Hello from Room 242 at the Easy Stay Inn & Suites in downtown Fernie, British Columbia. It’s Thursday, late morning. I just got back from a gloriously sweaty run along the Elk River underneath the watchful eye of the Three Sisters, the awe-inspiring peaks cradling this outpost community in the depths of the Canadian Rockies. Some 2,300 miles from my Waynesville apartment.
The current portion of the whirlwind road trip I’ve been on since mid-June consists of flying directly from Montreal, Quebec, to Edmonton, Alberta, onward to Whitefish, Montana, to once again cover the Under the Big Sky festival for Rolling Stone. This is my fourth year coming here. And it’s become my annual soul cleanse of sorts through live music, disappearing into the depths of nature and gazing in constant awe at the surrounding mountains.