Little shop of horrors?

This is the back window of the hardware store annex, the part of the business used for storage of little-used stock. What is going on in there?

Polar Pete

???

I guess we'll know next Saturday.

Groceries

The new grocery store is open, floors gleaming and shelves well-stocked.

Almost a grocery store

I like the way the roofline fits in with the tree behind it. Apparently the floor has had its 28 days to cure and they're moving in shelving and coolers. They expect to open by early June.

Opinions, attitude, etc. etc.

Construction on Main Street

The new craft store is getting its porch built. Construction of the building began last fall. 

The Esso

One of the things I find endearing about small towns is how long the collective memory lasts. There's a crumbling corner in our town referred to as "the Esso." Years ago it was an Esso gas station but the gas station closed, though an auto service shop continued for some years in an adjacent building, eventually dwindling to hobby status for the owner and closing entirely more years ago than I can recall. The buildings have since housed a succession of failed businesses including a video rental place, convenience store, pizza joint, bakery and warehouse space for an African import business. But although it hasn't been an Esso in more than 20 years, maybe closer to 30, people around here still call this The Esso.

I think of it as a decoy that keeps the tourists from moving in wholesale. It's ugly as anything, and it graces the intersection of Main Street and the highway through town. I suspect a lot of people miss giving our town a second glance as a result of driving by this empty lot.

My Aunt's Place

This is the formerly-crumbling building that used to house "My Aunt's Place," an ice cream store, gift shop, lottery ticket agent and a surprisingly terrific little yarn store. The owner retired several years ago and the building had sat dismal and empty ever since. It's the left-hand building in this photo. Now it is on its way to becoming something new. We're not sure what.

Service Station

Whether you need gasoline, antifreeze, new tires, a new timing belt, your headlights pointed or your brake discs replaced, our town's service station will look after you. They also have host one of two remaining payphones (beside tires). Payphones are quickly going extinct across Canada with the advent of cell phones.

Ghost town?

Boarded up, papered over, wrapped up ... It all looks fairly dismal, but good things are coming. Economic activity is highly seasonal here. Winter is the best time to renovate, build, move, re-stock, re-organize, re-launch. On the left is the craft store that began construction in November.

Pet icicle

We get quite fond of certain icicles. This one at our favourite café is our current pet. It's well over a metre long and has grown a little every time we check on it.

Ski Hill Perspective

Putting perspective not on the size of the hill, or the view of the base area, but on the size of the operation. On a beautiful day in February with fabulous snow conditions and finger-and-toe-friendly temperatures, you can count nine cars in the parking lot, and the only four skiers you can see in this photo are the four I brought with me.

Houselet

This tiny ramshackle house is right in the middle of the "core commercial district." It's for sale. Anyone want to move here and start an intimate little year-round locavore restaurant? There's a dearth of eating-out opportunities from October to April.

Roofing and porch

The hardware store has roofing and the porch is going on.

Hardware

A display case of hardware from the early days of our town, on the wall outside the current-day hardware store.

Waiting

Another storefront, opposite the vacant ones in yesterday's post. This one isn't vacant, though, just on a winter hiatus. A pottery shop and café will open in the spring. The building recently endured an extensive renovation and nice, historically-sensitive facade upgrade.

Empty

Main Street is really just a couple of blocks long. With two new stores being built, and another building being repurposed and turned into a third new store, you might think we were riding the wave of a boom in business. Alas, it isn't so. There are plenty of empty storefronts.

The new grocery store

Three months ago the loggers were falling trees here and clearing the site. For a small town where the pace of life (and work) is typically pretty slow, construction has proceeded at an impressive rate. 

Pre-holiday "bustle"

Not much bustle visible on a snowy day on main street five days before Christmas. No traffic, only a few parked vehicles in front of local businesses. At the top of the street if you look closely you'll see New Denver's sole traffic light. It's not a regular stoplight, just a flashing orange light on the highway (flashing red in the main street direction) that says "slow down and don't blink, or you'll miss this town entirely."

Fish truck

"I'm here. Just yell or something."

So reads the sign on the fish truck, which parks near the main intersection in town about every 4th Wednesday and sells cod, halibut, salmon and a variety of seafood.