This post is part of my research on cities and places.
The best coffee shop in Nelson, British Columbia, is also the best place to do some people-watching and understand what the town is really about. I’m savouring a cup of coffee on the large terrace of Oso Negro and letting my white skin progressively get redder under the sun of this warm summer day, when the guy sitting on the same bench starts talking to me. About his plans, about Nelson, and about following your dreams. He bought a piece of property somewhere in the mountains and is planning on moving there to start a small farm and grow some vegetables with the help of his friends and the occasional WWOOFer.
“Nelson is a nice town but it doesn’t make sense to live here,” he says, gesturing at the buildings around us. “When you’re so close to the mountains, you might as well explore them.” Swoosh, his hand cuts through the air as he pronounces these words.
As we’re talking – or rather, as he is talking, since the discussion will end without my saying anything about myself – I can’t help but notice he looks out-of-place. Handsome, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, he’s wearing rather tight pants, a t-shirt, some nice shades and one of these fedora hats that have come back in fashion in the past couple of years.
This guy could very well belong to the streets of Williamsburg or The Mission or any other trendy neighbourhood of a large North American city. Maybe then he would also ride a fixed-gear bike and know the best parties in town. But he’s hanging out in Nelson, a small artistic community of 10,000 located in the heart of the mountainous Kootenays, dreaming about growing some vegetables in a remote part of the region and be completely surrounded by nature.
I remember when I was living in Paris, having a stranger start a conversation with you while you’re chilling was the last thing you wanted in your life. I tried several times to go read in the park, each one of them ending with my giving a fake phone number to an insisting guy after an annoying conversation he started without ever checking if I that was OK with me. (I didn’t grow up in the city, and therefore didn’t possess that legendary rudeness that allows Parisians to deal with these situations by using a local form of “fuck off.”) These were not the kind of people you wanted to be around. Here in Nelson, I guess talking to strangers is sort of expected. It’s a small town and everybody knows each other. Also, in Nelson everybody’s kind of crazy.




Jane Jacobs on slums
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.