By Steve Hubrecht
Columbia Valley residents are used to their home being labelled beautiful. ‘Gorgeous’, ‘stunning’, ‘outdoorsy’ and ‘friendly’ are other adjectives that are frequently used in conjunction with the valley.
Well, you can add a new descriptor now. A few weeks ago travel website World Atlas published a feature listing the eight most eccentric towns in British Columbia. Invermere was top of the list, with Radium Hot Springs right behind, and Fairmont Hot Springs made the cut too.
Three Columbia Valley communities among the eight most eccentric in the province? Surely that’s not just a coincidence. Is there something in the water? The Pioneer attempted to contact freelance writer and frequent World Atlas contributor Andrew Douglas, who wrote the story, to pick his brain on his selections, but was unable to reach him.
To be clear, however, there’s nothing wrong with ‘eccentric’ in the way Douglas means it. In the description of Invermere he recalled visiting the community on business trips as a corporate salesperson, and trips often ended with Douglas sharing pints and going on trail runs with his business contacts. He mentions “fun-loving, laid back” Invermere locals with “communal sensibilities.” In Radium he cites the Radium hot pools, the string of Euro-themed motels and schnitzel houses, all mixed in with mini golf and a zipline course. Fairmont hits many of the same notes for Douglas, and there he points to the Fairmont hot pools, Lussier hot springs (down the highway), mini-golf, the zipline, and the Funtastia fun park.
Columbia Valley officials were happy with the endorsement.
“The way I look at it, any reasonably positive marketing is good marketing. If it’s a way to start a conversation about how unique and beautiful our town is, it’s a good thing,” Invermere mayor Al Miller told the Pioneer. “Eccentric is not exactly the first word that would have come to my mind when describing Invermere, but we’ll take it.”
Miller agreed with Douglas’s representation of Invermere as fun-loving, laid-back and community-oriented.
“There’s a lifestyle here that people love. Visitors come from all over the world to experience it. But the residents here live it every day. And people do sit down with each other to have pints, and they do go on the trails together. And we do have some colourful people who live in the valley, who you could call eccentric,” he added.
Miller gave the example of former Radium resident Rolf Heer, who was a woodcarver by trade but was almost always seen in public wearing flowing red wizard robes and a pointy red wizard hat, and who lived in a tree fort-like, totem pole-filled wooden home along with his pet goats.
Columbia Valley Chamber of Commerce executive director Pete Bourke echoed Miller’s sentiments.
“Any press is good press. It’s great to be recognized,” said Bourke. “With the uncertainty in the business world right now, having some extra exposure is great, and hopefully helps attract some people to our region.”
Radium mayor Mike Gray said it’s great to be on the list. “Radium and all the other communities stand out as wonderful, unique places that have a small town feel but a modern vibe as well,” he told the Pioneer.
Gray noted that Douglas wrote about the Radium hot pools’ “slightly sulphurous steam” and pointed out that this is not entirely correct, since there is no sulphur in the Radium pools – and consequently no strong sulphur smell, as the hot springs in Banff so noticeably have. However there is, Gray pointed out, iron oxide in the springs that feed the Radium pools. This iron oxide helps create the dramatic red tones of some of the mountains and cliff faces nearby (including Redstreak Mountain and the cliffs opposite the new Kootenay National Park entry booth on Highway 93), which is another unique feature of the Radium area.
