In the 1890s, prospectors swarmed into what was soon to become the town of Rossland. They were chasing the next big strike and for a while, the little mountain camp was one of the most important mining centres in Western Canada. The town grew quickly, complete with hotels, saloons, newspapers, railways and all the other things that tend to follow a gold rush. The gold eventually ran out — or, at least, stopped being quite as exciting — but Rossland clearly wasn’t interested in packing up and leaving.

Then there was Olaus Jeldness. A Norwegian mining engineer and enthusiastic skier, Jeldness arrived in the 1890s and apparently decided that if you were going to live in the mountains, you might as well throw yourself down them on two pieces of wood. He helped introduce skiing to Rossland, winning early ski-running and jumping competitions on Red Mountain. In 1947, locals built the first chairlift in Western Canada on Red Mountain, cementing the town’s unlikely evolution from gold-rush camp to ski town.

These days, Rossland has taken that whole mountain obsession and run with it. Winter comes in several flavours: big-mountain skiing and snowboarding at RED, with 3,850 acres and 119 marked runs; 50 km of groomed trails at Black Jack; and the deep, wild backcountry of the Rossland Range, including Big Red Cats’ 20,000 acres, eight peaks and more than 700 named runs. Winter also brings fat biking, because in Rossland, apparently snow is no reason to stop riding a bike. Then the snow melts and the mountains refuse to take a day off. More than 200+ km of singletrack wind through old mining roads and historic routes including the legendary IMBA Epic Seven Summits trail, while the new RED Mountain Bike Park adds lift-accessed riding to the mix. And for those who prefer to travel uphill without mechanical assistance, there’s hiking and trail running — lots of it.

The gold may have started the rush. The mountains are what kept people here. And judging by the number of bikes, skis, dogs, muddy boots and questionable route choices around town, Rossland seems perfectly happy with that arrangement.