Elkford

Elkford is a district municipality in the southeast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia in the Rocky Mountain range. It is 32 km (20 mi) north of the junction at Sparwood, on provincial Highway 43. Outdoor recreational activities take place in Elkford throughout the year. Elkford hosts an annual festival called Wildcat Days during the last weekend of June.

The town and area have many kilometres of horse riding, hiking, snowmobiling and cross country ski trails, and a ski hill, Wapiti, run by Elkford resident volunteers. The Elkford Aquatic Centre has a competition-size pool, hot tub and sauna.

There are two public schools Rocky Mountain Elementary School and Elkford Secondary School with a combined student population of 400 in January 2006.

There are five open-pit coal mines within an hour's drive of Elkford: Fording River Operations (FRO), Greenhills Operations (GHO), Line Creek Operations (LCO), Elkview Operations (EVO) and Coal Mountain Operations (CMO). All mines belong to Elk Valley Resources. Elkford was created due to mining activity, in the early 1970s. Many Elkford residents work for the mines or as contractors; other residents work in service industries directly related to the mines. The Fording River Operations (FRO) mine is located on the Continental Divide of the Americas, known as the Great Divide.

A coal seam close to Aldridge Creek, north of Elkford, has been burning for decades and is known to residents of the area as "The Burning Coal Seam." The fire started in 1936 when a forest fire ignited an old prospect opening south of Aldridge Creek. In 1975 and 1976, Fording Coal Ltd. removed coal from the seam in advance of the fire in an attempt to extinguish it - this did not work. A study monitoring the fire for 3 years, published in 1985, determined that the fire front was at that time advancing about 13.5m/year and that the zone of combustion, carbonization, and gasification extended to a depth of 20m below the ground surface, among other observations. The seam was assessed in 1988 using reflected light microscopy to determine the extent of transformation of the coal into coke. As of August 2016, locals and campers in the area reported the seam was still burning.