A sign pointing to the city says: “80 ski slopes, 63 golf holes, 42 restaurants, 1 traffic light”.
And now Kimberly can add something to the list: the best small town in British Columbia.
After a seven-week competition between 128 and 12,000 BC communities of 500,000 and 12,000, Kimberly emerged victorious in search of Britain’s best small town, beating Vancouver’s Yuclelet by 57 to 43 percent in the match. for the championship.
“It feels good, it’s great,” Kimberly Mayor Don McCormick said in response to CBC Daybreak South news on Friday morning.
“There are so many great communities in British Columbia, especially the communities we were paired with during this competition, and I’m just very proud to have won.”
In the early rounds, the mountain community north of Cranbrook narrowly defeated a number of Kuteney communities that may be better known to tourists, including Rosland, Fernie and Nelson.
But then there were bigger victories, aided by many votes from their neighbors, until Ucluelet failed to garner as much support on Vancouver Island in the finals.
McCormick said voter support in communities in the East Quoteney region helped Kimberly win.
“I think it helped raise that to the top,” McCormick said, adding that social media had become a strategic tool for the campaign.
“Vote and share” became a battle cry.
The mayor said the tourist town attracts many visitors from Alberta, and we hope that this victory will encourage more people from the coast of British Columbia to come and see what Kimberly has to offer.
Kimberly’s location off the main highway, without a busy road, meant they had to work harder to attract tourists. (Maggie McPherson / CBC News)
From extraction to tourism
In a way, Kimberly is unique to a thriving small town in British Columbia: it’s not on a major highway or to the ocean. There are no major international marketing campaigns for this, and it’s more than a three-hour drive to any community of at least 50,000 people.
But it has a similar history of origin as many communities in British Columbia: it has settled around natural resources and railroads.
When zinc deposits were discovered in the mountains between the Rockies and Purcell, the area was named Kimberley, after a huge diamond mine in South Africa, and people hoped that this new mine would one day be just as successful.
A subsidiary of CP Rail (Cominco) eventually bought it and soon became one of the largest mines in North America, with Kimberly in many ways resembling the company’s city for decades.
But as it became clear that the mine would eventually be closed – which it did in 2001 – Kimberly moved on and adapted with more tourism and entertainment.
He created a city in which different generations have different attachments to Kimberly – all of whom have embraced what it is today.
“I hear a lot of people say, ‘God, we’d like to live here.’ Well, why not? ”Said Bill Roberts, who has worked in the mine for more than 35 years and, after retiring, tells stories from the past at the Kimberley Underground.
“Five minutes to work. Five minutes to the ski hill. Five minutes to the golf course. What else do you want from life?”
That’s why Kimberly has grown faster than the vast majority of communities in the province over the past decade.
And that’s why they are now the best small town in British Columbia.
Among Kimberley’s recreational attractions is the 840-hectare Kimberley Nature Park, which is located on top of a former mine and is the largest municipal park in the province. (Justin McElroy / CBC News)
Final ranking for the best small town of BC
- Kimberly
- Ucluelet
- Lillooet
- Smithers
- Salt Spring Island
- Osoyoos
- Hornby Island
- White Tower
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