Summit Lake has a small year-round population, and quite a few seasonal residents. The community has a provincial park campground and a private campground on the lakeshore, and a ski hill with tube park. Elevation: 710 metres/2329 ft.

Hills is a hamlet at the north end of Slocan Lake with small farms and a quiet lifestyle. The Hills Garlic Festival started here and got to be so popular it had to move to the larger Centennial Park in New Denver.

Rosebery is a few minutes’ drive north of New Denver, a small community of summer homes, retirees and a scattering of locals. The community has a provincial park campground, Rosebery Parklands waterfront regional park, and one of the trailheads for Galena Trail, which follows the old rail bed from Rosebery to Three Forks.

Sandon is a ghost town from the mining days and brings in thousands of visitors every year. A very few hardy people live here year-round. The Sandon Museum is full of interesting artifacts. Many alpine trails are accessed from Sandon, including the very popular .

Links

With a population of 500 perched on the edge of Slocan Lake, facing the spectacular 2,100-metre (nearly 7,000-foot) peaks of Valhalla Provincial Park in the Selkirk Range, this is small town living at its best.

New Denver’s main street is very attractive, with a heritage charm. The community has a K-12 school, Community Health Centre, community halls, a credit union, post office, grocery store, convenience store, health food store, liquor store, hardware store, gift stores, outdoor store, a youth centre, several places to stay and a few places to eat.

Named after Denver, Colorado, with which it shares a history of mining, New Denver was founded in 1892 by silver miners and incorporated as a village in 1929.
Elevation: 560 m/1840 ft.

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• Village of New Denver
• Community facts:

Silverton, just five kilometres south of New Denver, has a population of about 200 year-round residents. In summer, the population doubles. The village has a building supplies store, a healing centre, a curling rink/skating rink, a newly renovated community hall, and an art / performing arts gallery.
Silverton had its beginnings in 1892 with miners looking for silver and lead on Idaho Mountain. By the late 1890s, Silverton was booming, but when the mining rush ended, Silverton’s population shrank and now it’s B.C.’s second smallest municipality.

Elevation: 550 m/1800 ft.

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• Community facts:

Red Mountain Road is a mountainside scattering of homes in the thick forests south of Silverton. Back-to-the-landers gravitated here decades ago, and it still provides refuge for independent, self-sufficient families.

Slocan is 28 km south of Silverton at the south end of Slocan Lake, where the Slocan River begins.

With a population of 300, Slocan has a K-10 school, a post office, a community hall, a grocery store, a restaurant, a gas station and a few other businesses. A transit bus provides daily service to Nelson and Castlegar.

Slocan’s waterfront has a sandy beach, a boat launch and the trailhead for the Rails to Trails hiking/biking trail to South Slocan. The village is also the gateway to Valhalla Provincial Park.

During the 1890s, like New Denver and Silverton, Slocan was a busy mining boomtown with hotels, saloons and miners looking for wealth. Slocan became a city in 1901 and a village in 1958.

Elevation: 450 m/1480 ft.

Links

• Village of Slocan
• Community facts:

Lemon Creek is a residential community 9 km south of the Village of Slocan. Homes are spread out along a few roads off Hwy. 6, and Lemon Creek Lodge offers a restaurant and visitor accommodation.