Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas people! Even though it's no longer Christmas where you are...

So I got a job, doing front desk and cafe work in a ski lodge up on the mountain, called Snow Creek Lodge.

Exterior:

Lobby:

Cafe:

Yeah, I've not been so good at keeping this thing updated, but I suddenly have a 7 hour shift on front desk all on my own up here with it being absolutely dead; no-one checking in or out on Christmas Day of course. So what better opportunity to hammer out a mammoth post?

There's not been much snow here (in Fernie terms anyway) but yesterday dumped down 22cm of fresh Fernie powder, mostly overnight, so it was great to wake up to Christmas morning. It's been snowing heavily most of the day today too, a great white Christmas! I was hoping we'd get at least some sprinkling of snow to make it officially a white Christmas, but this is the best snow there's been yet. Canada's first coast to coast white Christmas since 1971 don'tcha know? What better conditions for my first proper session of snowboarding? Yesterday I had some lessons, and then today went and did a proper run, complete with Santa hat of course. We were pretty tired out, so didn't stay up all day, got home about 3.

About 5 past 3 I get a phonecall telling me I was due in work about 5 minutes ago. I hadn't actually realised I had a shift, because I work both on front desk and the cafe, so I'm on two seperate rosters, which is a bit confusing. And I'm only scheduled in for one front desk shift over a 3 week period, this one, and I just thought I didn't have any for the next few weeks.

When I get in I realise I'm the only one on front desk, and I haven't really done enough front desk shifts/training to really know what I'm doing, so this should be an interesting shift... Fortunately, it should be very, very quiet. I'm the only employee in this giant ski lodge up on the mountain, til I go home at 11, with a handful of guests who are barely to be seen, whilst it's snowing heavily outside. It really is like The Shining. And oops, I think I've just fucked the safe up by getting the combination wrong 3 times in a row.

A few days ago I went to the Mogul Smoker, a big outdoor one night festival/party thing in a field out of town that went on til 4 am. It had one outdoor stage and one dance tent, both really both with DJs on, one of the DJs being from Jurassic Five. The temperature was about -31c and so even with a couple of big bonfires and heaters everyone was raving away in bulky ski/snowboard gear, and still pretty cold. It was quite the unique atmosphere. It was to honour the Griz, the local legend of a giant man who wrestled a bear to death as a baby and lives up in the mountain, and brings Fernie its special powdery snow. It seems to have worked.

Been to see a few ice hockey games, just our local team, the Fernie Ghostriders, named after the shadow that can be seen on one of the mountains in evening time. Apparently it looks like the dead native american chief who cursed the town back in the 1800s, riding a horse. I'm not much of a sports fan but ice hockey's pretty fun to watch.

So that's all I've been up to really, as I've been working a lot. Across at least 2 and a half weeks I have only two days off, which sucks, but after that I should have a lot more free time to practice getting good/competent at snowboarding. And I've just accidentally hung up on someone instead of transferring their call... Hmm... this is gonna be a Merry Christmas indeed.

Gearing Up

It's been an expensive few days, I bought the following equipment for snowboarding.

Jacket:

Trousers:

Boots:

Bindings:

Board:

Fernie - A Rough Guide

For a small town (population of 4-5k) in the middle of the Rockies, Fernie has a lot more than I thought it would. First and foremost, there's a Subway in town -- which apparently do Pizza Subs here, a cinema - on a Tuesday you can get a ticket, popcorn and drink for about $8.50 (less than £5), and it even has a disc golf course about 5 minutes walk from our house!

The local supermarket, bizarrely called Overwaitea, is a fairly decent size, though there isn't much in the way of vegetarian food. There's an abundance of ski/snowboarding shops, due to the ski resort up the mountain. There's also an ice rink, which I'll be checking out soon, the others went to see a local game there already. I just watched my first ice hockey game on TV, go Vancouver Canucks!

Not sure yet what the nightlife is like, there are a fair few bars around, we're going to check some of them out tonight. One place had a 50 person poker tournament last night, buy-in for 20 bucks with no rebuy. Perfect. Unfortunately it was fully booked by the time we saw it, but hopefully it's a regular thing.

We're living on the bottom floor of a house towards the edge of town. Our landlords, a Polish couple in their late 50s/early 60s, live upstairs and are some of the warmest, friendliest people you could meet. Ridiculously friendly. Their dog Zenta is just as friendly as they are, and will come and tap at our back door to come and play. They have a cat too, whom I've yet to meet. Our living room has satellite TV, great views and a log cabin style interior. A pretty sweet pad!

Burnham to Fernie in 87 Easy Steps

31 hours and multiple car, train, plane, bus, foot and coach journies since leaving Burnham-on-Sea, I finally made it to my home for the next few months, 3 Mount Trinity Avenue, Fernie, Canada.

Originally I'd planned to spend the night in the city of Calgary so I could sort out my work papers at the office there the next morning, and then take the coach to Fernie the next night. Once Dan, who I flew over with, left for Edmonton to visit his Dad, I went off to find a hostel for the night. Calgary being the 3rd biggest city in Canada, with a population of over 1.5 million, I assumed I could just waltz into town and find a bed. I was wrong. Turns out Calgary only has one hostel, and it was full. Snow covered the city (as it had the rest of Canada from what I could see from the plane), and the temperature was -7C. Not an ideal situation to be in for my first night in Canada.

I briefly considered sleeping in the bus depot, or the Salvation Army shelter, but decided to sort out my work papers and social insurance number later and hotfoot it back to the other side of the city in time to change my ticket to that night. I managed to accidentally get off in a very rough looking area and realised it was 8th Street SW, the area a couple of guys at the bus depot had specifically warned me to stay away from earlier. Lugging a huge backpack, I couldn't look any more like a tourist, but managed to make it back to the bus depot mugging free, and in time to catch that night's bus to Fernie.

Nick, Kev and Dunny, my 3 housemates and companions for the next year, who were already here, very kindly all came to meet me at the drop off point, despite the snow and it being quarter past 3 in the morning. In the pitch black I couldn't make out the beautiful sights, but when I awoke this morning I looked out of the window to see the snow covered Rocky Mountains, which encircle Fernie.

Went into town today and started looking for snowboarding gear. The others all picked up boards, boots and bindings in a great sale on when they were in Whistler. They managed to pick up boards for $150 (about £80) but looks like I'll be lucky to find one for twice that. Did manage to find some pretty cheap boots for $200, but with bindings costing about the same, and then getting goggles, a jacket, trousers, thermals, gloves, etc. it looks like my bank account's gonna be taking a serious pounding from the start.

Sampled one of the pizza places tonight, probably the best independently made pizza I've tasted, quite like Pizza Hut but not as greasy. Cheap too, even with tip, it was only 10 bucks each, or effectively free for me as I won the first of what is sure to be many house poker games. All in all, not a bad first day in Fernie.