.

Photographer Jesse Winter shot the story, which was written by Globe correspondent Wendy Stueck.

MEDIA

Blazes, Backpacks, & Bylines There’ve been some stories of continental interest right on our doorsteps as of late, just read the New York Times, Canadian Press, and British Columbia magazine.

FORMER Canadian newspaper titan Conrad Black said it first.

You don’t read your press, you weigh it.

Black was a global giant of conservative influence who once owned a $3.5 billion empire that included the UK’s Daily Telegraph, The Jerusalem Post, Chicago Times Tribune, and yes, Kootenay papers like our own Cranbrook Townsman and Kimberley Bulletin.

Black, who even got ink whilst in the clink on fraud and obstruction of justice charges, knew his news.

Good or bad, if the papers are writing about you, or your TikToks are blowin’ up, business is good and likely to get better. Here’s a look at the press, traction, and buzz Cranbrook, Kimberley, and Co. have garnered in media around the country, and the world, as of late.

THIS spring, Canada’s most read newspaper sent two veteran journalists out to 12

Summer 2023

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Cranbrook’s ʔaq’am First Nation to chronicle a story headlined “Fighting Fire With Fire—How a B.C. Indigenous community is reintroducing traditional fire knowledge and practices to manage land vulnerable to wildfires.”

Globe and Mail national correspondent Wendy Stueck and internationally travelled photojournalist Jesse Winter documented the $250,000 two-day burn, a coordinated effort of 75 people from the B.C. Wildfire Service, fire departments from Cranbrook and Kimberley, and contractors.

“The most fascinating element of the ʔaq’am burn was its sheer size,” says Winter. “I’ve photographed prescribed burns before, but nothing as intricate or as large as that one. It was also really interesting to see the community itself taking the lead.”

The story included ʔaq’am elder Marty Williams, fire fighter Max Andrews, wildfire consultant Bob Gray,

and 40-year wildfire service vet Mike Morrow.

Winter expects he’s apt to be covering more wildfire tales this summer.

“There’s a chance it’ll bring me back to the Kootenays, which would be awesome,” the Vancouver resident adds. “If it works out, I’ll definitely remember to bring my mountain bike this time.”

WHILE the Kootenay’s Doukhobour community first migrated to the west side of the Purcells back in 1908—more than 7,500 fled to Canada in 1899— they’ve since set roots all over the region, including the southern end of the Columbia Valley, with family names from Arishenkoff to Zebin not uncommon.

The New York Times, with 9.3 million readers around the world, sent correspondent Dan Bilefsky and photographer Jackie Dives for a June tale headlined: “A Pacifist Sect From Russia Is Shaken by War, and Moder-

nity, and the sub-head: The Ukraine conflict is causing soul-searching among the Doukhobors, a peace-loving group that emigrated to Canada in 1899.” The Times is the world’s 18th most read paper, third in the United States.

USUALLY reporting on Western Canada’s vital oil, gas, and agriculture sectors, Canadian Press business reporter Amanda Stephenson, in June, tapped into an entrepreneurial yarn that garnered the attention of those who follow CP partner papers across the country including the CBC and The Globe.

Titled “Craft gear from here: How B.C. mountain towns are growing a recreation-based manufacturing industry,” the story detailed the ambitious efforts of the Kootenay Outdoor Recreation Enterprise Initiative (KORE), billing itself as Canada's first outdoor craft gear-makers alliance. Led by Kimberley business veterans Matt Mosteller and project manager Kevin Pinnock, KORE now has more than 100 outdoor rec-tech manufacturing and product designs aboard. Mosteller told Stephenson that the sector is “a massively overlooked

economic driver for the province.”

The KORE project also garnered big spreads in British Columbia Magazine courtesy of correspondent Andrew Findlay, and in Backcountry Magazine in a tale from freelancer Ryan Stuart.

Worth noting: the outdoor recreation economy is a big provider of jobs and economic spin-off in Oregon and Washington State, where $21.6 billion is spent annually on outdoor recreation, with 42 percent of that spent specifically on gear and equipment.

KORE has two new efforts under way: One, a campaign called Kootenay Approved, would brand any outdoor gear made in the region sold in independent shops and in giants like Mountain Equipment Co-op. And a second, KORE Re-Hub, which would be a sustainable funding social enterprise that repairs, repurposes, or recycles busted outerwear, tents, and sleeping bags. KORE’s second annual summit runs October 11-14 at Kimberley Alpine Resort’s Conference Centre.

–Darren Davidson

BUSINESS

From Kimberley Kid to BC Business Bowse

lems, working with all levels of tourism...how so? of government, Indigenous communities, large industry, During JulyFest and Octoberfest, my parents would and not for profits.

What are your recollections of growing up in the East Kootenays?

BC Chamber of Commerce Chair Dr. Greg Thomas shares insights on hustling, parched miners, keys to business success, and Kootenay Kimberley was idyllic. I used entrepreneurs’ province-leading positivity.

Raised in a Kimberley family of five kids from the late ‘60s through the ‘70s, Greg Thomas vividly recalls expectations instilled and lessons gleaned while helping out at his dad’s business, Norman’s Pharmacy, an iconic shop in the old bank that was once beside the Happy Hans Cuckoo Clock, and his mom’s shop, The Present House, right across the way. His father, born in town, helped create Kimberley’s formidable Ba-

varian City of The Rockies schtick and build the Pines Special Care Home.

The Thomas family mettle was born in part from his grandfather, who came to the East Kootenays from England via mining jobs in California and Montana, Calgary’s turn of the century rail yards, and one particularly heinous winter in Vancouver, in 1919.

“The influenza epidemic was so bad,” Thomas says, “and my grandparents lived

to set up a card table at the entrance to the mine and sell lemonade to the miners coming off shift, with my mother teaching me about overhead and profit, by charging me for the ingredients. Summer days were filled with Sunday trips to Wasa Lake. In winter we skied the North Star hill every weekend, trying to see how many runs we could get in.

right across from a very busy cemetery.”

Today, business is anything but dead for the good doctor. An aquatic toxicologist based in Surrey, he owns G3, an environmental consulting and research firm.

Thomas works internationally, throughout the province—having visited virtually every community in BC—and spent his career understanding and Both your folks were busiapplying regulations and ness owners in town and taught you the importance science to complex prob-

wear traditional German clothing. So did I when I worked in my father’s store.

We were always to welcome guests with a smile and help however we could. I still find myself, wherever I travel, asking tourists if I can assist, even when far from home.

You can take the boy out of the small town, but not the small town out of the boy.

What values did your parents teach you about business?

Both my mother and father had an extremely hard work ethic and instilled in me at an early age to work hard, be fair, always be ethical and responsible, and always apply the golden rule. Being

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BUSINESS

from a small community instilled in me the need to work together to achieve the greater good and to always respect other’s points of view.

There were some telling Kootenay stats from the Chamber’s latest Collective Perspective survey. Anything that stands out?

Kootenay respondents told us they feel their local government supports their business at a higher average than the rest of the province: 76% versus 67% province-wide. Feedback from the Kootenays was particularly interesting. But it’s difficult to answer with certainty “why” business owners in the Kootenays feel more positive.

You have seen a lot of businesses win and lose. And you’ve run your own for 31 years. What are the keys to success?

Most important is a strong awareness of the product and service being offered and how it’s different, or better, than what

others are offering. These, combined with integrity and perseverance, are key. In addition, patience and flexibility, because there are going to be challenges. Making sure you understand the market/customer, how to plan and manage your financials, and how best to create an inclusive, supportive, enjoyable, and flexible work environment are keys too.

Communities sometimes aren’t entirely sure what their Chamber of Commerce does, but their roles became more prevalent during the pandemic. What’s the BC Chamber of Commerce elevator pitch?

We dismantle government barriers that make it hard for businesses and try to assist businesses that are working incredibly hard to succeed. The BC Chamber helps local chambers support business in their region through advocacy, training, and support services. Collectively, this makes regions, and the province, more economically successful.

~ Go Figure ~ Here’s what Kootenay business owners told BC Chamber of Commerce stat hawks in their latest Collective Perspective survey—used to inform BC businesses and government of regional and province-wide economic issues.

82% Percentage of Koote-

nay respondents that expressed confidence in their business right now

79% BC average 65% Percentage of Kootenay

respondents that say their business is in “good to very good” shape

52% BC average Top challenges to Kootenay business success:

76% Ability to train and recruit 38% Ability to navigate red tape

29% Ability to innovate

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Top three government efforts that would help build business: $10 a day childcare Incentives to promote cleaner low emissions Measures to attract more business in natural resources

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I hear a train a-comin’— You can hop on Fort Steele’s 2-6-2 Prairie locomotive, which was first used for logging on Vancouver Island, anytime between July 15 and Sept. 10.

Photo provided by Fort Steele archives, 1998.

HERITAGE

One Hundred Years for the 1077 Fort Steele’s rare 2-6-2 Prairie locomotive celebrates a century.

Like a stallion, Fort Steele’s 1077 locomotive sits on shop tracks under a big, brown barn.

Having undergone its final inspection, the little engine that could is about to embark on its 100th year.

lowstone’s sagas of frontier injustice, colonial savagery, and hard-earned out-West existence are probably quite similar to the real-life world the 1007 worked in.

There are eight surviving 2-6-2 steam locomotives in

THE LOCOMOTIVE SAW ITS FIRST STRETCH OF TRACK IN 1923—THE SAME ERA IN WHICH THE YELLOWSTONE TV FRANCHISE IS SET IN. The sight of the iron horse brings to mind the chugging bassline of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Fact is, the 2-6-2 Prairie class locomotive went to work ten years before Cash was born. Considering the tonnage and turmoil the big train has survived, the colour black seems better suited for the massive iron workhorse than the man himself.

The locomotive saw its first stretch of track in 1923—the same era in which the Yellowstone TV franchise is set in. Interesting to consider that Yel-

Canada, but Fort Steele’s is one of only two that are still in operation.

Built by Montreal Locomotive Works, it is Canada’s only domestically built 2-62 Prairie. The other seven were built in either Pennsylvania or New Jersey.

The 1077 has always been in British Columbia, originally as a logging train on Vancouver Island, before being donated to the B.C. government in 1960 by the Macmillan Bloedel logging company.

After a lengthy restoration, the 1077 arrived at Fort Steele and earned a few cameos on the big screen—

most famously in Shanghai Noon, starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson.

Eugene ‘Gene’ Roshau, Fort Steele’s Train Department Manager, said the wood-burning train was initially problematic as a log hauler because it kept igniting forest fires.

“They couldn’t stop the cinders from coming out of the stack,” said the 35-year veteran of CP Rail, “they kept burning up all of their profits.”

Thus, the train was converted to run on oil.

“It’s the only one I know of that was converted,” said Roshau, “now we run it with recycled crank case oil, which is modified in Alberta.”

Even though the 1077 boasted 2700 horsepower, diesel locomotives, which were safer and required less maintenance and labour, eventually made steam power obsolete.

The 1077 kept its relevance however, only this time not as a carrier of timber, but as a carrier of

history and legacy.

It holds the legacy of expert boilermakers Herb Hawkins and his apprentice Perry ‘Pip’ Stairs, who each came out of retirement to restore the train’s boiler— Herb at the age of eighty.

The 1077 is a testament to the craftsmanship of everyone who contributed to the train’s longevity.

Gene Roshau has enlisted the help of his son, Jeff, but said the challenge moving forward is finding younger people willing to continue the legacy.

“We want young people to learn this while we can still teach it to them, because you never know, I might not be here next year,” said Gene.

A public opening ceremony will take place on July 15 with the closing weekend and last run of the season during Fort Steele’s Kootenay Country Fair, September 10. www.fortsteele.bc.ca –Jesse Heinrichs

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 15

ADV ENTURE

Adaptation creation— Built in the Cranbrook Community Forest thanks to funding from the province’s Destination Development coffers, Cranbrook’s new Padawan trail is one of numerous big-ticket projects underway in the region.

They’re aimed at accommodating an explosive growth in the number of cyclists of all sorts living here, or vacationing in the East Kootenay. Riders Ethan Krueger and Naill Pinder put their five wheels to work.

Photo by Nick Nault.

Money Shots Rolling hills, a towering mountain backdrop, mixed forest, and the sunniest valley in British Columbia. Plus a small hill of cash.

All totalled, the ingredients make our little corner of the mountain bike world as good as they come. And getting better.

“The growth in mountain biking in Cranbrook,

With over a million dollars in new funding, mountain bike stakeholders in Cranbrook and Kimberley are peddling into promising new terrain.

gan’s Silver Star Resort, now also a member of the city’s Wildhorse Bike Club and treasurer for Mountain Biking BC. Jahn-Smith steered the bars as Silver Star grew into North America’s best bike park outside Whistler.

Beside locals she says, there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of riders passing Fernie and

trail and technical features in the Community Forest beside the college. The new Padawan Trail is an adaptive path on the Eager Hill system in Cranbrook which features five kilometres of “green flow,” wide, easygoing trail.

Thanks to Tourism Kimberley and the work of 25year tourism veteran and

THERE’S BEEN A NOTICEABLE INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF RIDERS PASSING FERNIE AND HOLDING UP BEFORE HEADING TO NELSON AND ROSSLAND. and peddling of all sorts, has been explosive,” says Kristy Jahn-Smith, Executive Director of Tourism Cranbrook for the past five years.

“We’re seeing 50 women riders a night on group rides and packed parking lots,” says the former marketing boss at the Okana-

16

Summer 2023

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holding up before heading to Nelson and Rossland, to ride East Kootenay Ponderosa single track, parks and pavement alike.

Funders are bucking up to help steward the sector.

College of the Rockies in collaboration with the Wildhorse Club have raised over $130,000 for a new flow

ED John Hamilton, the town landed $850,000 for 36 kilometers of new and updated trails for pedal-assist e-bikes and adaptive trikes, some of which are already built.

The Kimberley Bike Park, a haunt for riders and skateboarders young and old for the last 15 years, is

in the middle of a $64,000 overhaul being overseen by the Kimberley Trails Society.

The society is undertaking regular trail maintenance and the Bootleg Trails/White Lightning and Atlas Shrugged Rehabilitation project. There’s currently an RFP out for an extension of the 28-kilometre, paved Rails to Trails path that connects from Cranbrook to Kimberley’s Platzl.

“With an aging population and e-bikes, the Rail to Trail route has become a huge draw too,” says JahnSmith. Details on the extension project contract are on the Kimberley Trails Society website.

Historically built on the backs of dedicated volunteers, local businesses and community organizations, single-track efforts all over BC, including Kimberley

and Cranbrook, are now receiving the sort of advocacy and recognition they need to deal with new pressures, including the vital need for agreements with private land owners.

Cranbrook cyclists are currently negotiating to have a large swath of private land including the famous Hobgoblin Trail—used in the Trans Rockies race a few years ago—reopened after it was shut on account of trail building the property owner wasn’t made aware of. Proof that in mountain biking’s new-and-needs-to-be-approved landscape, funding, cooperation, and advocacy talk, or riders walk.

– Mike McPhee & Darren Davidson

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LAUGHS

You Laughin’ at Us? When you come from Cranbrook, but you venture away, it can become an endless game of trying to explain to people where Cranbrook is. When I first moved to Vancouver, I found this especially frustrating. Cranbrook was in the same province, yet no one in the Lower Mainland seemed to know it. We were “beyond hope” as the saying goes.

In Montreal I found even fewer people who knew where Cranbrook was, but this time I didn't hold it against them. Why should someone from Quebec know about my tiny, mountain town almost 4,000 kilometres away? Yet it was in Montreal that I was introduced to a demographic that knew Cranbrook very well—stand-up comedians.

I started stand-up comedy after working as a venue manager at the Just For Laughs comedy festival.

Hanging out at clubs after shows and talking to headliners, I discovered that almost all professionally tour-

ing comedians in Canada have been to Cranbrook. I loved hearing the outsider’s perspective of Cranbrook.

One of my most memorable moments happened with Darryl Lennox, a well-loved comedian who recently passed far too soon.

Darryl was from Vancouver, but I met him in Montreal.

I disliked Vancouver a lot, a fact I couldn’t conceal from Darryl (not that I really tried). “Damn, stop shitting on my hometown,” Darryl exclaimed after one of my barbs. “Where are you from anyway?” “Cranbrook, BC," I confessed. He let out a laugh and uttered a description that has lived rent free in my head ever since.

“You’re from that Twin Peaks, David Lynch-ass town?”

At the time I hadn’t even seen Twin Peaks, but when I finally watched it, I couldn’t help but laugh.

He was right. David Lynch was always obsessed with what lurks under the surface of small towns. As I collected stories from come-

From the Sammy to Yuk Yuks to 40-bro brawls. Think Cranbrook’s funny? Ya it is. dians who had performed in Cranbrook, I noticed that the stories always fell into two camps: wholesome and affirming, or reflections of a shady underbelly. For

of the Yuk Yuks shows.

“I was a very young comic, performing on a tiny stage, when a bride and her bridesmaid burst into the room and walked up to

over a week on the road.

The audience really had my back when some dude in the front row was heckling, yee-hawing, and yelling. I was like “What are ya, Albertan?!” and the crowd went nuts. I carried on and had the best support and attention to my craft that I feel I’ve ever experienced.

Cranbrook will always be in my heart.”

A standard piece of advice offered to comedians who play Cranbrook kept coming up though: If you ever play Cranbrook, don’t go to any bars. Guys will try to fight you. Comedian Justin Nichol did his second-ever road gig in Cranbrook and ended up doing mushrooms with some audience members, one of whom seemed to be the “Prince of Cranbrook.”

Justin didn’t remember this advice until it was too late and a 40-person brawl broke out at the bar.

I WAS LIKE “WHAT ARE YA, ALBERTAN?!” AND THE CROWD WENT NUTS. I HAD THE BEST SUPPORT AND ATTENTION TO MY CRAFT THAT I’VE EVER EXPERIENCED. CRANBROOK WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY HEART.” better or worse, comedians had strong experiences in Cranbrook.

Sometimes the experience was related to the venue or producer. Back in the days of the Inn of South, Yuk Yuks provided comedians for shows in Cranbrook.

This gig was often referred to as “among the worst in the country,” (even though the hotel in those days apparently used to waive charges for porn!)

Comedian Pete Zedlacher now considers the Key City Theatre to be one of his favourite stops on the Snowed In Tour, but he also remembers the more colourful days

the bar,” he recalls. Although he tried to engage with the women from the stage, they seemed oblivious to the show in progress. They just threw back some shots and left. “At the end of the show I walk out to see the bride sitting on the steps of the hotel crying...I guess the reception didn’t go so well!”

The Key City Theatre has a reputation for being a great Cranbrook experience. Amber Harper Young was among the comedians who performed there for an International Women’s Day show. “It was my standout set,” she recalls. “Our second-to-last stop after

He escaped the brawl and somehow ended up at a swinger couple’s house... another common theme that comes up in road stories about Cranbrook! Not interested in being a third, he had to post up at Denny’s until another comedian came and found him.

I hope to keep bringing stand-up shows to Cranbrook. So far the experiences have been pretty positive; we’ve always managed to leave before the fights break out at the Sammy.

–Sarah Stupor

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 19

Fore-tuitous— One legend, and six Golf Kimberley Cranbrook consortium pillars. From left, Wildstone Golf Pro Jamie Curiston, St. Eugene Pro Cindy Soukoroff, Bootleg Gap Owner Trevor Simkins, Les Furber, a global icon of golf course design (and Kimberley resident), Shadow Mountain Pro Doug Schneider, Purcell Golf Director of Golf Simon Jones, and Paul Whittingham Pro at Cranbrook Golf Club. Photo by Jeff Pew.

ACES HIGH The unlikely, audacious tale of mountain golf’s greatest destination.

Its past, its present, and its very imaginable future, right here.

W: Kevin Brooker verybody knows golf is kind of a big deal around here.

Yet few of us realize that Kimberley was the first place to introduce the idea of mountain golf in British Columbia.

Small wonder; the event was anything but auspicious. It was 1924 (hey, centennial alert!), and the brain trust at Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company simply set out to give off-duty Sullivan miners something to do when it wasn’t curling and hockey season. So they felled some timber and cobbled a rudimentary six-hole golf course—a goat track by modern standards, but more importantly, it was proof of a concept that would flourish in the region to this day. Thanks to soil, climate, and topography, if you knock down a few trees around here, a golf course will magically grow in their place. Often a really, really, good golf course.

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 21

These days mountain golf is a tourism catchphrase that sells the Banffs and Whistlers of the world, though it should be noted that golf thrives on valley meadows, not granite spines. So, while some may claim that Cranbrook’s first course predated Kimberley’s by nearly a decade, a nine-holer on the flat land currently occupied by the Tamarack Centre mall is perhaps unworthy of the term mountain golf. When Cranbrook Golf Club relocated to its current site in the early 1950s, however, its towering conifers and undulating fairways gave the largely blue-collar clientele a course worthy of any modern Rockies resort.

Even though resort golf was barely a thing in those days, it was about to take hold. For that we can thank our oil-soaked, climatically challenged neighbours to the east along with Highway 93, their gateway to a better world. By the 1960s, nine-hole golf courses at both hot springs, Radium and Fairmont, found themselves doing unprecedented business. The latter may even be considered the cradle of resort golf in these parts, since their course was packaged with a campground, lodge, and what we would now call a

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spa. For a time, Fairmont actually irrigated their fairways with hot spring water, yielding superlative turf and an even longer season that had immense appeal to Albertans. Then there was the more conducive everyday weather in B.C.’s sunniest region. Paul Wittingham, head golf pro at Cranbrook, spent his early career at some top courses in Calgary. “Between wind, hail, and lightning, a round of golf out there can really beat you up,” he recalls, none too fondly.

grew up as a Saskatchewan boy who knew his way around heavy machinery.

Through luck and happenstance, he wound up on the earth-moving squad of U.S. golf’s most renowned designers, Robert Trent Jones, both Sr. and Jr. That apprenticeship would lead to a worldwide career with some 65 new course builds and countless renovations. But the arc of his trade changed forever when he earned the commission to design the Springs at Radium. The region’s first modern course,

decided to gamble on tourism as the way forward and specifically invested in a golf course to be allied with the ski resort. To design it, Les Furber got the call.

Despite a horrific commercial and political struggle, the course was completed several years before Cominco shuttered the mine in 2001. “It’s actually the most alpine course we have in the area,” Furber says.

“There were many challenges but I’m proud of the way it turned out.” With its nonstop drama of elevation

“ To economically support an 18-hole golf course, they say you need a population of 25,000. Well, I think there’s now 18 or 19 of those between Golden and Cranbrook. Are there 400,000 people around here? Um, no.”

Perhaps inevitably it soon got hellishly crowded.

Fairmont became infamous for shoving so many players off the first tee that a round took six hours. Something had to give.

If anyone can be credited with transforming a few, scattered, decently-subscribed community courses into a full-fledged golf mecca, it’s Les Furber, one of Canada’s foremost golf architects. Furber

its sculptured greens and bunkers rival any in golf, not to mention the views.

It was an immediate hit, an easy box to tick on any Calgarian’s golf bucket list.

Down-valley, people took notice, and nowhere more than Kimberley. By the 1990s it was already clear that the days of lead and silver and steady paycheques were numbered.

Fearing for the community’s very existence, city leaders

changes, clever routing, and extraordinary views, Trickle Creek Golf Resort is routinely cited as one of Canada’s most thrilling golf courses.

The new century brought another novel economic play, this time from the Ktunaxa First Nation. Now known as St. Eugene Golf Resort and Casino, the project has succeeded spectacularly. Built around a

Put together, these courses make Cranbrook, on a per-capita basis, one of North America’s most golf-rich cities. brilliantly refurbished residential school-turned-hotel, the Ktunaxa managed to take a dark chapter in history—where officials sought to eradicate Indigenous tradition—and turn it into a prosperous community business in which their culture is front and centre.

Once again, Les Furber’s course design at St. Eugene is the cherry on top. “This layout has so much variety,” says Cindy Soukoroff, Director of Golf, and a winner of multiple awards as one of B.C.’s top club pros. “There’s some links style, some riverside holes, and some deep in the forest. You get a lot of different experiences in a single round.”

The feel is similar at the two nearby additions to the unlikely golf cornucopia: Wildstone (2010) and Shadow Mountain (2011). The latter was designed by a team led by South African golf legend Gary Player, who claims the site itself is the most beautiful of all 400 courses he’s created worldwide. And again, both layouts were constructed with a fraction of the earth moving that modern courses usually require. Put together, these courses make Cranbrook, on a per-capita

basis, one of North America’s most golf-rich cities Meanwhile, back in Kimberley, development never stopped. After the city sold Trickle Creek to the Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, it embarked on another nearby course project for which Les Furber was collared once again.

The result is Bootleg Gap, currently the area’s only 27hole facility, a championship course carved from the forest alongside a sporty, par-34, nine-hole suitable for beginners. Once more the city sold the completed course to a private operator, Trevor Simkins, a second-generation golf professional originally from Kamloops. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” he says. “I literally can’t believe I own this course. What a place to raise our kids.”

Still something of a hidden gem, says Simkins, the course is nevertheless entirely dependent on the rubber-tire market. “We’re unique in that we don’t have annual memberships.

We’re strictly public. And overall, I’d say that about 70% of our golfers are Albertan.” How does that work? Like the others in the area, Bootleg offers dramatically low greens fees com-

pared to courses of equal quality, making it regularly ranked among Canada’s best values in golf.

As for other creative ways to monetize a beautiful course, look no further than the site of the original six-hole course. Now known as Purcell Golf, home of the Kimberley Golf Club, the property was recently purchased by a group led

by Kimberley native and educator Duncan MacLeod, with plans to establish a prestigious international boarding school called Purcell Collegiate. “We’ve received government approval to start this fall,” says MacLeod, who notes that the city was an early adopter of international education. “There have been fee-paying students here since 1981.”

Partnering with the ?aq’am Community of the Ktunaxa Nation, students will board at the St. Eugene facility until Purcell’s campus is built for 2026. “Indigenous learning, including Truth and Reconciliation, will be a central feature of the curriculum,” says MacLeod. “So will wilderness education. Our students will dress in outdoor gear, not traditional uniforms.”

How the Other Half Swings Golf grinches love to hate on the sport’s country club image, but it wasn’t always that way and needn’t be today. If you’re lucky, as we are, you have an option like Cranbrook’s Mission Hills Golf, a par-3 course where regular folk can enjoy tree-lined fairways and postcard vistas. Best of all, nobody will ever ask you to tuck in your shirt. “Oh, we have a dress code,” says General Manager Melissa Nicol. “But all it says is that you need to be dressed.” In other words, feel free to bust out those muscle shirts and Daisy Dukes—it’s summertime.

Tucked away near the city’s fancier links and roughly a Rory McIlroy drive from the industrial part of town, Mission Hills is a family-owned, family-friendly course that’s proud of its playability for all skill sets. And affordability: watch their Facebook for deals like “LADIES NIGHT SALE!!! Golf $10, Drink Special $4.” In this sport in 2023, that’s a claim truly worthy of three exclamation points.

Believe it or not, the value is even better for kids, who get to play all day long for just $12.

And in July and August, they play free when accompanied by a paid adult. Bringing the whole gang together has never been easier.

Says Nicol, “We look the other way if you want to go out in a group or five or six. Having fun is pretty much the only rule.”

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 23

Les Is More.

Lots More.

Some of the planet’s golf courses, designed by new Kimberley resident, Les Furber

du Un, du Duex, du Toit— Kimberley pro golfer Jared du Toit tees off on Trickle Creek’s 16th hole. Du Toit, who’d pick Marvin Gaye’s “Let's Get It On” as his first-tee entrance song (every course should do that, ya?) captained the Arizona State University golf squad, and in 2017 was in the running for both the Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan awards—two of the NCAA’s most prestigious honours.

Photo courtesy of Jared du Toit.

VARADERO GOLF CLUB Varadero, Cuba (Cuba’s first 18 holes) ROYAL DAR-ES-SALAM Rabat, Morocco KARLSTEJN GOLF RESORT (First modern–day course in the Czech Republic) ZUOZ GOLF St. Moritz, Switzerland SHAUGHNESSY GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB, Vancouver, BC (Membership costs $75,000, staff chef selected to cook for the IOC at the 2006 Torino Olympics)

Club golf will continue to thrive at Purcell. Because the campus will occupy several of the current golf holes, the course has engaged celebrated golf architect Trevor Dormer to create seven new holes that will yield a revamped layout. Like Les Furber, Dormer apprenticed with a legend, Jack Nicklaus Designs, on a course in Russia.

Now he makes Kimberley his home, so he’s delighted to build a course that he’ll actually get to play.

Also fittingly, Purcell head pro Simon Jones is U.K.-born, so he knows a thing or two about the

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world abroad. And he recognizes real enthusiasm when he sees it. “Golf culture is strong here,” he says. “The parking lot is often full. At one of our demo events recently, I did 50 club fittings. People are discovering what we have and they’re excited.

Where else can a junior get a membership to a top course for $100?”

Speaking of the up-andcomers, local golf fans have a rooting interest in one of their own. Kimberley product Jared du Toit parlayed a strong junior career into a college scholarship at Arizona State. Now based

in Scottsdale, du Toit has full status on the Canadian PGA Tour, though his eyes are set on the big stage.

This spring he played a U.S. Open qualifying tournament in Georgia and bested the entire field.

So, yeah, golf around here is hot right now. The world will come to know that, says Jones, who sits on the board of a new consortium aiming to spread the news. Their slogan at golfkimberleycranbrook. com is a simple one: “Seven spectacular courses less than 24 minutes away.” Not to mention the underutilized international airport

right in the middle.

We have built it, now it’s time for them to come.

When it’s 40 degrees in Dallas, is there a market for jaw-dropping golf with average highs of 26, low humidity, and cool overnight lows? And why can’t London to Cranbrook represent the greatest package golf deal an Englishman could ever enjoy? It’s kind of a no brainer, because with all its fierce joy and occasional pain, the great game literally doesn’t get any greater.”

I ROVERI GOLF CLUB Athens, Greece EAGLE FALLS GOLF CLUB Great Falls, Montana (home of Malmstrom Air Force Base and a heap of ICBM missiles) CHAMONIX GOLF CLUB Chamonix, France

Easy Come

Easy Go

Les Furber travelled the world building golf courses before semi-retiring to Kimberley two years ago, near some of his greatest triumphs.

“Slow pace, one traffic light, I love it.” He now gets to play plenty of golf on his babies, with a respectable 13-handicap, pretty sharp for a 77-year-old. And why not? “I approached all of my course designs with one person in mind: the average golfer. If every level of player can’t go out and have fun, what’s the point?”

Meanwhile, spring saw the departure of a local titan in area golf and tourism marketing. Before joining his family in Victoria, Chris Andrews wore many hats in the service of letting the world know how awesome this place is. Along with devoted associates, he helped create Cranbrook Tourism in 2015. “Talk about a void in marketing; it had been way overdue,” he says. A three-percent tax now collected from hotel stays has given Cranbrook Tourism the budget to create real clout among worldwide seekers of destinations tailor-made for Instagram.

As to the sheer volume of golf riches now on offer, Furber’s as shocked as anyone. “To economically support an 18-hole golf course they say you need a population of 25,000. Well, I think there’s now 18 or 19 of those between Golden and Cranbrook. Are there 400,000 people around here? Um, no.”

Still, he expects a bright tomorrow. “These days all golf development depends on residential real estate, but here we have courses that will never have homes alongside them, just pure nature. That’ll be a rare commodity.”

As the General Manager of Wildstone Golf Course for over a decade, Andrews was also instrumental in the cat-herding that resulted in the seven-course consortium at golfkimberleycranbrook.com. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” he likes to say, “and collaborative marketing will always be key.”

SPRING 2023

SUPPORT

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THE CHANGING FACES OF OUR HOMETOWNS

For 16 years Go Kimberley and Go Cranbrook, the southern Columbia Valley’s two beloved little magazines, made it through fires, snow storms, a pandemic and even a merger, when two mags became one — Go Cranberley. (Yup, we just chainsawed the two names in half and duct-taped them right friggin’ together.)

Go Cranberley’s all-local storytelling, news, business and cultural coverage reaches 50,000 folks in eight communities, over 100 local businesses and more than 400 rooms in hotels, motels and holiday rentals 2,300 folks follow us on Facebook and 1,200 on Instagram.

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Growing as leaders—while having a great time Ninety youth from around the Basin attended the Basin Youth Network Summit, which took place in Kimberley in May 2023 and was delivered by the Trust’s Basin Youth Network, which helps communities increase local activities and opportunities for youth. Currently, the regional network supports 27 local youth networks.

A glimpse into the remarkable stories of people and places in the Columbia Basin stories.ourtrust.org

“Like all of the Basin Youth Network events we do, we really work to ensure that it’s fun and interactive, and there’s learning through doing,” says Mike Kent, Regional Coordinator of the region-wide network.

At the summit, youth get to grow their leadership skills, express opinions, find their voices, develop ideas and plan to take action in their communities.

“I enjoyed meeting new people from the region and hearing from all the speakers.

Learning more about community development and the ways youth, like me, can influence the future was pretty cool,” says Anika Tiefenbach, Castlegar Youth Network.

The bank for Canadian entrepreneurs Keep moving your business forward with our flexible financing solutions and expert advisory services.

Cranbrook Business Centre Michelle Kleindienst, Senior Account Manager michelle.kleindienst@bdc.ca

bdc.ca 1-888-INFO-BDC

Our Lakes.

Our Legacy.

For East Kootenay lakes loved by old timers and newcomers alike, these are daunting days.

More paddlers, boats, and much bigger waves. Invading species and crowds alike. And from property lines to lake bottoms, layers of governmental agencies, clashing user groups, and First Nations with new land rights. What’s to come for our lakes of tomorrow?

Writer Dave Quinn reports.

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A summer sunset at St. Mary’s Lake Regional Park.

Mitch Winton photo courtesy of KootenayRockies.com

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 29

A summer storm is brewing over our much-loved East

Kootenay lakes.

Under a rising tide of stand-up paddlers kayakers, jet boaters, and water skiers, increasingly bitter conflict and urgent conservation concerns are simmering.

In particular, it’s the popularity of wake boarding that’s driving a wedge through lakefront communities due to noise, exhaust, and perceived danger posed to slower vessels and

swimmers. A problem created by new technologies in motorized marine recreation, the waves from wake boarding boats are damaging shorelines and property, and inhibiting enjoyment on privately owned waterfront and public beaches.

Large, lumbering wakes are becoming particularly troublesome on smaller lakes and bays.

The trouble stems from the fact that wake boats flood a rear onboard res-

ervoir to sink the stern, then plow slowly through the water to create a deep wave large enough to be surfed. Wake surfing boats are of further concern to lake health due to the transference of invasive species from one jurisdiction to another, as their bilges are filled and drained with waters mixed from disparate water bodies. Uncleaned boats of all sorts, kayaks and SUPs included, are contributing to the issue too.

Safety and wildlife advocates cite wildlife disturbance, boat collisions, swimmer injuries, and even deaths as rationale to take a good hard look at lake use, while property owners and visitors alike demand status quo access and use to protect their property values and their own enjoyment on the water.

The problems and solutions are myriad. How much wake is too much wake?

How many boats are too

Wake Up Call?— According to the U.S. National Marine Manufacturers Association, powerboat sales are broken into three classes: wakeboard boat, wake surf boat, and ski boat. Wakeboard boat sales are growing the fastest. With new technology and ballasts, wake surf and wakeboard boats can create waves with up to 25 times the energy as old school ski boats.

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Hurtin’ Down Deep

Eaux Contraire

Turns out even sediment has sentiments. Here’s what can happen to the fragile world below your boat if you play too hard in shallow water.

The Journal of Water Resource and Protection, a monthly research journal that in 2022 published a paper titled “Numerical Study of the Impact of Wake Surfing on Inland Bodies of Water” which pointed out that not all waves are as wicked as they seem.

WAKE

Some of the findings: CUTTING + TEARING SMOTHERING

TURBULENCE SH

the wetlands received an even better protection than that proposed by the provincial government. The Feds enacted a 20-horsepower limit for motorized vessels on the main stem of the Columbia River and all tributaries between Fairmont and Donald, and a complete ban on motorized use in the adjacent wetlands.

It’s a complicated and daunting jurisdictional landscape. Transport Canada is the only authority that can create Vessel Operation Restriction Regulations (VORRs) via Canada’s 2001 Shipping Act. Local authorities must do all the legwork then bring proposals to Transport Canada for any legal restrictions or limits to usage on waterways. Here, the result is a dance between lakeshore and community property owners and recreational visitors to our lakes, many of whom have been loving local lakes—with paddle power and horsepower alike—for decades longer than recently arrived recreational property owners or residents, and the Regional District of East Kootenay, the legal property authority who would bring any VORR proposals to Transport Canada.

Northern Idaho’s Kootenai County already has a 200-foot (61-meter) minimum distance from shore for Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River, and active discussions are looking to increase that to 500 feet (152 meters) for wake boats

A

many, and how fast should they be allowed to go?

How much noise should neighbours be required to tolerate? How much wildlife habitat should we give up? And who makes the rules around lake recreation anyways?

Turns out there is no easy answer to these questions, as residents of the Upper Columbia Valley found out in their decades-long struggle to protect the Columbia River Wetlands, the longest intact wetland complex in interior North America, a critical stopover for migratory birds and critical nesting habitat for over 100 species of resident birds.

Already protected as a Wildlife Management Area, one of British Columbia’s most stringent protection measures, locals thought it would be an easy sell to safeguard wildlife values from aquatic recreation pressures. Increasing jet boat and sea-doo use prompted advocates led by conservation group Wildsight and the late Ellen Zimmerman to undertake a long public education and lobbying campaign, resulting in a provincially mandated boating horsepower limit in the wetlands.

However, a wealthy Calgary lawyer with a jet boat and a riverfront recreation property took legal issue with the regulation, and the B.C. Court of Appeals overturned the legislation. Turns out navigable waterways are a federal jurisdiction, not provincial. After years more lobbying and work,

TURBIDITY

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RESUSPENSION

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Boat wakes dissipate quickly and have little impact on shorelines compared to wind-driven waves.

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Multiple simulations show great loss of wave energy at various distances from shorelines. In each case, a boat operating at 200 feet from shore and in water depths greater than 10 feet is optimal for shoreline and environmental health.

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Wave energy increases exponentially with height, and studies have shown that wake and surf boat waves carry 10-25 times the energy of waves from an old-school ski boat.

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The amount of sediment caused by shoreline erosion from boat traffic or wind-driven waves is insignificant compared to the amount of sediment that flows in naturally through a lake’s water shed.

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Boat wakes can increase oxygenation, which is beneficial for aquatic species.

Sediment can clog fish gills, suffocate fish eggs, and hurt aquatic insect life cycles, which are vital for fisheries.

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Boat wake stirs up sediment from lake beds and creates murky clouds full of contaminants including phosphorous, which creates algae blooms.

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Contaminants also enter lakeside communities’ water supplies.

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Big waves destroy bird nests and nesting areas, erode shoreline aquatic plants that keep the water clear and serve as shelter and hunting areas for amphibians and fish, and damage lakefront property.

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Wave energy increases exponentially with height, and studies have shown that wake and surf boat waves carry 10-25 times the energy of waves from an old-school ski boat. in order to allow shore wave energy to dissipate to safe levels for swimmers, nesting wildlife, and infrastructure.

Wave energy increases exponentially with height, and studies have shown that wake and surf boat waves carry 10-25 times the energy of waves from an oldschool ski boat. Wake boat waves nearly one-meter tall can pound the shore over 60 meters away.

The issue is summed up in a Coeur d’Alene Lakeshore Property Owners Association report: “Despite their growing popularity, wake/surf boats are a small percentage of watercraft on Kootenai County waterways. Yet they make it nearly impossible for the majority to safely recreate on rivers, smaller lakes, and narrower bays on Coeur d’Alene Lake.”

Ron Gall lives at Wasa full-time. His son has a home on the lakeshore too, built by his grandparents in the ‘80s after they moved south from the Northwest Territories. The Gall’s service and connection to the Wasa community goes back three generations.

“Paddleboards and kayaks have become abundant in recent years,” says the amiable Gall. “Wasa is a busy lake and always has been a busy lake. You get six or seven boats out there and it feels full, but everyone goes clockwise and tries to keep things safe.”

All was well until the Wasa Area Safety Advo-

cates (WASA) put out a survey to collect feedback on the idea of creating speed zones for boats on the lake, one in a small, picturesque bay, and another at Wasa’s smaller north end, where the original Gall home is.

The speed zone proposal didn’t sit well with the Gall family, nor many other residents. A contentious issue right from the start, matters got even more heated when completed surveys were stolen from a feedback box at the Wasa Post Office.

“The proposal was to make our bay a wake-free zone,” explains Gall. “We purchased the property to ski from the dock. How do you pick one area and suddenly make it boat free? It devalues property.”

“We already have swim zones at Wasa Park where boats are not allowed. Lazy and Larch Lakes have boat limits already; people can go there if they want a quiet experience.”

Gall and other Wasa residents started a petition to maintain Wasa’s status quo.

“The WASA survey approached kayakers and paddle boarders who were visitors from Alberta or Cranbrook, not residents, and we went door-to-door to the people that live in the community.”

Gall and his supporters presented their petition, “Wasa Let it Be,” to the RDEK, with signatures from 460 people, including 172 lakefront stakeholders. Jane

Don’t be a wake wanker.

If you’re producing a large wake, stay at very least 200 feet away from the shore and docks.

Wake boat in water at least 7 meters (22 feet) deep. Boat manufacturers say your waves will be nicer, and you won’t churn up the bottom.

Practice “Clean, Drain, Dry” every time you pull your boat.

Keep the music down when you're idling as sound travels extra far on water. So if you can hear “Back In Black” 80 feet behind the boat, cabin owners and folks on the beach can hear it too.

Give anglers a wide berth; don’t scare the fish. Same goes for paddlers, you’ll scare them away too, and one of them might be your Mom, a future boss, or someone packing a rare but effective lake taser.

Stay far away from wildlife habitat. Would you like it if a loon crapped in your bed? Don’t crap in hers, or his, or theirs, etc.

Riparian Denizens— A cow moose in the shallows at Whiteswan Lake, and below, a merganser and chicks at Premier Lake. Shoreline of large lakes and shallows provide primary food supplies for waterfowl and mammals. Photos by John Lyon.

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N E W E V E NTS & W OR KS H OPS A D D E D M ON TH LY

JUNE 29 – JULY 26 Shannon Fraser When Dye Flows on Fabric Solo Art Exhibition JULY 1, AUG 5, SEPT 2 , OCT 7 First Saturdays Festival JULY 11 – AUG 4 Creative Kids Camp Tuesdays to Fridays, 10am–12pm (Some classes are longer.)

AUGUST 16-20 Kaleidoscope Arts Festival JULY 27 – AUGUST 23 Adjudicated Exhibition for Established & Emerging Artists AUGUST 24 – SEPTEMBER 20 Shasta McCoy Solo Art Exhibition

GALLERY & OFFICE HOURS Tuesday – Saturday, 1 to 5 pm VISIT

LOCATION 64 Deer Park Ave.

KI MBER L EYARTS . CO M / CAL E NDAR for our monthly schedule and to buy tickets.

A lone kayak plies the waters of Columbia Lake. There is little in the way of conflict on the lake, or development. That’s due in part to the fact the lake’s east shore remains one of the last, undeveloped lakeshores in the region, and the CP Rail line, a private strip of land along the west shore, blocks public access to the lake. Photo by Dave Quinn.

“I am not really in favour of closing certain areas permanently, but I think having certain quiet lake days of the week would potentially be a solution to allow everyone to continue to enjoy the lake.”

Walter, Area E RDEK Director committed at a January 2023 RDEK meeting to move Wasa to the RDEK’s priority list, and hopes to undertake a Summer 2023 study of recreation at the lake.

Farther down the lake, the Dixon family has had property at Wasa for a century, since 1933.

Paul Dixon has seen a lifetime of changes on and around the lake, from when he was a child to today, watching his grandchildren enjoy one of the sweetest summer spots in the Kootenays.

“A lot of us really like it quiet out there for kayaking or stand-up paddling,” explains Paul, “but we also have family members who really enjoy water skiing and other motorized activities on the lake. I am not really in favour of closing certain areas permanently, but I think having certain quiet lake days of the week would potentially be a solution to allow everyone to continue to enjoy the lake.”

It is obvious that something has to be done to protect private property and public safety, while allowing continued enjoyment of our lakes by all users, but it is a slow paddle upstream to get there. Minimum distances

from shore for motorized boats is an easily enforceable solution that is already in place in other jurisdictions and would solve the challenges of inappropriate uses in smaller lakes and bays but would potentially place many areas of smaller lakes off limits for the ski and wake community.

Horsepower or no-towing or sea-doo limits for smaller lakes is another option, already in place on lakes such as Alces, Whiteswan, and Whitetail to protect wildlife, fishing opportunity, and quiet recreation. But other creative solutions might also help protect wildlife and quiet recreation opportunities, such as times or days of the weeks when smaller lakes are restricted to non-motorized use or a horsepower limit.

The RDEK has received petitions from both sides of the debate and has committed to further study before making any decisions on how to proceed.

Whichever way the waves go, not everyone will be happy, but the hope is that all lake users will be able to continue to safely enjoy the lake and that property infrastructure, property values, public safety, and wildlife will all be factored into the decision.

Troubled Waters?

COLU

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DOWNSTREAM WATER USERS 16 million

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DEPTH 57 m

AVG DEPTH 4-5 m

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MOYIE LAKE

SIZE 9.3 sq km

AVG WIDTH 1.1 km

IN

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WINDERMERE LAKE: 170 BOATS AT A TIME Windermere Lake, really more of a widening of the Columbia River, has been dealing with recreation challenges for decades, culminating in a 2011 Regional District and District of Invermere official Lake Windermere Management Plan (LWMP). A look at lakeshore jurisdictions offers some insight into the complexity of managing human impacts on a lake: the foreshore is split between the RDEK (55%), AHA District of Invermere (20%), andH the Columbia Lake LAKE Indian Reserve #3 (25%), the latter co-managed by the Shuswap Indian Band and the Ktunaxa’s ʔakisq̓nuk First Nation. Anything below high water is public land and water, with uses governed by local bylaws in the above jurisdictions as well as the Province, and any limitations to use on the water itself is controlled by the Feds as a navigable waterway.

Let the bun-fights begin!

Luckily, Lake Windermere has one of the few longstanding lake monitoring and planning organizations.

Originating from Wildsight’s 2005 Lake Windermere Project, the Lake Windermere Ambassadors have been gathering information and supporting stewardship reporting and planning since. Their template for lake monitoring and management has been used for other local lakes, spun off into the country-wide Living Lakes Canada Network, and has been showcased internationally. Boat counts revealed up to 170 power boats on the lake at once, and scientific monitoring documented water quality, biodiversity, and foreshore impacts, all of which helped stakeholders from all sides work together to create the LWMP. RO

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A highlight of my youth was the annual father-son Moyie fishing campout derby, an event that in a short forty years has become impossible to replicate. Literally every camping spot we used to use now boasts a large home, and the changes have been dramatic.

Brian Conrad moved to the Moyie valley in 1975 and has watched all that change firsthand.

“The valley has changed from a remote, rustic, picturesque place to an industrial and recreational corridor,” explains Conrad.

When Conrad started the Moyie winter fishing derby over forty years ago, acting as Commissioner of the Derby, around 80 to 120 folks froze their collective butts off ice fishing for one of seven fish species then found in the lake.

“Over 300 people showed up the last two years, and the fishing just is not anywhere near what it was. Introduced brook trout have hybridized with the native cut-throat, and the bull trout are nearly gone, as are the big ling. Now the lake has invasive perch, bluegills, catfish, and out-of-control crayfish populations.” Conrad has a buddy who regularly traps 70-80 crayfish in a single night. Where the perch, bluegills, and crayfish came from is a mystery linked by some to the bilges of wake boats moving between Alberta and BC, and the catfish are a huge challenge, as these bottom feeders effectively vacuum up the eggs of other species, including burbot.

Since 2009, U.S. and B.C. fisheries biologists have been capturing and handling up to 350 burbot, collecting millions of eggs for an Idaho hatchery to grow burbot to repopulate the lower Kootenay River and Kootenay Lake population, lost in the early 1970s along with sturgeon when the Libby Dam blocked the river. It is not lost on local anglers that much of Idaho has resident populations of the introduced brown bullhead and is a possible source of this invasive species.

LENGTH 17 km

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Here’s a snapshot of the issues hampering healthy waters and happier times at some of your favourite East Kootenay lakes.

MOYIE LAKE: FROM RUSTIC AND REMOTE TO RECREATIONAL RUNAWAY

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No laughing matter— Like the Canadian ‘80s band of the same name once sung, she ain’t pretty. Northern pikes are meat eaters, big compared to other swimmers and the lady fish can reproduce all by themselves. If food is scarce, they’ll even eat each other.

They’re called pikes because of their resemblance to the pole-like weapon used in medievel days.

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This tiny, pothole, roadside lake is one of the few that retains its old-school Kootenay charm, but has been the stage for one of the most shocking incidents of invasive species introductions in recent years. In 2005 Haha Lake was the site of the first detection of northern pike east of the Rockies. This predatory dinosaur of a fish even has protogynous hermaphrodite potential: female pike can switch teams and become males if the need arises.

At Haha, fisheries biologists spent 8,500 hours gillnetting and trapping, and 17,000 seconds of electroshocking, all for six adult fish. If pike do get established in our waterways, a full, aquatic Jurassic Park scenario could ensue.

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“ It makes no sense to have up to 20 huge boats on tiny Rosen Lake.”

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ROSEN LAKE: $200K BOATS AND SWAMPED SWIMMERS

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One of the largest warm lakes in the Kootenays, Columbia Lake boasts one of the only large lakes with a protected shoreline. The famed East Shore of the lake was made whole again with the 2011 purchase of Lot 48 from the owners of Fairmont Resort. This permanently halted plans for a resort, golf course, and marina on the critical ungulate winter range and rare grasslands of Columbia Lake’s East Shore, and helped complete a protected area matrix of over 7,600 hectares of this wildlife and history-rich lake shore. The storied Ktunaxa Spirit Trail traverses just above the lake, with ancient Ktunaxa pictograms providing a portal into time immemorial for recently arrived colonizers.

Like all Kootenay Lakes, however, recreation conflicts are on the rise. As a result, in 2022 the RDEK released the Columbia Lake Management Plan. It noted that public access was a limiting factor for all users, mainly due to the protected area on the east side, and the CP Rail line that hugs the west shore. Plan recommendations include limiting the number of mooring buoys, encouraging a 100-meter ‘no-wake’ zone around the lake perimeter (150 meters is recommended by the Columbia Lake Stewardship Society), and notes that public access and consistent high winds are likely the limiting factors for recreational motorized use on Columbia Lake.

Cranbrook business owner Heidi Romitch’s mother has owned a family cabin on tiny Rosen Lake near Jaffray since 1964, and the family has witnessed disturbing changes over the past decade with the increasing wake boat traffic.

“We have lost about a foot of property annually since wake boating started on the lake,” explains Romitch, “and if it keeps up the water will be at our cabin in another decade. An elderly neighbour was recently smashed into the shore by a giant wake, resulting in injuries that eventually led to her death.”

Romitch’s mother, a strong swimmer, can no longer go in the lake at times due to the huge waves, nor can her six and eight-year-old grandkids. A tough new reality for a family after 70 years on the lake.

“It makes no sense to have up to 20 huge wake boats, including sponsored $200,000-boats, on tiny Rosen Lake. Something has to change.”

In 1999, the RDEK adopted the Jaffray, Tie Lake, and Rosen Lake

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COLUMBIA LAKE: A WIN FOR STEWARDSHIP AND FIRST NATIONS

DEPTH 12.8 meters Land Use and Floodplain Management HAHA Bylaw No. 1414, which included a LAKE provision for the RDEK to undertake consultations with the communities to request boating restrictions if the community determines this to be a priority.

A 2010 report for the East Kootenay Integrated Lake Management Partnership indicated that Rosen Lake has a mere 7% natural foreshore remaining, with the remaining 93% already heavily impacted by development.

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Put Your Hans in the Air Small parade. Some fun and games.

500,000 beers. What could go right?

JulyFest turns 50.

W: Britt Bates + Jeff Pew

Each summer, in the heat of mid-July, Kimberley transforms. Music spills from houses and pubs all day in preparation; groups of giddy friends wander the streets late into the night. And from the downtown epicenter, lights glow and cheers echo all weekend long.

For three lively days, the city is filled with live music, sports—including soccer, bocce, and longboarding—and family-friendly fun; and the nights, stretching long at the height of summer, have no shortage of debauchery.

Welcome to JulyFest: Kimberley’s annual celebration of, well, Kimberley.

It’s the one weekend every year when almost every local comes out to have fun, when many who have moved elsewhere come back, and when tourists get a generous glimpse of what the city truly is: rambunctiously fun.

Timeline nS Der ta r n te

He re’n

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1973

The Beginning

Pre Rolls The winning team of the first-ever bocce championships was called Carleton’s Cuties—and at least one player still lives in Kimberley.

The very first JulyFest took place in 1973. A few years prior to this, the highway between Cranbrook and Wasa was built: this meant far less traffic—and as a result, far fewer tourists— passing through Kimberley. To ramp up tourism, Kimberley adopted its now relinquished Bavarian theme, which included two Bavarian festivals: Summerfest and Winterfest. A few years in, Winterfest was scrapped, and all resources and attention went into Summerfest, which was renamed JulyFest in 1973. Newspaper Ad, July 16, 1973

1977, 30-year Grad Reunion, Marching in Parade.

Selkirk Secondary Class of 1947.

1977

What’s a Platzl?

On the Saturday of the first-ever JulyFest in 1973, the Bavarian-themed Platzl—or pedestrian walkway—was officially unveiled and celebrated, marking an enormous change in the aesthetic and experience of downtown Kimberley. While the Bavarian theme was officially abandoned in recent years, the Platzl remains the cultural and commercial hub of the city.

Highs, Lows, and Lederhosen.

In addition to bocce games, soccer tournaments, and the parade, some of the original festivities at the first-ever JulyFest included chairlift rides at the ski hill for $1.50 each, a Bavarian dress competition, tours of the Cominco mine, and the grand opening of the Kimberley campground, then located near the ski hill.

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1977, Special Care Home Parade Float

The Parade Saturday morning kicks off with the JulyFest parade: a tradition that’s been happening since the festival’s first appearance in 1973.

Many local businesses host a float, throwing candy to excited kids lining Rotary Drive, while the Grad Reunion float is the highlight each year: JulyFest marks the 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50year reunion celebrations for the graduating classes of Selkirk Secondary School.

The Mugs “Early in the Fest, organizers decided that glass mugs were not a good idea,” Greg Thygesen, 61, reports, while referencing cut feet and the glass shrapnel scattered along the arena floor. Before the early ‘90s, when glass mugs were discontinued, J-Festers purchased collectable glass mugs and refilled them every time they wanted a fresh beer. When empty, they fastened the handle to their belt, yet many staggered home with only the glass handle still attached as dancers collided and mugs smashed against each other on the dance floor.

Following that, organizers instigated a glass mug check that became more of a hassle than a solution; eventually, they transitioned to neoprene JFest can cozies yet, once again, people were injured from drunken Festers hurling beer bombs on the dance floor.

Finally—and unfortunate for nostalgic collectors—plastic to-go cups became the standard JulyFest beer glass and first aid crews could rest easy.

IT WAS THE FEST OF TIMES.

IT WAS THE WORKS OF TIME.

1988 Kimberley City Bakery Float, 1988

1989 The bocce team The Filthy Habits’ first game took place in 1989.

1995

The Grease and the Grub J-Fest culinary chroniclers recall an all-Bavarian menu for the majority of the event’s history—pretzels and brats—plus a healthy offering of made-at-home bake sale items and burgers torched on buddy’s bar-b-que.

Now everything goes—far-out food trucks, ethnic cuisine, and crepes. Dig it and dig in.

The Beautiful Game A key element of the JulyFest weekend is the world-renowned soccer tournaments it hosts. Six expertly tended fields throughout Kimberley and Marysville are used for all three days of the festival, and the tournament has had, at its peak, more than 60 teams registered. The games draw dedicated athletes from across the province, belonging to teams that are all registered with the BC Soccer Association.

Each year, this is a chance to watch some masterful athletics before, or during, your party.

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1999 Celebrity Sightings An unverified rumour from the ‘90s: American comedian Carrot Top attended JulyFest. He might even have ended the night in a cop car. Meanwhile in the late ‘80s, there was a verified sighting of seven moons revealed mid-morning from the back of a house on Church Street, over top of the family-friendly parade route on Rotary Drive.

Rugby players apparently, ‘cause that’s what they do. Turns out, one of the bared butts belonged to future Global TV news star Chris Gailus.

Staggering Stats In the late ‘90s, the festival caught the attention of the provincial liquor board. Data showed that JulyFest was the event with the most beer sold and consumed in a three-day period—even beating out big names such as Vancouver’s PNE and the Williams Lake Rodeo.

2002 The Race

All Rolled into One: Bocce and Its J-Fest Legacy

JulyFest is home to the longest running skateboard race in the world: The Sullivan Challenge Longboard Race, an epic and high-adrenaline race through downtown that draws extraordinary longboarders to Kimberley to compete.

Perhaps the most famous aspect of JulyFest is that it hosts the Canadian Bocce Championships. The tournament takes place all weekend long, throughout the dozens of bocce pits located right in the center of the festival.

The event is organized by Jody Wilcox, owner of Berley Skate—a storefront and manufacturer for the iconic longboard brand Landyachtz. Wilcox organized the first Sullivan Challenge race in 2002 and has been the dedicated overseer of the event ever since.

And although this is the national championships, the tournament might not look as serious as it sounds. While players are certainly competitive and invested in their team’s success—many practicing their technique on friends’ lawns for weeks leading up to JulyFest—there’s no shortage of silly costumes and profane team names. A commonly practiced bocce technique at JulyFest mandates that one of your hands is holding your beer while the other hand throws your bocce ball.

“I remember running wild in the bocce pits as a kid while our parents played and scrambling for candy thrown from the parade floats. Every JulyFest weekend, our parents would pass us a Bavarian on a stick and set us free.” – Chelsie T.

2006 The Move For decades, the hub of JulyFest—where the bocce tournament and beer gardens were located—was on Rotary Drive, where the Aquatic Centre is now. In the 1990s, this central hub relocated just up the road to the grassy expanse of Rotary Park, next to the Civic Centre, the arena that housed the late-night live music.

Say My Name Behold, the high-thinking, socially perceptive craftspersonship of JulyFest bocce team naming.

Show Us Your Pits Far Side of the Hill Rolling the Stones Ball Clinkers Mission Imbocceable Boats N’ Hoes I'd Smash That Son of Be-occe High Rollers Fallopian Tube Swim Team Ghost Boccers Bocced Attempt at Humour Continued...

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 43

Bocce team names continued...

Bocceech & Chong Save a Horse.

Ride a Bocce Boy. Dadbeats Schitty Pits Bocchova Witness Notorious B.O.C.C.E The Happy Glands

Legends of the Ball

The Little Rascals and the Filthy Habits with bocce spoils, 2023 (LEFT) And here’s the Rascals with their first championship trophy, 1982.

(RIGHT)

2001 After the first few sets of games, it became apparent there were way more games than time slots over the next two days.

A quick calculation determined that, at the rate we were going, bocce would continue until Tuesday afternoon. I went on to run the tournament for several more years. When I passed on the torch, I included a handbook of instructions—called the Bocce Bible—in hopes nobody else would have to experience the pain of my first JulyFest bocce tournament.”

– Craig H.

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In JulyFest bocce, it’s customary (though not required) to carry a bocce ball in one hand and a beverage in the other. imberley’s four-time Canadian Bocce Champion, Ray Guimot, 61, drinks a beer and reminisces with teammates at the original Rotary Drive JulyFest bocce pits. “On Friday night, you couldn’t move in here,” he says.

“There were seven pits full of players surrounded by huge crowds.” His team, the Little Rascals (Ray Guimot, Greg Thygesen, Brent Aikins, Mario Amantea, and John Buckley), played their first tourney in 1981, where they surprised crowds by reaching the semi-finals.

A year later, when they earned their first championship, they faced the Italians from Cranbrook’s Columbo Lodge. “They were pretty serious,” Guimot says.

“They had bocce pits in the lodge basement and weren’t too happy when they lost to these kids who

just turned 19.” Guimot, who’s scheduled to play in his 43rd annual tournament, offers some advice to beginners: “If you’re going to lose the end, only give ‘em one point,” he says. “Stay away from the big ends.”

Bocce, an Italian sport with Roman Empire roots, is played between two teams in a rectangular, wooden-walled court. One team initiates the game by throwing a smaller ball (the boccino) then teams compete to see who can throw the most balls “inside” the other teams and closest to the boccino. JulyFest awards the title of “Canadian Bocce Champion” to the tournament winner as well as a “Best Dressed” award, responsible for attracting outrageous team names and costumes.

Members of the “Filthy Habits” (Jillian Barrett,

Aileen Boyd, Joanne Kitt, Anna Marie Skolos, and Leslie Lindberg) decoratively dressed in habits and veils since their first game in 1989, believe it’s all about remaining “optimum” a term they use to describe the fulcrum of being neither too inebriated nor too sober. Sometimes, they have to regroup and become more optimum. “No napping, ever!” someone shouts. In JulyFest bocce, it’s customary (though not required) to see a bocce ball in one hand and a beverage in the other.

Despite the jovial banter, it’s clear that these people are serious about their bocce. Some might say obsessed. “When I got pregnant, here was the deal,” one player says. “I asked my parents, ‘Will you take a child every JulyFest? If you promise me that, you’ll

have a grandchild.’”

Cheryl Penson, from The Masters, has been to 49 JulyFests. “The only year I missed was when I was pregnant with my daughter,” she says. “My son was conceived at JulyFest. Most April babies were.” Her teammate, Beatts, who’s played with the Masters since 1988, has been coming to JulyFest since 1973 when she was 16 and had forged a fake ID. After some photographs, an impromptu game, and a few more tall tales, the bocce OGs scatter towards their cars, laughing like old friends. “See you in July,” one of them says.

“Yep,” they answer in unison. “See you in July.” *Kimberley’s JulyFest bocce team registration closes on July 7.

A Kimberley local explains how she met her husband: “We were both at the JulyFest bocce pits, and we both ended up at a party afterward... my hands were cold after the walk, so he warmed them up at the party. It ended up being a JulyFest love story that united Kimberley and Cranbrook!”

– Tasha

2011

The Next Move The Tunes

2017

And finally, in 2017, JulyFest relocated to its ultimate destination: the enormous, tree-lined field next to Centennial Hall—a perfect, scenic home for the festivities.

Each JulyFest Friday and Saturday night concludes with a frenzied, foot-stomping, fist-pumping, beer-drinking concert— originally held in the Civic Centre arena, then moved to an outside, grassfloored venue. Kimberley’s Kevin Honeyman is one of the most showcased artists to perform at JulyFest, first with the legendary Celtic/Ska/ Punk band The Honeymans, then with Elk Hunt, a cacophony of bagpipes, drums, and guitar. “Gotta mention the polka bands,” Honeyman says, “Used to be just two bands: a rock band and a polka band which played for years, especially during Kimberley’s Bavarian phase.”

Honeyman reminisces about the mayhem that accompanied each night: “JulyFest 1999 was the last year they allowed you to purchase an unopened twelve-pack of beer. It turned into football with a full beer, mostly because the beer tickets were the same as Dollar Store ones and someone ended up with a roll of those.”

“The security guards took a bit to train,” Elk Hunt (and Kimberley Pipe Band) bagpiper, Noah Wesche, insists, “but near the end of the night, they let serious mayhem ensue!”

Kimberley’s Pipe Band, which has been around since 1927, has been a regular, hair-tingling JulyFest feature since the festival began in 1973.

2022 Unsocial Distancing Like most events, JulyFest took a two-year hiatus during the pandemic and returned in 2022.

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“Once, midday on Saturday, my buddy and I left the bocce pits and took his motorbike to the dump, where we found two big boxes of old bowling trophies. We balanced them on the bike, rode back to the bocce pits, and handed the trophies out to everyone, saying they were bocce trophies.” – Jem

The Get-Ups An iconic part of JulyFest is the outlandish costumes that bocce teams wear—ranging from quirky, to hilarious, to downright profane.

Anything goes in this department!

The Next 50

2023

This year, for the 50th anniversary, JulyFest is shaping up to be an incredible celebration. The Chamber of Commerce, who organizes the festival every year, is implementing some fantastic upgrades and changes.

These include a second stage for live music so more talented musicians will play all day and all night long; additional bocce pits; and a full artisan market and art installation. The latter will be located just outside the festival grounds, so that anyone can stop by the market without needing to purchase entry into the festival.

There will also be a fully equipped, interactive Kid Zone, full of games and entertainment for your family’s young ones. Plus, the festival will boast more food vendors than ever, as well as craft breweries pouring your favourite pints.

While there’s many different events, sports, and activities packed into the JulyFest weekend, there’s a thread that connects it all: a spirit of community connection and an exultant celebration of the spectacular place Kimberley is to be.

So for these special three days in July—when the city itself steps outside its normal reality and lights up with revelry—we create an extraordinary little world of our own. And 50 years in, we can all agree: it’s one hell of a party.

Thanks so much to all the people who helped out with photos and archives for this tale: The Basin Institute, Kimberley Chamber of Commerce, Kimberley Heritage Museum, Veronica Paauw, Greg Thygesen, Jeff Pew, and Jesse Heinrichs.

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Roots, skulls, art, & soul.

Trained a tradesman but born a creative, Luke Navrot channels his inner Oma. W+P: JEFF PEW

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“ Everybody struggles with that shit. Everybody works. But eventually, you have to ask yourself: what are you passionate about? What d’ya want to be doing?”

Luke Navrot, 43, sits on his Kimberley back patio, sipping a whiskey with his wife. There’s an ease to the way he slumps in a chair and talks, a Williams Lake drawl riding shotgun with each syllable. He’s the kind of guy who looks most at home when he’s just rolled out of bed. He’s starein-the-sun cool, tattooed, a toothpick drooping in the corner of his mouth eight hours a day. Most guys feel compelled to hang out with Navrot, whether he’s twisting wrenches under the hood of a truck or talking about the life of an artist.

Navrot discusses his latest project, Lowlife Ink, an art and apparel business he operates out of his Kimberley home with his wife, Kelsey. His art, which can be seen on T-shirts, hats, and stickers, features elements of ‘90s skateboard culture: blood, guts, eyeballs, smoke, slime, and skulls. “It’s pretty bold and raw, not really refined,” he says. Navrot grew up in the ‘90s skateboarding in Williams Lake, BC where there was a huge skate scene. “I felt like skateboard art was ahead of its times,” he says. “It’s always been in my mind to have

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my own brand.”

As a kid, Navrot was surrounded by art. His maternal Oma, who lived in Port Alberni, BC, was a gallery-quality oil painter from Germany. “Abstracts with bold lines and thick paint with dark colours,” he recalls. “It was emotional work as if she was longing for her past life in Germany.” In his Lowlife Ink blog, he writes: “As a kid, I was fascinated by her space that overlooked the garden. I wondered how she turned all those tubes of paint into the paintings that hung on their walls.”

Although both parents never considered themselves artists, Navrot witnessed their art in every gesture. “My mom would take anything and turn it into art,” he says. “Fabric, a piece of cardboard, and the best homemade cards.

She makes being creative a way of life where for most it’s only a hobby.” His dad would create structures, sculptures, and birdhouses from things people discarded in the dump.

Like many kids, Navrot dreamt of being an artist but could never overcome the fear of how to succeed in the field. Instead, he grew up “doing Cariboo shit. We’d chain our truck

to a big pile of junkyard metal and pin ‘er, yanking metal out from under the pile and doing donuts.” They’d work on trucks and motorbikes and build things with scrap wood. Like a lot of his buddies, he followed a career in the trades—construction, mechanics, and millwright.

It wasn’t until much later in life that he immersed himself in his own art. He writes: “While I learned many valuable skills and rarely have to hire anyone to fix, build, or maintain anything, I neglected the artist that was hiding inside of me.” In 2015, at the age of 35, he and his wife moved to Vancouver so he could study political science at Langara College. Soon, he was drawing and printing political cartoons, posting them all over the campus. “Armed with coloured pencils and a fully loaded photocopy card, I began my cartoon campaigns around the campus,” he writes. “I’d draw the cartoon, copy a bunch of them, and find a department to litter the walls with. I was in my element and artistic confidence and creativity were at an all-time high.”

Once he’d completed his studies, Covid hit and they moved to a farm in Summerland, BC. “All I had to do was focus on artwork for the year, just honing my skills. I learned how to use different paints, pens, and mediums. I

Navrot’s blog on lowlife.ink reveals the inspiration provided by his Eastern European lineage, living in a van down by the river, seediness, the mayor of Meadowbrook, and run-ins with the heat.

www.lowlife.ink IG: @lowlifeink

just dove right in and became an artist.”

In 2021, they returned to Kimberley where he began noticing Kootenay Life stickers on the back of cars and trucks. “After work, we were drinking beers and bullshittin’ in the back of a bud’s mechanic’s shop. I told the fellas I should draw a picture of a crushed Kootenay beer can and call it Kootenay Lowlife.” Navrot went home, cracked a beer, and sat at the kitchen island drawing. Before long, he had his first T-shirt design which sold out immediately: a way-finding sign with a bunch of severed arms and limbs, middle fingers pointing to Whistler, Fernie, Whitewater, Sunshine and Lake Louise, and a foot pointing to Kimberley.

“It felt like I was dealing shirts out of the back of my house. People would stop by, give me some cash and leave with a shirt.” Navrot began creating other Lowlife designs and constructing a website. He studied how to ship cost-effectively and dreamt about supporting his family with his art.

“It started off as a joke but turned into a

reality,” he says. Navrot’s still not at the place where he can give up contracting yet can see it happening one day. “Everybody struggles with that shit,” he says. “Everybody works.

But eventually, you have to ask yourself: what are you passionate about? What d’ya want to be doing?”

Like many edgy artists, Navrot is challenged with finding the balance of being less mainstream but still a successful brand. “A lowlife is someone who doesn’t give a shit about what they drive and might not make a ton of money, but they’re still out there having fun, skateboarding, snowboarding, riding dirt bikes, skiing, mountain biking, and fishing. It’s a subculture that people identify with, even if they’re not part of it.”

“I like it edgy,” he says. “I want people to look at it and go, what the hell is that?”

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Events ~

SUMMER

Wap It Up— Argenta’s Moontricks take the stage along with Stars, Elliot Brood, The Booms Booms, and a heap of great acts at this summer’s Wapiti Music fest, August 11-12 in Fernie. Photo courtesy of Moontricks.

CRANBROOK + KIMBERLEY June 29 - July 26 “WHEN DYE FLOWS ON FABRIC” by Shannon Fraser.

The Art of Batik & Tie Dye. Solo Art Exhibition. Centre 64 Gallery. Tues-Sat. 1-5 pm July 1 KIMBERLEY’S FIRST SATURDAYS — Celebrating Arts, Culture, and Heritage.

Pancake Breakfast, Canada Day Celebrations, Live Entertainment & Music, Kids’ Activities, Local Maker & Crafts Market, Qi Gong, & Penny Whistle Workshops. 9 am - 4 pm July 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 CRANBROOK FARMER’S MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Live Music, & Food. 10th Ave. South by Rotary Park. 10 am - 1 pm July 1, 7, 14, 21, 29 ROLLER SKATING at the Cranbrook Curling Centre. All Ages, Rentals Available. 5-11 pm July 3-7 JUNIOR PALEONTOLOGY SUMMER CAMP Geology, Evolution, Extinction, & Fossils. Ages 6-8. Cranbrook History Centre. 9 am - 4 pm

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July 5, 12, 19, 26 COMMUNITY PADDLE NIGHTS Different Lake Every Week. Beginner to Advanced.

Sponsored by Just Liquid Sports July 6, 13, 20, 27 KIMBERLEY FARMERS’ MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Live Music & Food. Sponsored by Wildsight.

Howard Street. 5-7:30 pm July 7, 14, 21, 28 SUMMER SOUNDS Live Music & Dancing, Food, Drinks. Rotary Park, Cranbrook. 6:30 pm July 7 ECO PARK WEED PULL & BBQ Sponsored by Wildsight.

Marysville Eco Park. 4 pm July 8 “SINGS IN THE PARK” Nature Walk. Higgins Entrance, Kimberley Nature Park. 8-10 am July 9 6TH ANNUAL ART OF GARDENING TOUR Self-guided Tour with Refreshments at Centre 64. 10 am – 4 pm July 10-14 SUMMER CAMP: ARTS, CRAFTS, & PLAY Ages 6-12.

Cranbrook Arts 1401 Gallery and Artspace. 1401 5th St. North. 9 am - 3:30 pm

July 11-16 FLYING LEGENDS OF VICTORY TOUR Arizona Commemorative Air Force Museum. Tours & Rides.

Canadian Rockies International Airport. flyinglegendstour.com July 14-15 THE MONSTER Giant Inflatable Obstacle Course. All Ages. Western Financial Place. 12-10 pm July 14-16 50TH ANNUAL KIMBERLEY JULYFEST Bocce, Soccer, Longboarding, Beer Gardens, Live Music, Homecoming Parade, Market, & More. KimberleyJulyFest.com July 15 CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF STEAM! 1077 Steam Locomotive. BBQ, Special Treats, Train Merch, & More!

Fort Steele Heritage Town July 15 WATERFALLS & ICE CREAM Perry Creek Falls. Cranbrook.

Sponsored by Junior Chamber International. 10 am July 16 “EXPLORE THE TORA BORA” 4-Kilometer Loop. Riverside Campground, Kimberley. 9 am

July 17-21 SUMMER CAMP: ELEVATED ARTS – 3D SKILLS Ages 8-12.

Creating 3D Images, Building 3D Artworks, Drawing 3D Objects, & More. Cranbrook Arts 1401 Gallery and Artspace. 1401 5th St. North. 9 am - 3:30 pm July 17-21 PALEONTOLOGY ADVENTURES SUMMER CAMP Geology, Evolution, Extinction, & Fossils. Ages 9-11. Cranbrook History Centre. 9 am - 4 pm July 18 CREATIVE KIDS: ONE-LINE SKETCHING Ages 7-12.

Centre 64. 10 am - 12 pm July 20 WESTERN CANADA INDIAN MOTORCYCLE RIDERS GROUP CELEBRATION 2023 Trickle Creek Lodge, Kimberley. 7 pm July 22 ROCKIES CAR SHOW Fundraiser for East Kootenay Foundation for Health.

Bridge Interiors & Pop-Price Park. 11 am - 9 pm

Aug 5, 12, 19, 26 CRANBROOK FARMER’S MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Live Music, & Food. 10th Ave. South by Rotary Park. 10 am - 1 pm

Sept 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 CRANBROOK FARMER’S MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Live Music, and Food. 10th Ave. South by Rotary Park. 10 am - 1 pm

Aug 6 INFORMATIVE HIKE IN THE HORSE BARN VALLEY 6.8-km Loop. Kimberley Nature Park. Matthew Creek Turn-off, St. Mary’s Lake Road. 9 am

Sept 7, 14 KIMBERLEY FARMERS’ MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Live Music and Food. Sponsored by Wildsight.

Howard St. 5-7:30 pm

July 29-30 COLUMBIA BASIN CULTURE TOUR Managed by the West Kootenay Regional Arts Council.

Visit Local Artists’ Open Studios

Aug 8-11 or 14-18 SUMMER CAMP: ARTS, CRAFTS, & PLAY Ages 6-12.

Cranbrook Arts 1401 Gallery and Artspace. 1401 5th St. North. 9 am - 3:30 pm

Sept 9 KOOTENAY ROCKIES GRAN FONDO Starts and Ends at St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino.

Three Course Options. krgf.ca

July 31 - Aug 4 JUNIOR CONDUCTORS SUMMER CAMP For the Young Train Enthusiasts. Ages 6-9. Cranbrook History Centre. 9 am - 4 pm

Aug 11-13 ROCK THE KOOTENAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL Western Financial Plaza. rockthekootenays.ca

Aug 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 COMMUNITY PADDLE NIGHTS Different Lake Every Week. Beginner to Advanced.

Sponsored by Just Liquid Sports

Aug 14-18 JUNIOR PALEONTOLOGY SUMMER CAMP Geology, Evolution, Extinction, & Fossils. Ages 6-8. Cranbrook History Centre. 9 am - 4 pm

July 27 – Aug 3 KIMBERLEY KALEIDOSCOPE 2023 Juried Art Show & Open Art Exhibition Celebrating Fine Arts for Established & Emerging Artists. Ongoing Gallery Exhibition. Centre 64 Gallery. Tues-Sat. 1-5 pm July 28 COMEDIAN ALEX MACKENZIE Studio Stage Door Theatre. 11 – 11th Ave., S., Cranbrook. 7:30 pm

Aug 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 KIMBERLEY FARMERS’ MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Live Music, & Food. Sponsored by Wildsight.

Howard St. 5-7:30 pm Aug 4-7 CANADIAN 3D OUTDOOR ARCHERY CHAMPIONSHIPS Cranbrook. archerychampionships.ca Aug 4, 11, 18 SUMMER SOUNDS.Live Music & Dancing, Food, Drinks. Rotary Park, Cranbrook. 6:30 pm Aug 4, 12, 18, 26 ROLLER SKATING at the Cranbrook Curling Centre. All Ages, Rentals Available. 5-11 pm Aug 5 KIMBERLEY’S FIRST SATURDAYS — Celebrating Arts, Culture, and Heritage.

Pancake Breakfast, Live Entertainment & Music, Kids’ Activities, Local Maker & Crafts Market, & More. 9 am – 4 pm

Aug 17 MELON JIMENEZ & LAURA WONG Kimberley Kaleidoscope Festival 2023.

Centre 64. 7:30 pm

Sept 16 CRANBROOK GRAVEL GRIND New & Experienced Riders. 65- and 112-KM Routes. ccnbikes.com

INVERMERE July 1, 8, 15, 22, 29; Aug 5, 12, 19, 26; Sept 2, 9 INVERMERE FARMERS & ARTISTS MARKET Downtown Invermere. 9 am - 1 pm

JAFFRAY July 1, 8, 15, 22, 29; Aug 5, 12, 19, 26; Sept 2 JAFFRAY-BAYNES LAKE FARMERS’ MARKET Fresh Produce, Local Makers, Crafts, Musicians, & More.Baynes Lake Community Center. 9 am - 12:30 pm

FAIRMONT HOT SPRINGS Aug 4-6 EARTH DAUGHTERS WOMEN’S FESTIVAL Intentional Women's Retreat. earthdaughtersfestival.com

CRESTON July 1, 8, 15, 22, 29; Aug 5, 12, 19, 26; Sept 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 CRESTON VALLEY FARMER’S MARKET Local Produce & Spirits, Artisanal Creations.

Beside Millennium Park, 215 16th Ave., N., Creston. 9 am - 1 pm

July 6-7 CIRQUE LUZDALIA Creston & District Community Complex.

Creston Arena. 4:30-6 pm and 7-8:30 pm July 8-9 HOP TO VINE HUSTLE Creston Valley Libation Producer’s Society. Millennium Park, 215 16 Ave., S., Creston. 9 am - 6 pm July 16 & Aug 26 LONG TABLE WINEMAKERS DINNER Baillie-Grohman Estate Winery. Creston. 6-9 pm July 28-30 STARBELLY JAM MUSIC FESTIVAL Music & Fun for the Whole Family. Crawford Bay Sept 2 HARVEST FESTIVAL Food, Games, & Tastings for the Entire Family. Baillie-Grohman Estate Winery. 12-5 pm

Aug 26 SARATOGA CUP BC Senior Rugby Clubs Cranbrook Aug 26-27 BLACK SPUR ULTRA MARATHON 108 Km, 54 Km, and Relay Events. Kimberley Alpine Resort Aug 28 – Sept 1 PALEONTOLOGY ADVENTURES SUMMER CAMP Geology, Evolution, Extinction, & Fossils. Ages 9-11. Cranbrook History Centre. 9 am - 4 pm Sept 1 ROLLER SKATING at the Cranbrook Curling Centre. All Ages, Rentals Available. 5-11 pm Sept 2 KIMBERLEY’S FIRST SATURDAYS — Celebrating Arts, Culture, and Heritage.

Pancake Breakfast, Live Entertainment & Music, Kids’ Activities, Local Maker & Crafts Market, & More. 9 am - 4 pm

Wycliffe Jeans— The 36th Annual Cranbrook Professional Rodeo runs August 18-20 at Wycliffe Exhibitions Grounds. Here’s what's happening— saddle bronc and bareback, bull riding, calf roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing, rodeo clowns, trick riders, and if you get thirsty...cow milking.

Photo by Jenny Rae Bateman.

GO CRANBERLEY | Summer 2023 53

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