The Powder Highway

The morning air is always crisp in the Kootenays. Grouse and robins chatter in the pines as the sun rises over Salmo District Golf Club, a public nine-holer cut out around the perimeter of an old airport by a group of golf-hungry volunteers in 1946. The course is surprisingly flat, considering its place here in the Canadian Rockies, and run by low-key but fiercely proud blue-collar locals who never miss Men’s and Ladies Nights. Before I peg my tee into the dewy turf, I smile and shake my head. I was never supposed to be here.

Like so many others, I came to this jagged section of Western Canada for the snow. The Powder Highway, a roughly 630-mile loop stretching through the heart of British Columbia’s interior, is home to some of the most celebrated snow on earth. This is ski country—in the 1880s, miners hand-built their own runs and jumps. Today, a mostly two-lane highway connects eight different resorts, with heli-skiing and backcountry lodges peppered throughout. Diehards will pack up rental cars and do the full loop in 10 days. The craziest ones, like me, move here.

Growing up in upstate New York, I started skiing young, but snowboarding lit a fire inside that pulled me west and eventually around the world. I chased some of the best snowboarders ever to do it, filming their incredible exploits in areas like the Powder Highway, which immediately sucked me in. Despite its glowing reputation, the region remains tucked off the beaten path, shaped by hardworking locals who share a deep respect for the land and a desire to protect its rugged beauty.

My first summer here, I realized that this place transforms into something entirely different when the snow melts out. Skis and boards get put down, and flagsticks go up. Snow is still king in these parts, but the number of courses shows how much golf has gone from pastime to obsession. The highway houses a collection of golf for anyone, from family-owned par 3s to public nine-holers to championship-style 18s. Take Golden Golf Club: Locals there wanted a course so badly that they concocted a fundraiser in 1984 where four golfers played a “hole” built from nearby Parson to Golden. They played the 20-mile layout in 271 strokes.

I hadn’t considered golf before getting here—country clubs were never my thing—but from the locals to the courses, the game felt welcoming. Logging remains a big local industry, and I saw millworkers and truck drivers heading out to grab nine holes before dark. I wanted in. It wasn’t my first experience with golf: When I was a kid, my grandfather cut down an old Ben Hogan 3-wood so my brother and I could swing it. He’d show up with a milk jug full of golf balls and teach us how to hit, right there in the backyard. We loved it. But golf drifted to the edges of my life when snowboarding took hold.

Then the game returned with unexpected force. Suddenly, I had to play every course along the highway. So now, in the summers, I load up the car and get after it. From the friendly folks at the Riondel and Slocan Lake golf clubs, to the silhouettes of cedars along the Columbia River snaking past Revelstoke Golf Club, to the backdrop of the Purcells and the Rocky Mountains at Golden and Bootleg Gap golf clubs, I can’t get enough. I still strap my snowboard on every winter, but, more and more these days, when I get on the lift, I find myself dreaming of summer.