‘How was your trip into the Kootenay’s last weekend?’ Camp wanted to know.

‘I love that drive through all these different climate zones, into the heart of the Purcell mountains along Kootenay lake. Nelson today is a bustling, affluent town with scores of restaurants and sports stores. Not the depressed and struggling town of the 80’ies when every second house was for sale for below $ 100’000 and there were no jobs,’ I said.

‘That’s when the pot industry brought in some hard cash to the floundering economy,’ Camp said.

‘You’re right. There was an exhibit in 2022, in the midst of the pandemic, put on by the Nelson Museum, Archives and Gallery called ‘Grow Show’ about exactly that. Now there is a book out documenting the activism and the underground economy of the early growers in and around Nelson. Quite fascinating how the cops often looked the other way, the local businesses pretended that the rolls of poly and the fertilizers were for tomatoes and carrots, paid for in cash.’

‘And it all ended with legalization, didn’t it?’

‘It sure changed the business model. Not everybody joined the government growers with all their fees, requirements and safeguards which made growing the stuff not lucrative. Many chose to remain off the grid and are still producing much better products than the government grow-ops.’ 

‘You used to live there, didn’t you?’