Living here is living the way we want to. There’s a sense of self-reliance, of strong communities & personal resiliency. We’re fair, we’re accountable, we’re responsible stewards of our land & our legacy.
It’s rare to experience a moment in life when everything lines up perfectly. To have the stars align, so to speak. Well, Tammy Bessant knows this feeling. The second that she and her husband went to visit a property with a soap shop for sale in Yahk, British Columbia, she knew her life would never be the same.
“It felt like our lives were always supposed to be like this. Like everything led up to being here.”
Kootenay folk are a tough bunch. We home-cook meals, chop firewood and kindling, shovel mountains of powdery snow and drive icy swerves every winter. We troubleshoot the plumbing when we can’t find a professional to make the trek our way. Some of us hunt deer, and others hunt mushrooms. We grow gardens, scale the tallest branches of fruit trees, and preserve or freeze what we reap. We work hard at jobs in health care, tourism, business, and resource sectors. We’re no strangers to taking care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbours.
Resilience is our middle name. But how tough are we when it comes to technological resilience? One of the questions asked globally during this pandemic is: how can we make our communities more resilient, self-reliant, and adaptable?
Before she became an entrepreneur 12 years ago, Stephanie McGregor thought she might become a nurse. She liked thinking on her feet, being under a bit of pressure, and responding to situations as they unfolded.
Being an avid dog lover, however, (she affectionately refers to her dachshunds as her kids) and after years of visiting speciality pet stores in other cities, Stephanie suddenly knew what she really wanted to do. And that meant opening up a specialty pet store with knowledgeable and friendly staff in her hometown of Cranbrook, British Columbia.
In the early 1950s, Queen Elizabeth II was only in her twenties when she became the British Empire’s newest sovereign. Britain was recovering financially from the tolls of World War II, its colonies across the world were seeking independence, and London air was so thick with smog from coal that in 1952, 4,000 people died from pollution related illnesses.
Yet during this time, the young queen may have had one indulgence that could grant her a moment of escape and pleasure: cherries from Renata, British Columbia. Or so the rumour goes.
At the age of six, Nicole Jamieson went on her very first moose hunt. At the age of 10, she decided that when she grew up she was going to be a veterinarian.
Nearly thirty years later, Nicole, who lives in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, still hunts; she has also been practicing veterinary medicine for the last ten years, bringing her childhood dreams to reality.
“People who don’t know me are shocked when I tell them that I am a veterinarian who hunts,” she says.
Anne and Rudy Dyck (right) and their three youngest children standing on the top of their roof
When he was only eight months old, Callum Dyck caught pneumonia. As a young child growing up in Abbotsford, British Columbia, he was in and out of the hospital, prescribed a regular supply of steroids, and drawing relief from an inhaler almost daily. Callum’s lungs were vulnerable, ready to be inflamed at any moment, and Anne and Rudy Dyck had accepted that their youngest child’s uncomfortable condition was something they would have to manage for the rest of his life.
Horses photo courtesy of Boundary Country.
A pair of clean blue jeans. This is what a friend told Mary Vail she should wear to the Rock Creek Fall Fair dance in 1968. It was the weekend after Labour Day, and for Mary, a newcomer from England and Westbridge’s newest elementary school teacher, it was her first fair. Having only committed to a one year teaching contract, Mary could not have known that two years later she would become Mary Lautard, married to born and bred Boundary boy Eddie Lautard, and that they would come to spend their life together being deeply involved in their community and its beloved fall fair.
