Meet Hayley

I grew up in a city on the ocean, in Plymouth, on the south coast of England — the kind of place where the water is just always there, in the background of everything. I didn't know it yet, but that would end up mattering more than I expected.

What I did know, fairly early on, was that I didn't want to stay in one place. So I didn't. I started moving — Japan, Italy, France, Bulgaria, and a few other stops along the way. I worked, I learned enough of each language to get by and embarrass myself in equal measure, and I got very good at the particular skill of making a new city feel familiar in a matter of weeks. I loved it.

In 2011, in the middle of all that moving, I ended up in Saas-Fee — a small ski resort tucked into the Swiss Alps — and met the man who'd eventually become my husband. Neither of us was staying put at the time, which in hindsight was probably exactly why it worked. From there, we made a decision that shaped the next decade: instead of settling down, we'd keep taking on new countries, new jobs, new challenges — together.

In 2016, that moving brought us to Fernie — not as a final destination, just another stop. We stayed two years. And somewhere in those two years, without really noticing it happening, Fernie stopped being a stop.

We left in 2018. I remember that quite clearly, actually — not the leaving itself, but the feeling that came with it, almost immediately. A kind of homesickness for a place I'd only just left, which didn't make much sense at the time. We'd spent years getting good at leaving places behind. Fernie was the first one that didn't let go of us.

What followed was a few more years of exactly that — Japan, Italy in the summers, France for winter and summer seasons, chasing the same rhythm that had always suited us. In 2022, we got engaged in the French Alps. In 2023, we got married in the UK.

That same year, we came back to Canada for the winter — though not to Fernie first. We tried out Canmore, another mountain town, just to see. Then in May 2024, we left again for one more summer on the French coast, half-finishing the chapter we'd started years before.

But Fernie kept pulling at both of us. It wasn't really one thing. It was the trails, the lake, the way the mountains hold the town on every side. It was a community that's small enough to actually know, in a way all those years of moving never really let me experience. Eventually, that pull won, and in October 2024, we made the move back to Fernie.

This time, for good.

People sometimes ask what finally made real estate the thing, after a life built almost entirely around not staying anywhere. Honestly, it tracks more than it seems to. I understand what it is to arrive somewhere new, to not know anyone, to be figuring out a place from scratch — because I've done exactly that, repeatedly, in languages I didn't speak and countries I'd never been to. Helping someone find their footing in the Elk Valley isn't so different from what I spent years doing for myself. I just get to do it with really good tea on hand this time, instead of whatever I could find in a corner shop in six different languages.

These days, you'll find me on the trails or the lake more often than not, usually with skis or a bike depending on the season, and almost always happier for having been outside. I still love a Sunday roast, a reminder of a tradition from home I've never quite let go of — rain or shine, everyone round the table, my Nan included every single week growing up. I've traded Plymouth's version of a night out for line dancing and country music, no notice required, and I'll take cowboy boots over hiking boots on literally any excuse.

Years of moving taught me how to find my way around a new place fast. Fernie taught me what it feels like to actually stop. If you're somewhere in between those two things right now — exploring, uncertain, maybe falling for this place the way I did — I'd genuinely love to help you find your way here too.

Thinking about buying or selling in the Elk Valley? Get in touch with me