Fernie Photo Tour Part 2: Why Snow Days Are Bad

Contained within this post is evidence of the debauchery Fernie is fraught with as well as pictures of natural disaster aftermath. We are like a mini-New Orleans without people getting raped in the superdome(ooh sort of topical). Anywho enough of my blabbering and on to the pretty pictures. Photo-tourgasm begin! This shot depresses me a little because it is the Ski Hill lacking in snow. For those of you thinking "Wow, that is a pretty shitty Ski Hill!" I would like to note that all you can see in this shot is the run known as the Mighty Moose which is Fernie's "bunny hill." Not pictured is everything awesome about the Hill. Anyways this was raken from the parking lot of the hotel where I worked night shift for way to many nights. Every day I saw this and wished for snow. Then snow came. Twice. Once in June and then again in early September. This made the longest period without snow this year in Fernie 3 months and 2 days. This picture was taken in the morning before it proceed to become a shit storm. See normally when it snows in Fernie it is cold resulting in light, fluffy, champagne powder, but it was warm and wet in the summer resulting in heavy, clingy sleet. This proceeded to cling to trees causing their branches to freeze and... ...snap off. This tree wins the award for most fucked as it pretty much snapped in half. I stood outside my house and listened to the snap crackle pop of my powerlines getting destroyed. There was about a snap every 5-7 seconds for several hours. It was eerily cool. I ended up having to knock snow off my family's trees with a broom stick to save them (the trees not my family). Also reading by candlelight hurts my eyes. This is why I will never be one of those people that spends large amounts of time grooming their hedges. Nature hates those people. Also as you can tell the snow didn't last very long. Why? Because it was summer...moron.But it did last long enough for the local avant-garde artist's kids to make snowmen. Not show is a poorly built snowfort that looks like a really tall snowman fell over.

That's it for wreckage pictures. Now it is on to the debauchery portion of the show, and by debauchery I mean mild partying and community events. Welcome to the Taste Of Fernie, an event where all 7 of the restaurants in Fernie get together to show off samples of items on there menu. It is like a giant grocery store free sample booth except you have to pay to get in and then you have to pay to get the samples. Also some bands played some songs. Highlights of this were the 12 year olds playing generic shitty punk and who also apparently didn't grasp that an event where people can bring there 5 year olds is probably not an event where you should scream "fuck shit cunt" into a microphone. At least not at age 12 when you are playing music I don't approve of...when you hit twenty it is totally badass and cool to swear at kids, I do it all the time. The band in the picture is Big Bubba and Cottontop (the drummer doesn't have a nickname). They are a pretty cool folkish rock band that sings about things like vampire clowns and features my high school Biology teacher Mr. Tomney (Cottontop). This was shot from the beer tent.And this is the beer tent as seen from behinf the stage. mmm beer. This is the inside of the food tent. Notable restaurants include The Curry Bowl (voted best date restaurant by Snowboarder Magazine), Sawai Thai (awesome Satay Chicken), and The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The latter is notable simply because... ...My friend Chantel works there. She wasn't too excited about being photographed in uniform and will likely be unhappy about being shown and talked about on this site. So moving on to... ...Other people I know. Three of the four people pictured here are Teacher's Kids (we're like a club who's only perks are getting to go in the teacher's lunch line at the cafeteria and getting ridiculed by the student body...). The fourth is a teacher's wife. Specifically a teacher-who-is-a-member-of-a-previously-mentioned-band's wife. From left we have Jesse (who I was in some plays with), Steph (more later), and Chrissy (Steph's sister, known her since I was 3). Here is a shot from the inside of the DJ's booth at the Fernie Hotel (mentioned in the previous post). My friend DJ'd here and hated it because people made him play shitty old rock and country songs. I generally only stopped by to keep him sane because I hated that bar. The hooded figure is Lee (probably stoned), Fernie's local paintball fiend. Also pictured are "cougars" and a local stagette party.This leads us to my favorite Looks Like A Hick Hangout But Is Filled With Nothing But Snowboarders Bar: The Royal. I was here almost every Thursday for jam night. Also I really wish I had stolen that red PeeWee Herman bike. That or the elk head. Usually that involved hanging out with the big, goofy-looking fucker shown here. His name is Will I've known him ever since we were in the same little league team in elementary school (to answer your questions: I was a pitcher. I was okay, but had a habit of beaning specific people. We lost a lot.). Will is originally from the coast and will eventually be moving back. The girl in these pictures is Trista. I didn't mention her in the previous paragraph because there are like three pictures of her which I need material to write captions for and I don't know much about her other than we hung out like 2-3 times at the bar, her dad owns a local pizza place, and she's pretty hot. She also apparently likes to blow on random guys bums. For those of you who might be wondering: No, quantity of photosis not necessarily indicative of anything other than that Trista liked to vamp for the camera (is that an actual expresson? or am I an idiot?). Anyways I have no idea who the guy in the picture is so lets move on to people I do know. Hey, It's Elliot! Not only does this guy play a mean guitar he was also my connection at Frozen Ocean when it was still up and running. Also strangely enough every year when I went in to buy new shoes he had always just bought a package of socks for himself and would give me a pair. Coincidence? Yes, but an eerie one considering it happened like 4 years in a row.

-EDIT-Picture removed on pain of slow, excrutiatingly painful death-EDIT-

Ah, Family. I am probably courting death by posting this crappy, taken-when-she-wasn't-looking-and-had-her-eyes-closed picture of my sister, but whatever...I live on the edge, baby! I said I would talk more about Steph and so here we go! This is Steph, daughter of Cottontop of Big Bubba and Cottontop, who I have been friends with since I was 2 (confirmed by memories of a house she lived in until the tender age of 1.5 years old (at which point I was 2)). Needless to say she the person who I hung out the 3rd most with. She is also the same Steph who rents the smallest house in Fernie. She also is likely going to be moving to the coast in a year...maybe.And to wrap things up I present Kelly (or Kelli, I didn't ask), the cute Aussie who stole my heart (but not really) by wearing a Spider-Man costume to the bar. It was for her workplace's "S" party (other costumes included Sid Vicious, SpongeBob, and a guy named Steve who went as himself). She works at the Same Sun Lodge, one of the many Hostels in Fernie (I recently discovered that there is one on Granville too).

To conclude, this is what Fernie is really all about: Snow, Cute Snowboarders (of Canadian or Aussie descent), and drinking. Screw the picturesque mountainscapes, let's get drunk!