Long before we made the plan to chuck off our Vancouver life for a year, we had already booked this trip to Kimberley to visit our friends.

For the last several years, Mary & Robert have flown from their home in Nova Scotia to hang out for a couple of months in a rental condo in this mountain-resort town. So, although we haven’t yet started our new nomadic trailer-life, the research has now officially begun. Our plan is to keep our eyes open to the eventual possibility of living Somewhere Else.

We aren’t the only ones with this plan.

Last year, another couple we know moved here from Vancouver to try it out.  John and Maureen have been here for a full year and have declared it a success. Already, they have a large circle of friends from different outdoor clubs and associations. With Canada’s largest urban park, zillions of trails, nearby lakes, skiing, and every other kind of outdoor activity possible, Kimberley is perfectly suited to their lifestyle.

 

 

Tucked between the Purcell and Rocky Mountain ranges, the town reminds me of a land that time forgot. From 1917 -2001, Kimberley (named in 1896 after a mine in South Africa) was home to the world’s largest zinc mine. As a result, it has that air of a town that sprang to life around a single resource.

These are the kinds of workers’  homes that were built before the McMansion era came along and deemed them all ‘small’. These are the kind of houses that make me smile and easily imagine myself tucked in a sunny corner with a book and a cup of tea.

 

 

In 1972, Kimberley decided the way to diversify was to entice the tourists by declaring itself the Bavarian City of the Rockies. Hence the town centre’s kitschy oom-pa-pa shutters à la Hansel & Gretel. Slowly (thankfully) that theme is disappearing, and instead, the centre platzl has hipster-shops with funky shoes, outdoor gear, cafes, pubs and everywhere, there’s free parking.

This time of year, the streets are a combination of mud, ice and slush. They are lined with cool old houses, tree-lined streets, and trails that seem to lead up into the hills from the end of every road. The ski hill is a white backdrop to the town and from every other angle the crisp white edges of the mountains pierce the clouds.

 

 

I am writing this from the Bean Tree Café. The place is almost full; young mothers with babies discussing how to implement food-in-school programs, ‘…no kid in our community should ever be hungry!‘, thirty-somethings with geek glasses and laptops and other boomer-era women and men sitting at wood tables with steaming bowls of soup or fresh muffins.

Meanwhile, Kevin and our aforementioned friends are happily skiing on this blue-bowled day.

I went back-and-forth on whether to-ski-or-not-to-ski and realized that I would be happier writing and creating this blog post, content in my coffee-shop element. In spite of the perfect day, no one tried to coerce me into skiing. I am ever-so-grateful that we are all past that stage of life of trying to persuade each other to do anything other than what we want to do when we want to do it.

 

 

So while they schusch and swoop down the slopes, I am sitting here and trying to imagine inserting myself into this world. The downtown yoga studio looks cool, as does the climbing wall centre. There are natural hot springs within a short drive from town and the library seems large for a population of around 7,000 inhabitants.

But could we actually live here?

Thankfully, no decision has to be made. Instead, starting in May, we will cruise across Canada with our little rPod trailer in tow.

 

 

We will explore country living, parks, villages and cities with an eye for what might be possible. Given that I was ready to move to Mexico last month, it’s probably best to stick to the plan of not committing to anything, but instead to remain open to what’s out there.

 

 

But I know that every time we pull into a potential Somewhere Else, we will be looking for that certain vibe, that certain something that resonates and whispers that we might be home.

Maybe there is a place, and then again, maybe this magical place only exists in my imagination. Most likely, it is simply up to us to create it wherever we go. But I know that for me it needs some basic elements….elements like a good coffee shop or three, funky cafes, diversified demographics, hiking and wilderness with a focused core of urban offerings…all of which seems to be in good supply here in Kimberley.

Meanwhile, like turtles, our home will be wherever we are.