BRITISH COLUMBIA MAGAZINE FEATURES KORE
The provincial publication showcased KORE in its Spring 2023 issue.
British Columbia magazine has featured the Kootenay Outdoor Recreational Enterprise Initiative in its Spring 2023 issue in a story entitled “Redefining Small-Town BC.”
Written by Vancouver Island-based journalist Andrew Findlay, the theme of the six-page article is rural communities in the province and how KORE is helping reshape ideas around what they have to offer outside of tourism and resource-dependent industries. The focus of the piece is the three-day KORE Outdoor Rec-Tech Summit that took place in the East Kootenay community of Kimberely last October during which gear manufacturers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs discussed how to design and fabricate outdoor equipment outside of urban areas. “In many way, the KORE Summit is symbolic of a tectonic shift underway in what it means to live and work in places like Kimberley, from logs and rocks to something nimbler and more innovative,” Findlay writes in the story.
The story features makers who live and work in the Kootenays including engineer Cam Shute of Dark Horse Innovations in Nelson, Dan Durston of Durston Gear in Golden and PJ Hunton of Norco Bicycles. Their reasons for moving to the region centred around lifestyle but also the fact they could easily test their designs in the mountains outside their respective backdoors. “Shute designs and tests gear at his favourite backcountry skiing zones around Whitewater Ski Resort and the local rock climbing crags on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake,” Findlay writes.
Don McCormick, the mayor of Kimberley and a board member of KORE, is also quoted in the story about how KORE offers a solution for economic diversification and resiliency in his community and others. “We all saw how vulnerable tourism was during the pandemic,” McCormick says in the piece. “Tourism is fickle, it’s impacted by wildfires, Covid, and so many other things.”
Findlay concludes his story about KORE writing, “If the folks at KORE realize their dream, Kimberley and other BC towns like it, will become hubs of outdoor gear design and manufacturing.”
To read the British Columbia Magazine article in its entirety, pick up the Spring 2023 issue on newsstands now.
To learn more about the gear manufacturers represented by KORE, visit the Makers section on this website.
