Cranbrook has it all – right on its doorstep

The next morning, with snowshoes and skates tossed in the trunk, we met our guide, Rocke Robertson, 10 minutes out of town at the South Star Trails Recreation Area. Here, cross-country trails have been set, fat bikers roam the forest and snow shoers, dog walkers and even quadders and snowmobilers get out for some winter activity.

There are many different loops through the forest and Rocke is a gracious guide for my sons, as they point out deer and what look like bobcat tracks in the snow.

After a good hike through the area, we headed back downtown for lunch at the bustling Soul Food Café, which is expanding to take over the ground floor lobby area of the old Mount Baker Hotel on Baker St. The sit-down menu goes from naan pizza to avocado toast to a very hearty morel mushroom soup, alongside a to-go counter and market filled with juices, teas and fresh baked goods.

Everything they serve is local and/or organic and they take their branding as “The beating heart of Baker Street” seriously, transferring the ownership of the enterprise to employees and the community through a co-operative. It’s truly a soul-fulfilling place to fuel up before the next adventure.

Back on the road, we head 15 minutes north east to Fort Steele, a heritage town that the railway forgot. Had Colonel James Baker not convinced the railway surveyors to put a line through his land in Cranbrook instead of near Fort Steele, this place could have been the hub of the region.

Back in the late 1800s, Fort Steele was the place where trade was headquartered for the East Kootenays. At its peak, 5,000 people called the east bank of the Kootenay River home; there are now just two people permanently living on site. Billy is one of them.

He took us on a tour giving my sons a history lesson and happily answering their random questions. Growing up with a father who was livestock manager at Fort Edmonton, Billy stumbled into a career in “living history,” working first in Fort Edmonton and then Calgary’s Heritage Park.

Life in Fort Steele is quieter in the winter, he says, but they still show classic movies in the Wildhorse Theatre and there’s an old-fashioned skating rink in front for people to have some outdoor fun.

Another 20 minutes back into town and we wrap up the day with some climbing at Arq Mountain Center where we meet Gordon McArthur, another of the entrepreneurs focused on building a new sense of community in Cranbrook.

He, literally, wrote the book on climbing in the East Kootenays and opened his urban gym two and a half years ago as a place where friends and family could come together. I chilled on the fluffy oversized couches with the other dads sipping coffee, while my kids ran up and down the walls until they collapsed on the mat.

Gord and Fred are proud to call Cranbrook their home, raising their kids in a community that has eight lakes, world-class paddling, climbing, hiking and skiing. Gord says he can’t think of another town that has everything right at its doorstep. Others might have one or two, he says, “but Cranbrook has them all.”