Trail is what happens when a mining town decides it would also like a beach. Founded in the 1890s to support the gold and copper mines in Rossland, Trail grew around the Columbia River and a smelter that started processing Rossland ore in 1896. The smelter got considerably bigger — eventually becoming one of the world’s largest metallurgical complexes — and the city grew with it. But these days, you’re just as likely to find people casting a line into the Columbia, cooling off at Gyro beach or pedalling the trails on the Bluffs as you are talking industry.

Trail is something of a fishing mecca, with the Columbia and Pend d’Oreille rivers putting serious water right on the doorstep, while the infamous Bluffs give mountain bikers plenty of reasons to point their handlebars uphill. Add in hot summers, sandy river beaches, hockey-mad locals, Italian heritage and a downtown that still carries the marks of its industrial past, and Trail has never been particularly interested in being one thing. It’s part mining town, part river town, part outdoor playground — and entirely Kootenay.