Fernie Alpine Resort Facts

Legend has it that the Griz was born in a grizzly den high in the Alpine in the Fernie mountain range. Beating the bear in a life and death battle, he clothed himself in the fur and wanders the ridges above the town. This mountain man regularly fires his magic powder musket into the heavens causing the clouds to open and plenty of powder to fall.

The city of Fernie is a prosperous and tranquil-looking community of some 5,000 amid snowy peaks. Its tranquil appearance is misleading however. In a region where disaster has struck frequently and brutally, the town’s history records more tragedies than any other community in the Pass. While other communities such as Frank, Bellevue, Hillcrest and Coleman have escaped with one major calamity, Fernie has experienced a series. They range from mine explosions (one alone killing 128 men) to two fires – the worst a conflagration that left virtually all 6,000 residents homeless.
While the general reason for these disasters point to man’s carelessness or nature’s excesses, there are those who blame the “curse” for the disasters that have befallen the community. According to legend the curse originated when a group of men were prospecting for minerals near Crowsnest Mountain. Among them was William Fernie, after whom the community is named. One night prior to the 1890’s when the prospecting group was camped beside an Indian band, William Fernie noticed that the Chief’s daughter was wearing a necklace of shiny, black stones. He recognized them to be pieces of coal. Thwarted in his effort to find their source, he wooed the Indian girl and learned her secret. Then he deserted her. In great anger her mother invoked a curse on the Elk Valley and all its inhabitants “who will suffer from fire, flood, strife and discord; all will finally die from fire and water!”

Lying in the shadows, a legend waits for the afternoon sun. On a summer evening, out of Mt. Hosmer’s face, comes the Ghostrider. The shadow of a distinctive horse and rider, the ghost some say of an angry Indian Chief and his jilted daughter pursuing William Fernie.
As the legend goes, William Fernie was courting an Indian Princess to learn the source of her sacred black stone necklace. It is said that after learning the secret location of the Morrissey Coal Seams, Fernie stopped seeing the Princess and the tribe’s medicine woman placed a curse on the Elk Valley.
Residents of Fernie feared the curse was real after several tragedies struck the town. Fire reduced the town to rubble in 1904 and again in 1908. In 1916, the Elk River flooded and in 1917 there was a mining disaster. A public ceremony in 1964 officially lifted the curse. Members of the Kootenay Tribes assembled in Fernie and Chief Red Eagle (Ambrose Gravelle) and Fernie Mayor James White smoked a pipe of peace. Although the curse was lifted over 35 years ago, on summer evenings, the ghost of an angry Indian chief and his jilted daughter still rides above Fernie.