Everyone is saying it. We’ll if you know Fernie you are. They are saying ‘Thank you Griz!’. Why? Because one of those epic storms just rolled in over the weekend. A powerful cold front meets a powderful front of precipitation. They collided and you guessed it….It puked snow! Here are some of the eye candy from today- Dec 12th 2016 when the clouds cleared.

Big Monday- Fernie, BC phto by Robin Siggers

Again ‘Thank you to the Griz!’ Here is more on background on this tale for ya…

THE LEGEND OF THE GRIZ Fernie has not always been graced with the fine snow conditions we now enjoy. As the legend goes, a baby boy was born back in the year of 1879 in the midst of a cruel and bitter winter. It is said that the baby was born in a grizzly bear’s cave high in the mountains and quickly grew strong in the harsh conditions. Sometime later the resident bear awoke, mean and ravenously hungry. A terrible battle ensued between the two – one fighting for his life and the other for his dinner. The next day, the townspeople went into the mountains to try to discover the source of all the noise from the previous night and they looked high and low on the mountain. One of the men thought he saw a little boy wearing a bear coat and hat nimbly leaping from rock to rock up on the lofty peaks. His friends laughed at him and the incident was soon forgotten. Many years later, a group of intrepid ski tourers were bootpacking on the the peaks of the Lizard Range in the midst of a heavy snowstorm. When they stopped for breath, one of the men glanced up at the peak they were climbing. There on the very summit, stood a fantastic sight. A man with shoulders six feet wide, carrying a musket eight feet long. The bulk of the man’s estimated 300 pounds was made to look even more awesome by the bristly, grizzly goat he wore. A bear hat was pulled down, shadowing his eyes. As the skiers watched, the man aimed his giant musket into the clouds and fired, causing blankets of snow to fall from the sky above. This delighted the skiers who loved that special brand of powder snow. The travellers quickly skied down the mountain and excitedly told everyone of their experience. Some of the town’s elders remembered the sighting of a little grizzly-clad boy so long ago, and the discovery of massive, bare footed tracks upon the snow-covered peaks at a later date, and slowly the legend took shape. In recognition and admiration of the man who became known as ‘GRIZ’, the town’s people held a festival all week. Sporting events, competitions, parades and gatherings marked the legend. The citizen who embodied the spirit of the GRIZ through that week was made honorary GRIZ for the rest of the year. To this day, this festival continues every March in tribute to our powder king, while the best powder skiing conditions in the west continue to blanket our mountains. – See more at: http://tourismfernie.com/history/legends-myths#sthash.78F3US6Z.dpuf