Nelson, B.C., a town from the West

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.

“My friend’s brother lives in Nelson and apparently he’s given in to conspiracy theories,” I told my friend Luke when he announced he was moving there from Vancouver a few months ago. “Yep, that’s totally the kind of thing that goes on over there,” he replied.

Luke was going to live outside of town to help build an education centre in the woods. He promised he wasn’t the kind of person to buy into such weird beliefs.

In Canada, Nelson is known for its stunning landscapes, charming artistic life and eccentric, heavily pot-smoking population. Located in what was formerly a mining hub, it is one of the few towns in the area that survived the industrial era and weren’t deserted by their population. A few decades ago it managed to revitalize itself and, for some reason unknown to me, attract a great number of artists and travellers. Now real estate prices are soaring, and people come from all around the world to check it out. Apparently it’s been called the “prettiest small town in Canada” by the New York Times, which I have no doubt its inhabitants are proud of.

I look around us on the terrace of Oso Negro, the best coffee shop in town, and spot all kinds of interesting characters: young men with their arms entirely tattooed, young women with long dreadlocks in large pants and sandals. Some kids, and few older people. Many of them greet each other as they come and go. “How is it going?” “What have you been up to?” I guess we’re in modern hippy territory, far away from the more fast-paced rhythm and fashion trends of the East coast. Life here is very relaxed.

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Earlier during my stay I ran into a French girl I had briefly met a year before in Montreal, where we both then lived. This coincidence didn’t surprise me. Nelson might be small, but it has so many short and long-term visitors that if I had stayed a bit longer I would probably have met several people I’m related to in some way. Anjou was looking for a new place to settle down.

“I travelled to India last winter and went to an ashram to see a man I was referred to,” she said. “He told me Montreal couldn’t possibly work for me, but there’s some interesting energy flow going on around the Rockies that match what I need, so I’m here to check it out.”

I thought this was the type of character this town tends to attract. Then I thought it would be nice if this ashram guy could also deal with my case. India, unfortunately, is kind of far away.

Anjou (she took this name during her Indian adventure) told me she heard of a local Native legend that said the tribes living in the area found the energy levels around Nelson to be so wild they didn’t want to live here. (I haven’t been able to find anything about that legend.) Is it a coincidence if the place is now full of artists and travellers looking for some kind of intense connection with nature?

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What is for certain is that Nelson is an authentic town from the West. Meaning, the American West. Which brings me to talk a little bit about the second book I’m chronicling for the purposes of my research about cities and places, The Power of Place by Winifred Gallagher.

People forget that America was (re)conquered and (re)populated by a bunch of crazy people who apparently had a disproportionate taste for adventure.

The U.S. Population comprises more than its fair share of all three types of T’s [the personality type associated with thrill-seeking.] “America began as a T nation,” says [former President of the American Psychological Association Frank] Farley. “Our origins go back to risk-taking explorers, adventurers, and immigrants. Even today, the T’s still comprise about twenty to thirty percent of the population, as opposed to the t’s ten to fifteen percent. Those proportions would be quite different in, say, Switzerland … Those patterns have to have implications for both the nations that receive immigrants and lose immigrants, who tend to be t-types.”

Nowadays, the West still represents the final frontier in the collective consciousness, albeit to a much lesser extent than it did before. Certain regions of the continent still attract people looking for intense sensations and a feeling of communion with nature. This phenomenon is very well documented in John Krakauer’s Into the Wild and by Gallagher’s book:

Farley has found some evidence that T-types tend to have a bipolar streak in their characters. [Fairbanks, AK, psychiatrist Irvin] Rothrock agrees that the entrepreneurial, free-spirited, larger-than-life nature of Alaska appeals to the manic type of personality for the same reason New York and Washington do. “Los Angeles and the northern frontier are physically different, but they provide the same opportunity to wheel and deal and operate, which that kind of person needs to feel comfortable. The better-organized, mildly affected individuals who are just hypomanic are extremely energetic, enthusiastic, and productive.”

Rothrock noticed that the number of patients treated for manic episodes in his hospital were much higher than in Kansas, where he previously worked. Kansas, as we recall from Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City, is located in a “conscientious” area of the U.S., where people are more prone to be hard-workers and follow the norms. Alaskans are known for being a bit crazy, but because they’re crazy together the society as a whole functions pretty well.

Of course Nelson is not Fairbanks, but its characteristics cannot be a coincidence only. In the winter travellers come here to ski (the area is home to several resorts and good spots for backcountry skiing) and in the summer to hike. Those who stay year-long want and need to be surrounded by these grand landscapes permanently and enjoy the town’s eccentricity. Maybe they wouldn’t have the same feeling of belonging in a more “normal” part of the country.

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I think about the annoying guys in the park in Paris. Maybe if they were put together they would form a coherent society of crazy people. Paris, so elegant and charged with history, really doesn’t encourage any form of eccentricity. It must be hard to live there when your personality goes against the current. Which is, actually, one of the reasons why I left.
After maybe a dozen minutes of talking – or rather, me listening to the guy talk about his vegetables – the Oso Negro stranger gets up to leave.

“You take care,” he says. “And never forget about your dreams.”

“Oh, I will not,” I reply.