A free talk by historian Lindsay Vallance.
Turn-of-the-century Fernie was a brawling, sprawling boomtown, with all the amenities a single man could want: bars, boxing rings, pool halls, opera houses...and of course, prostitution, in the form of the "Red Lights," or Restricted District.
Such districts served as workplaces and refuges for hundreds of women across the Elk Valley between Fernie's founding in 1898 and the end of World War 1.
The Fernie Museum recognizes
BC Heritage Week (February 20 - 26, 2023) with a free talk, documenting the the role that prostitutes played in western Canada before and after the system. Learn about the women who lived and worked in the "Houses of Ill-Repute" which were an ever-present, but barely-documented part of Fernie's history.
