Where Mountains Touch Rivers

Saturday was spent exploring Trail because we were exhausted from a long day battling the thick snow on Friday. Amy has more well-developed snowboard muscles so she spent the beautiful sunny day back at the hills. LJ, Robyn and I patioed at the local McDonalds (free coffee) and then I spent some time at the Trail arena in order to write and update the previous blogs. The arena and the library are attached, but the library was closed for the day so I sat in the rink to write. I was amazed at how nice the Trail arena is:

The money invested in the arena shows me the value that this small blue-collar town places in sports. It's all over the place - a state of the art arena, a high-quality baseball diamond, and an over-equipped rec centre nestled amongst the humble homes and streets give a unique flavour to the place. LJ mentioned, correctly, that the town has invested intelligently in these facilities because it gives the youth an outlet for their time and energy that could be spent doing more devious things. Small towns are rife with dark outlets that can be very attractive to inquiring minds and Trail has created a good system to try to divert malleable kids towards positive activities.

The shining example of this is the Trail Smoke Eaters, a BCHL hockey team steeped in tradition. I am impressed that such a small town can support a Major Junior hockey team, and even more impressed at how succesful this team has been over the years. Trail is a bit of a grey city on the surface but, when one looks a little deeper, there are unique characteristics that make it a very interesting place to explore.
The mural on the side of the arena

A sports 'hall of fame'

The Katimavik house under Amy's watch, where we're staying for the week

Understanding Trail and it's nearby towns has been a great Canadian learning experience.