Fernie: Historic Trails and Culture

Fernie can be explored from different perspectives: historical walking tours through downtown, exhibitions and art, trails in and around the town, and a section of the Elk River for floating and tubing. You can choose which of these experiences to include in your trip based on their different formats. The following places and activities offer specific ideas to help you plan.

Historic Trails Through Downtown

Historic Downtown Fernie features buildings dating from the early 1900s, with pink and gold brickwork. If you are interested in the town’s built heritage, you can look out for this distinctive building material during a stay downtown. The historic buildings also offer a different way to explore local history than an exhibition or a trail with individual information stops.

The Fernie Heritage Walking Tour visits 16 buildings and historic sites in Historic Downtown Fernie. This is one way to discover several downtown stops on a themed tour. In addition, historic walking tours in downtown include a 90-minute guided tour with a knowledgeable local guide. If you are choosing between a tour with a set duration and a route with several historic stops, this information can help you decide. The 90 minutes refers to the guided tour; no duration is specified here for the Heritage Walking Tour.

Museum and Art Offerings

The Fernie Museum’s ground floor houses the permanent exhibition “This Is Our Fernie.” The gallery on the second floor features solo and group exhibitions by local and regional artists, as well as local and historical travelling exhibitions. This means you can find both a permanent exhibition and changing exhibition formats at the museum. If you would like to include local history and art in your trip plans, you can consider these as different points of interest.

The Arts Station also offers art activities, gallery exhibitions and public art. These take place both at the station and in the community. This adds another perspective on art in Fernie to a museum visit. If you are sorting out your interests before your trip, you can distinguish between exhibitions, art activities and the historic offerings downtown, without combining them into a single tour.

Trails and Outdoor Activities

The Fernie Town Trail consists of 15 km of interconnected, family-friendly trails that run around and within the town of Fernie. The trail length and route give you a sense of what to expect if you would like to include trails in your stay. The trail describes a network in and around the town; the stated length applies to this network, not to a single loop.

A shorter, clearly described hiking option is the Elk Valley History Hike: it follows a 3.3 km loop on local trails in Fernie. Along the way, there are stops with historical information, treasure maps and clues in locked treasure chests. The trail combines a specific loop route with points of historical interest. Dogwood Park is part of the Fernie Recreational Trail Network. These are two separate points to consider when planning walks and hikes.

If you are also considering an activity on the water, the recommended section of the Elk River for relaxed floating and tubing runs from the North Fernie Bridge or Annex Park to Dogwood Park & Boat Launch. It covers 3 km of Class 1 water.

A Look at Chocolate Making

At the Beanpod Chocolate, Coffee and Gelato café in Historic Downtown Fernie, visitors can watch chocolate being made directly from rare, especially aromatic cacao beans using traditional stone-grinding techniques. If, alongside history, art and trails, you are also interested in food production, this offers a distinct theme to consider when planning your trip.

To compare other destination pages, you can also visit Kimberley and Panorama.

For the broader travel overview: East Kootenay.