We hit the road a little late this morning, but it is only about a 6 hour drive from Bozeman, MT up across the Canadian border into British Columbia and our next stop: Fernie. We enjoyed a beautiful drive up through and around Flathead Lake and even stopped to take some cool pictures of a storm that was quickly moving in. This area of the state is really awesome and I definitely want to make it back over here to Whitefish and Kalispell in the future.
Crossing the Canadian border has been quite an experience for some of us in the past. Maybe this is was due to the fact that during prior border crossings, we were young and looked like we were up to no good, but the border between Montana and British Columbia has been known to be pretty strict. After a long list of questions, they may decide to search your car anyway since there is not a lot of traffic passing through the Roosville Port of Entry to keep them occupied. If they do decide to search your car, they do a very detailed search… not that we had anything to worry about. (Except for the 30 pack of PBR in the cooler and 3- bottles of good Sonoma wine from our last trip, but we were not going to tell them that.)
After getting Caki sufficiently scared about crossing the border, we made it through without any incident. No long list of questions, no search, and this was post 9-11. It was sort of anti-climactic, especially since it was the first official overland border crossing TWBR would make. We almost wanted it to be the ordeal we anticipated, that way we would have more to write about.
We soon made it to Fernie, which is a small ski town nestled in the Canadian Rockies in the far southeast tip of British Columbia about an hour north of the border. It had a real local, small town feel and after a few drinks at the local pub, we settled down for some good hard skiing the next day.
Staff at the Canadian Rockies Ski Resorts, which represent Fernie, Banff and Lake Louise among others were pretty apprehensive about our request for lift tickets. They wanted confirmation from our sponsors, letters, etc. It was a pretty big hassle for a couple of lift tickets that were only like $45 US retail a peice. (compared to over $70 at most major US resorts) We tried to explain that were were filming and promoting the trip and it was good publicity for them. However, it seemed like they really did not comprehend what we were doing or why, and trying to explain the purpose of the trip was not really going too well. I guess they have had problems in the past with people cooking up elaborate round-the-world travel schemes with detailed web pages and business cards all for the purpose of getting a few comp lift tickets. Anyway, they were kind enough to give us one (yes one as in single) lift ticket, so we were grateful for that gesture. It just goes to show you some of the cultural differences we expereinced not that far from the U.S.
The weather has been plaguing the whole trip thus far. Overcast and cloudy seems to be what we have to look forward to every day. There were some patches of sun throughout the day, but still not ideal for filming. Nevertheless, Fernie has been getting pounded with snow this season and we skied some of the best powder yet, and the tree skiing was amazing.
After a great day of skiing, we piled back into the car for the 3.5 hour drive north to our next destination: Banff. Again, the weather was an issue, which was disappointing because the Canadian Rockies are some of the most spectacular mountains I have ever seen. They seem to just pop right out from the ground and end in magnificent, jagged, snow-capped peaks. For those of you who have not been to the Canadian Rockies, you truly are missing out on a very special place. Check out the photo gallery for more pictures. Steve B
