Whistler, Banff – you know them well, by name even if you’ve not yet visited them. Big White, Jasper or Sun Peaks – you may have heard of.
But what about Canada’s other ski areas? There are more than 300 of them spread across the country. As in most of the world’s major ski destination countries, we tend to focus on the big names, but we can be missing out.
The world’s most famous ski resorts now each get more than 2m visitors per year. That funds ever better facilities, but it can also means crowds, queues, high prices, and after your visit you may just feel you’ve ticked off another name on your “must ski” list, rather than really broken new ground.
So if you’re feeling a little more adventurous (and to be honest, you don’t have to be THAT adventurous, everything is in English, roads are maintained, the people are friendly, guns aren’t generally carried …!), you might consider one of Alberta’s 30 or so other ski areas besides Banff; or maybe one of British Columbia’s 50+ ski centres that aren’t Whistler; and perhaps enjoy a far more unique Canadian ski holiday.
I took a drive from Calgary to two such resorts last Easter.
Nakiska, Alberta
Most Brits drive straight past the turning to Nakiska as they make the short, easy, and as the mighty Canadian Rockies grow bigger on the skyline, truly spectacular drive from Calgary to Banff.
But that’s a mistake, as Nakiska is the closest sizable ski area to Calgary, just 110km away, and it’s a very interesting place. Purpose-built to stage the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics Alpine events, accommodation is centred on the remarkable Kananakis Village – an extensive hotel and leisure complex a few miles from the slopes.
Nakiska – as was the case with my other choice, Kimberley, too – has a great family atmosphere and a human scale that means you feel welcome, comfortable, and pretty much a part of the family as soon as you parked, a few steps from the rental shop, ticket office and base buildings.
A succession of quad chairlifts take you up increasingly steep terrain, with nursery slopes (dedicated chairlifts and two carpet lifts) at the base, through intermediate-grade, tree-lined cruisers mid-mountain, and finally to the steepest stuff at the top. There are some great long fall line runs and Nakiska is popular for training Canadian racers, and anyone looking for added thrills has the monster glades and a skier/boarder cross course to enjoy.
The base lodge was well-endowed with filling fuel, and had the added bonus of being lined with Olympic memorabilia, which gave those of us of a certain age a bit of a buzz, seeing all those famous names from the 1980s. This was the Olympics of our dearly-beloved Eddie the Eagle after all, a Games in a pre-corporate, pre-drugs-obsessed era – at least through my rose-tinted goggles!
But a Nakiska holiday offers more than the ski slopes. The Delta Hotel at Kananakis Village is a complete holiday resort in its own right, and has particularly good leisure facilities and an excellent on-site nursery. There’s a choice of restaurants, a selection of shops and the rooms are good too – add the village and the ski area together and you have a complete ski holiday.
But there’s more! Well, for fans of film director Christopher Nolan, and in particular the movie Inception anyway. The climatic scenes were filmed a few miles up the road from here, at the now largely abandoned Fortress ski area – so it’s your chance to go pay homage. Money generated from the movie is being used to help rebuild the ski area.
Kimberley, British Columbia
Kimberley, a more distant 410km from Calgary, and owned, like Nakiska (and Kicking Horse and Fernie), by the Canadian Rockies group.
The old mining town below the ski area has Bavarian heritage (due to the fact that a lot of the miners originated from there), which is visible today in some slightly tawdry purveyors of frankfurters with bratwurst, wonderfully surreal piped Bavarian music, and the former world’s biggest cuckoo clock, as well as a very impressive Bavarian barn, shipped over and rebuilt piece by piece, and now a great restaurant.
So the signs for somewhere a little different were good, and this before arriving at the ski slopes a few miles further up the road where, frankly, it just keeps getting better, as you arrive at this little resort with its great base complex of top-notch condos.
So what’s so good about Kimberley? Well, everything just works. You walk out of your condo into the elevator, perhaps stopping for breakfast in the well-stocked little cafe, get your kit on in the ground level boot room, and then out through the automatic doors and it’s just a few steps to the high-speed quad.
This whisks you up to the top of the slope, from which a great choice of fantastic long cruisers descend back to the base, or turn left to explore dozens more routes accessed by more lifts – steeper runs, tree skiing, more cruising – just a wonderful mid-sized mountain with something for everyone. Add to this uncrowded slopes and a friendly vibe, which continues in the welcoming bars, shops and cafes at the base. For me, having visited more than 200 ski areas in over 30 years skiing, this was almost the perfect ski resort.
So while those big resorts will always have their place, and always attract the masses, it’s well worthwhile going off the beaten ski trail in Canada and checking out one of the many other centres you’ve heard less about.
