Moving to a Small Town: Why We Left Vancouver for Rossland

We loved Vancouver. Most of the things people say about it are true: mountains rising out of the ocean, mossy forests, great food, arts and culture, and an almost absurd amount of outdoor recreation within reach. You can ski, mountain bike, paddle and hike without giving up the pleasures of living in a major city.

But all of those things come at a price.

By 2019, Vancouver had begun to feel a little like a pair of golden handcuffs. Real estate prices were extraordinary, traffic was increasingly difficult, and the very things that made the city so desirable were making it harder to imagine the kind of life we wanted to build there.

So we started looking elsewhere.

For about two years, Mike and I travelled around British Columbia exploring communities that might offer something different. We weren’t simply looking for cheaper real estate or quieter roads. We were looking for a place where we could participate more fully in community life — somewhere small enough that showing up, contributing and making things could actually matter.

We started calling it rural on purpose.

Rossland kept drawing us back. It had sunny skies, extraordinary access to the mountains and, at the time, a slightly undiscovered quality that was difficult to describe. It was a ski town, but it didn’t feel polished into a resort. There were old houses, artists, musicians, builders, mountain bikers, skiers and people who seemed unusually committed to making their own fun.

It felt lived in.

That mattered to us.

We were also beginning to imagine a different kind of work. Both of us have always cared about the environments we create — the garden, the music playing in the background, the food on the table, the way a room feels when you walk into it. We like spaces that are interesting without being precious and comfortable without feeling generic.

Hospitality seemed like a natural extension of that.

When we found the house that would become The Wild Turkey Inn, we weren’t looking for something shiny and new. We wanted warmth, history and a sense that the building had already lived a few lives before us. Rather than erase that history, we hoped to make relatively gentle changes and create a place where visitors could experience some of what had drawn us to Rossland in the first place.

We imagined people cooking in the kitchen after a long day outside, reading in an oversized chair, drinking coffee before heading into the mountains, or opening a beer at the end of the day while skis and bikes dried downstairs.

We wanted a place that could work for many versions of a Rossland trip: skiers chasing powder at RED, mountain bikers riding the Seven Summits, birders travelling the Selkirk Loop, artists looking for quiet, families gathering for a weekend, or travellers who simply wanted to spend a few days in a small mountain town.

Looking back, that original idea still feels surprisingly accurate.

Moving to Rossland was never really about escaping Vancouver. It was about choosing a different scale of life — one where the mountains are close, the community is tangible, and there is still room to make something of your own.

That was the experiment.

The Wild Turkey Inn is what grew out of it.