1) An 1,800-word story by Tom Maloney about Nelson in The Globe and Mail in January carried the headline “Canada’s hippie outpost (and its killer backyard ski resort).” Maloney called Nelson a “mini-San Francisco” and “a mix of landscape-art galleries, restaurants, throwback hippie culture, West Coast-shop vibe and irresistible outdoor life.” The story detailed the local ski scene and named the best places to eat and stay.
2) In October, Powder Magazine carried a feature story by local writer Matt Coté entitled Passing Through: Nelson, describing Whitewater as “a nexus of epic strangeness and otherworldly deep turns … everything you want in big skiing packaged as small as you can get.” Nelson, he wrote, “has a counter-culture vibe that’s gone on to attract artists, hippies, weirdos and hipsters alike to produce the most prolific arts-and-culture scene in all of small-town BC.”
3) The Calgary Herald gave our area plenty of positive coverage this year, including a feature in June entitled “Sweet summer playground; Nelson’s bohemian mountain culture beckons big-city folks.” Lisa Monforton wrote: “Almost every mountain town has its charm, but it’s hard to find one that beats Nelson’s combo of gritty history, groovy laid-back main street vibe and adrenalin-rush adventures right out the back door.”
4) In a separate feature that month about motorcycling on Highway 6 and 3A, Monforton added: “The 215-kilometer route around the Kokanee Glacier is a rider’s dream dotted with sublime lookouts and snaking S turns that aren’t cluttered with many motorcyclists.” She gave further kudos to Nelson as well as New Denver, Kaslo, and the East Shore.
5) Another Herald feature in May was entitled “Eight cool things to see and do in the Silvery Slocan” — although most of those things were not actually in the Slocan. Andrew Penner recommended readers check out Nelson, Sandon, the Nikkei Interment Memorial Centre in New Denver, Halcyon Hot Springs, the SS Moyie in Kaslo, Kokanee Springs golf course, Idaho Peak, and local beaches.
6) There was plenty of Nelson content in the summer issue of British Columbia Magazine. Shelley Adams, author of the Whitewater Cooks series, got a two-page spread; another Nelson culinary institution, Bite, was included in a feature on food trucks; and a feature on farmers markets in BC devoted a full page to the Cottonwood Community Market and Downtown Local Market.
7) It wasn’t a story about Nelson per se, but locally-raised TV and film actor Thomas Middleditch told the Toronto Star that he grew up weird and shy here. Middleditch, who plays a programmer on the HBO series Silicon Valley, told writer Ashley Jude Collie that “Nelson is a bit of an artsy town yet, as small as it is, it has a theatre community. I got into performing fairly young and went from, like a shy kid to a total weirdo.”
8) A story appeared in The Province in July by Jordan Bowman headlined “Arts and culture at heart of Queen City.” He wrote: “If you are looking for an authentic, cultural BC getaway during the summer, you need to visit Nelson” and highlighted accommodation choices, Touchstones Nelson, the Nelson Sports Museum, Lakeside Park, and Streetcar 23 among other attractions.
