I first moved to Pemberton in the late 90s. It was mostly driven by friends in the ski school who had a laundry room we could sleep in, so we could lob in as we lived between here and Australia. When the Australia part of our life ended, we had to choose: where do we want to be. There was a lot of debate in our little 2-person family…

One day, walking into Pemby town, a cowboy rode past me and asked, “is this the way to the beach?”.

I’d grown up spending weekends on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and sure didn’t think there was anything that counted vaguely as a beach in this mountain town.

That encounter was so delightfully absurd, that I declared myself home. Hidden beaches and cowboys and farmers and skiers, all rolling around in one little valley. 

Every time another family moves away, in search of more affordable climes, a hockey rink, cheaper gas, and better amenities, or I try to find a parking spot for a truck that is too big for me to reverse without hyperventilating, or I hear of another outrage of irrigated lawns or helicopter landing pads or horse barns with showers and marble tiles being constructed for mostly untenanted billionaire’s farmland getaway, I have to decide: is this still the way to the beach? 

And then I do what Mr Rogers says. Look for the helpers. 

There’s Kate Sangster who runs the annual Tia and Ty’s Toy and Pajama Drive for the BC Children’s Hospital. There’s Karen Tomlinson who retired from teaching but has continued to run the Pemberton Canoe and dragon boating club. There’s all the people who donated to Terry Fox this year in honour of the Fisher’s two incredible children. There’s Natalie Langmann who organized it. And the people at the Legion who run a weekly meat draw and donate the proceeds to the Food Bank and the Lil’wat Christmas Spirit Bureau. There’s a dozen downtown storefronts owned and operated by women, including Stay Wild which became the first Living Wage certified business in Pemberton, possibly even the corridor. There are two bakeries and even though there’s no pub, there’s two breweries. Three service clubs. There’s an incredible volunteer fire department and search and rescue crew training every week and responding to people in moments of crisis. There’s Martin Buchheim, the PEMSAR President and Manager who answered my email right before the holidays to share just how many people they help – 42 calls this year (down from 68 in 2022). “Pemberton SAR currently has 47 members in total with 10 of those residing  in Lillooet as part of a satellite team of Pemberton SAR to help service that area. Members donate on average 2-3 hours a week for training with extra time put in for technical disciplines such as rope rescue, mountain rescue, swiftwater rescue, helicopter operations and winter avalanche response.”

There’s an incredible health centre staffed with kind, although overworked and exhausted people. There are dozens of devoted teachers, working in English, in French, in Ucwalmictws, in four schools, filled with culture and small high-maintenance beings. There are fisheries technicians and land stewards and birdcounters and hillside hiking herpetologists. There’s a multicultural community who garden and eat together, a bike club, people paragliding off mountains together, kids doing sports together, and parents driving inordinate distance so they can. There’s a beautiful yoga studio and beloved trainers in a host of gym spaces and garages and run clubs run by people, not brands or stores. There are mushroom hunters and mushroom growers.  There’s so much to fall in love with. 

Who would you want to give a shout-out to?