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Welcome to Cranbrook, British Columbia. This was a stop on our recent family road trip, and today we're going to show you why this small city deserves a spot on your BC travel itinerary. In this travel guide, we'll take you behind the scenes at a local trout hatchery, hike some of the scenic trails, and enjoy a meal inside a converted firehaul. Plus, we'll also go bowling at a brewery, tour historic train carriages, and step back in time at Fort Steel. So, hit that subscribe button and join us as we share some of the best things to do in Cranbrook. Alrighty, today's little adventure. We have just arrived at the Coupney Trout Hatchery. This is just outside of Cranbrook, about 20 minutes outside of
the city. So, yes, we are bringing baby to look at some fish. There's actually this area outside the building itself where you can see the trout swimming around. They are huge. But now we're gonna go in and I think we're gonna get to see like the different stages of the trout as it is growing and progressing. So this is going to be fun. Are we going to look at fish? Are we going to look at fishy fishes? Yes. So time for a little bit of information. Basically in these green holding tanks that you see behind me, this is where the trout start their lives. So each tank can hold 1350 L of water. And inside each individual tank, you can have up to 40,000 little fish, little trouts, the size of my pinky
finger that weigh 1 g each. 1 g per fish. So that means if we take all the green tanks you see behind me, you've got 720,000 fish capacity for 720,000 fish. So yeah, this is where the little trouts start their lives here at the Coupney hatchery. Which species of fish are raised in the hatchery? Oh, several types of trout. Rainbow, west, cutthroat, and brook trout. Oh my
Sam is also feeding the trout. That was fun. All gone. 25 cents. Baby girl, shielded from the sun because you are so fair skinned, little girl. And today you're sleeveless. Yeah, we forgot the sunscreen. That was just ridiculous. Two out of three of us definitely need it. Not so much you. But right now, we've arrived at Elizabeth Lake. It's our first stop here in Granbrook. It's our introduction. We kind of drove through the city, the business area. Went through the old historic downtown a little bit. And yeah, we've arrived at this beautiful quiet spot here and it's going to lead to the lake. That's all I know. So, let's go. That's all we need to know. So, since we are freshly arrived in
Cranbrrook, I thought I would share some first impressions and also compare it a little bit to what we saw in Fernie a few days ago. So, here in Cranbrook, what I'm noticing is that the mountains are a bit smaller. They are more rounded. So they remind me of Sierras and also the climate is a lot drier. So we have a lot of grass and shrubbery. The trees are also completely different, smaller trees. Um we do have some forest off in the distance. I'm noticing the heat, a dry heat. It's a lot warmer here than it was in Fernie. I imagine they get less rain over here. Like Fernie looks like a wet place. Yeah, we've got lakes, but also wetlands.
What a difference just being an hour away, huh? I know. Just completely different climate. Yeah, but it's it's neat. I mean, this is the part of BC that I'm actually not as familiar with. So, this is cool. I'm getting to see a different side of the province. And um very happy to be here. This lake is just pristine. What a great place to go bird watching, to go to see other types of wildlife, enjoying the lake. And I haven't seen a single soul hiking here. So, got the whole place to ourselves. We're sharing it with the ducks. That's right. Elizabeth Park is made up of 5.9 hectares of wetland. And while it's a great place to go bird watching, we couldn't believe how many deer we saw roaming around. They were out in full
force and completely unbothered by her presence. We also took a little break here to let baby girl practice her crawling. So, for the first meal in Cranbrrook, we went to the family Thai restaurant and my goodness, we got to indulge in all of our Thai favorites. Audrey and I used to live in Thailand for a little bit. We're in Chiang Mai, so we have been craving Thai food since forever. So, I ended up getting pad Thai. Um, and you ended up getting the green coconut curry, which was so spicy. I was crying and my sinuses were completely cleared at level three of five.
Yeah, level three of five. So, I thought it was the right amount of spice for me. But yeah, definitely air on the side of caution. Maybe go for a two if you're not into super spicy food. If you want to challenge yourself, go all the way up to five. Yeah, we enjoyed the food so much that we ended up getting dessert. We ended up getting the mango sticky rice and the deep fried banana as well. Really nice food. really friendly people and our baby was screaming like crazy so we couldn't really speak do any speaking clips in the restaurant. Anyways, it was a really great meal and definitely a place we'd recommend when you come to Cranbrook.
Hi. So cute. Now she's quiet. She's like, "Cameras are rolling. Long." So, now that we're traveling with a baby, we end up visiting a lot of parks and just spaces that she can also enjoy. She can play. But we bring a picnic blanket so she can do some crawling. So this morning we are at Idle Wild Park. And it looks like there's a really nice trail system here. We've actually got the stroller instead of the backpack. It looks like some of the trails are paved. So we'll see how far we get. But so far a really nice spot in a quiet neighborhood and beautiful mountain views.
Cranbrook Community Forest. Yeah, we've made it to Cran Brook Community Forest. And fun little fact, this actually connects to the place where we were just visiting the Idol Wild Park. Yeah. So, you can walk here, but since we had the baby, we decided to drive. And what's fascinating about this place, just how big it is. 2,000 hectare area of crown land designated as an interpretive forest. We basically parked down over here and I think we can make it up to Silven Lake. We're going to attempt. So, so yeah, the goal is to get to Silven Lake. We've got little Hey girl, she's away.
Let's see how she does. So, we've got lots of tall pines, but I also wanted to show you the baby pines, little seedlings growing around here. Sign of a very healthy forest. And they are growing quite close together, quite thick. This is going to be a dense forest, guys. Our girl has started saying, "Oh, wow." I know. Seriously. Wow. Oh, wow. And we wonder, is she blown away by the landscape, too, or is this just a new sound? I like to think she really likes it.
Yeah, that's what we're going to assume. Oh, wow, girl. Wow. So, the name Silven Lake is a bit misleading because it's actually more of a shallow pond. And when we visited at the end of summer, it was completely dry. It wasn't quite what we expected, but we still enjoyed the serenity of the place and had a little rest with our baby.
wonderful meal here in Cranbrook. We've ate so well in this town so far. This time we went to maybe the most interesting restaurant in the whole town. The fire hall kitchen and tap, a repurposed building, which I always love. Those types of buildings have so much character and charm. And what a great meal. We went there for the food and we ended up having two of their signature burgers. Mine came with two patties, goat cheese, avocado, and bacon. So, my gosh, it was so filling, so delicious, so good. And to wash it all down, I had a pillzner from Fernie Brewing Company. And then we even made room for dessert, which was key lime pie. So good. So decent. So good. We're so full. And how about your burger? What did you
have? Oh, mine had fried bree cheese. It was delicious. It also had like a chutney salsa type deal going on and a really nice like herb mayo, too. It was truffle mayo. Oh, truffle mayo. I helped you out a bit at the end. It was good. So, such a good meal. Great location. Very, very cool vibe. Really nice staff. And, uh, if you're coming here to Cranbrook, that's probably the it spot to go have lunch.
Y where's the she's next up we visited the Cranbrook History Center which houses the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel. They have a huge collection of rail cars from different time periods which we were eager to see. But first, here's a sneak peek at the Royal Alexandra Hall. This was part of a Canadian Pacific Railway Hotel in Winnipeg built in 1906. While that building no longer stands, this room was saved and reassembled here in Cranbrrook, BC. Now, let's get back to the trains. You can only visit these rail cars as part of a guided tour. We took the 20inute toddler tour which was perfect with her baby and toe. We got to see the highlights before she got all squirmy. However, you can choose from a list of more in-depth tours that run
anywhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours. Afterwards, we got to see the model railway, which is kept running thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers. And then we ended up at Encore Brewing for an evening of bowling. Date night in Cranbrook. Just call it Canmore. We'll give you We'll forgive you. Date night in Cranbook. Guys, when we were planning our Cranbrook itinerary, we did not have bowling on our bingo card. But after having lunch today, while I was going into the bathroom, they showed this cool little poster saying on Wednesdays there's date night. You get a large pizza of your choosing and a date for
two to go bowling for 35 bucks. So, we thought, why not? Let's do it. We haven't gone neither of us have gone bowling in like 15 years. So, exactly. We're going to be terrible, but it's going to be so much fun. This is at Encore, so it's like a brewery. There's an arcade. It's also a bowling alley. It's got everything. Not too bad for the first one in a while, huh? Oh yeah. three. Nice one. Oh, not a gutter ball, but very good.
Way better. Amazing. What did you just find out? Huh? What did you just find out? that you're supposed to cup the ball and not try and grip it. My hand felt too little. And you actually still got it in front. I think I do. Yeah. Audrey's in the lead. Player number two. The pressure's on, right? I want to win this game. I came here to win. So, we are halfway through this bowling session. The pizza just arrived. We went for a classic pepperoni. Sam's already at it. Super hot. Are you doing your happy pizza dance? Pizza, beer, bowling. Does it get any better than this? This is like a This is middle-aged living at its best. 239 to 184.
Oh, that was fun. You did so good. I know. You know what? I think they make it a little bit hot in here intentionally. You drink more beer. That's fine. Good business model, by the way. I would say, uh, yeah, we're sweating usually. They asked if you want to extend. I think we're done. We almost finished three games. Yeah. Looking after a baby and devouring a pizza and drinking beer. So, that's uh that's it for us. But, tons of fun though. It was fun. All righty, friends. So today we're on a super easy day trip from Cranbrrook. It was just a 10-minute drive to Fort Steel. And Fort Steel is the kind of place you want to visit, especially if you have little children, cuz it's kind
of one of those open air museums where you walk through this former fort that has been restored. It's got a real outpost cowboy vibe and they have lots of fun historic buildings that you can go into and explore. They also do wagon rides. Apparently, there's food. I read there's food somewhere. We still haven't found it. But yeah, it's just really fun. Our baby is still a little young, so you know, we're pushing her in the stroller. But if you had like schoolage children, I think they would have a lot of fun here.
So, I'm having a little giggle here. There's a dental office in this fort steel and it was called painless dentistry and my goodness you walk in and you see the tools that they were using and you really wonder this was probably a very painful experience. So also they've got the prices posted of what dentistry used to cost back in the day. We're talking 1890s an extraction $1 per tooth. gold fillings $3 to5. So yeah, this is just one of the many buildings that you can find in here inside Ford Steel. Ford Steel was established in 1887 as the first Northwest mounted police post in British Columbia. Today, it's a heritage town offering a variety of activities for visitors, including trades demonstrations at the print shop, leather shop, and tin shop. You can
learn about drying herbs, making jams, and preparing tonics. Plus, you can even try your hand at gold panning. Hello, friendly doll for steel. Hello. Hello. Really steal. We ended our trip to Cranbrook with a one night stay at nearby St. Eugene. Now, I booked this property simply because I thought it looked nice, but I soon learned that this place has a lot of history to unpack. St. Eugene was a former residential school that ran from 1890 to 1970. For the non-Canadians, residential schools were part of a policy to assimilate indigenous people into the non-native population by erasing their language and culture. It's
a sad part of Canadian history, but rather than hide the past, this has been turned into an opportunity to learn and remember. St. Eugene underwent a huge restoration and it is now native owned by the Tunaha people with a resort, golf course, casino, and RV park. It houses the Tunaha interpretive center and they also offer guided tours with the Tunaha elder or knowledge holder. I read a quote that hangs in the hotel and in the words of Elder Mary Paul it reads, "Since it was within the St. Eugene Mission School that the culture of the Coupney Indian was taken away, it should be within that building that it is returned." And that's a wrap for a trip to Cranborrook, BC. We hope this travel
guide gave you a few ideas of the different activities you can enjoy in and around Cranbrook. If you enjoyed this video, we invite you to give it a like, subscribe, and we'll see you soon with more travel adventures.
