Fernie, British Columbia

Fernie is a coal-mining town turned four-season resort community in the Elk Valley of southeastern BC, on Highway 3 about an hour east of Cranbrook, inside the Regional District of East Kootenay and one of the Province's fourteen Resort Municipalities. The City runs City Hall at 501 3rd Avenue, property taxes and quarterly utility bills, drinking water from Fairy Creek with the James White Park wells as backup, the sewer system and treatment lagoons, three-cart garbage, recycling and organics collection with bear-resistant carts, roads and heavy snow clearing with a windrow program for seniors, winter alternating-side parking, Bylaw Services with dog and business licences, the composite Fernie Fire Rescue department, emergency management with the Elk Valley Voyent Alert! system, the Fernie Aquatic Centre and Fernie Memorial Arena, parks and trails, St. Margaret's Cemetery, building and development permits, short-term rental licences and Resort Municipality Initiative grants. The Regional District of East Kootenay runs the Fernie Transfer Station and the regional evacuation notification system; BC Transit runs the Elk Valley bus between Fernie, Sparwood and Elkford; the Fernie RCMP detachment polices the city; health care is Interior Health's Elk Valley Hospital; schools are School District 5 Southeast Kootenay; the Fernie Heritage Library has its own board; and marriage licences, health cards and driver's licences are provincial.