I live in Cranbrook, (pop 20,000) an hour from Fernie. I work at one of the big open pit coal mines in the Elk Valley and drive through Fernie twice per week, to and from work.
Fernie is a beautiful town but fairly expensive to live in (like all ski towns) with lots of tourists and hippie types etc.
Also, as it's a town that's literally in the mountains, expect a lot of rain and snow, it's nicknamed snow valley for a reason.
Where I live in Cranbrook, a few miles away from the Rockies, we have the most sunshine in BC (google it) much shorter winters,
and real estate is much more reasonable.
You can buy a nice house in Cranbrook or Kimberly for less than an old fixer upper in Fernie.
As far as hunting goes, the east Kootenays is God's country, I can hunt Elk, Moose, White Tail, and Mule deer every year without applying for a draw.
Lat year for example, my wife brought home two White tail deer, and I bagged a Mule deer buck and a White tail buck,
so 3-4 deer in our freezer every year is no problem.
On my drive home from work, it's not unusual to see 50-100 Elk.
We are a few hours from Spokane, Calgary, Banff, Golden, Nelson, and less than an hour from several other towns (Creston, Kimberly, Radium, Invermere, Fairmont hot springs etc)
We often shop in the USA, even with the Canadian dollar where it is, it's still less expensive to buy some stuff across the line, gas, dairy, poultry, beer/wine etc. (Montana has no state tax either)
We're an hour from Montana and an hour from Idaho.
Many of us in this area have an address in Eureka Montana to save on shipping costs for online purchases.
Mild, short winters, breath taking scenery, and all the public land to hunt that you can imagine, no need to ask for permission to hunt anywhere around this neck of the woods.
I'm usually hunting within 15-20 minutes from my house.
