The geography here is vertical and repeated. From east to west, the Rocky Mountains give way to the Purcells, which give way to the Selkirks and Monashees of the Columbia range. Each range catches moisture from Pacific weather systems, building snowpacks that feed the lakes and rivers below. The lakes themselves are engineering marvels of nature and sometimes of government. Lake Koocanusa - the name a portmanteau of Kootenay, Canada, and USA - stretches across the international border, created by the Libby Dam in Idaho. Arrow Lake was formed by the Keenleyside Dam, flooding communities that now exist only in memory and old photographs. The dams generate power for the Pacific Northwest; the flooded valleys generate a faint melancholy that long-term residents still carry.

Somewhere in the 1990s, skiers began comparing notes. Whitewater near Nelson had the steepest terrain. Red Mountain near Rossland had the most character. Fernie had the consistency. Kicking Horse near Golden had the vertical. And all of them had snow - not the heavy cement of the coastal ranges or the wind-packed ice of the Rockies, but dry Interior powder that fell in abundance and stayed light for days. The resorts remain smaller than their Albertan or American competitors, which is precisely their appeal. Lift lines are measured in minutes, not hours. Cat-skiing and heli-skiing operators access terrain that would overwhelm any resort's grooming budget. The locals ski hard and talk little, preferring that the crowds stay in Whistler. But word has spread anyway, and the Powder Highway - a loosely defined route connecting the region's ski areas - has become a pilgrimage for those who understand that the best skiing isn't always the most famous.

Every region needs a cultural capital, and the Kootenays have Nelson. The town reinvented itself after the mines closed, attracting artists and draft dodgers in the 1960s, back-to-the-landers in the 1970s, and a continuing stream of urban refugees ever since. Baker Street downtown preserves the Victorian architecture that silver money built; the side streets shelter recording studios, artisan bakeries, and wellness practitioners of every description. The demographics run younger than most mountain towns, kept affordable by distance from major airports. The politics run progressive, tempered by a libertarian streak common to places where winter demands self-reliance. Nelson hosted the filming of Roxanne, Steve Martin's update of Cyrano de Bergerac, chosen for its preserved downtown and cooperative residents. The town has been performing an updated version of itself ever since - bohemian enough to attract the creative class, practical enough to survive the winters.

Not all Kootenay history invites celebration. In New Denver, the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre preserves the site where over 20,000 Japanese-Canadians were confined during World War II, their fishing boats confiscated, their properties seized, their citizenship questioned. The camps have been restored to educational purpose, but the injustice they represent cannot be restored to anything. Elsewhere, the Doukhobors - Russian pacifist immigrants who settled here in the early 1900s - left a legacy of communal farming and, for a radical splinter group, protest by public nudity and arson. Fort Steele preserves an 1890s boomtown near Cranbrook, complete with period-dressed interpreters and functioning steam equipment. Rossland's Le Roi Gold Mine offers tours into the mountain where fortunes were made and lives were lost. The Kootenays remember their past honestly, neither hiding the injustice nor romanticizing the hardship. The region earned its beauty the hard way.

Nine international border crossings connect the Kootenays to the United States, most of them quiet enough that a single customs officer handles both directions. These crossings matter. Spokane is closer to much of the Kootenays than Vancouver. Kalispell is closer than Calgary. The border here is an administrative inconvenience rather than a cultural divide. American skiers discovered the Canadian powder; Canadian shoppers discovered American prices. The smaller crossings keep irregular hours, and locals learn which ones stay open late. This permeability makes the Kootenays something unusual: a region that feels North American rather than specifically Canadian or specifically American, oriented to its own geography rather than to the nations that drew lines across it. The mountains don't observe the border. Neither, entirely, do the people who live among them.