Young people in each of these towns have different expectations, different interests, different values. I’ve felt that way since arriving in Smithers and only recently tried to figure out why this is the case.
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People in Prince Rupert pride themselves on how hard they party, they feel the community parties harder than other communities in the Northwest and beyond.
I’ve always taken this as true, I’ve spent time in Smithers and Rupert and the people on the coast do party hard. I have no stake in this conversation, these are just the observations I’ve made living in both places.
It’s obvious in hindsight, but I only just realized my Prince Rupert friends got their partying instincts from their parents.
A person’s identity is based on several things, but our parents are the biggest piece. Our everyday interactions with our parents matter, but so does the myth surrounding our parents. The things visiting family friends tell us in moments of quiet jubilation when mom and dad are out of the room, those things matter, they remind us that our parents were once fools like us.
Rupertites may not get the full story, but we’ve heard enough whispers of the amount of money, booze and debauchery that flowed through our coastal town when mom and dad were in their formative years. We understand what was going on.
And once we understand, we imitate. It’s a hard statement to quantify, but people in Rupert don’t party to cut loose on the weekend, it feels more like a pension contribution — something they’ll cash in on later in life.
It gets strange when you look at Rupert the place, it was dying. All these kids living in the shell of a prosperous town, partying like they’d just caught a million dollars worth of salmon.
Smithers is a different story.
Not to say the Bulkley Valley didn’t have its share of chaotic youths. I remember going to the Midsummer music festival and being blown away by the concentrated madness of the punk rock shows on the festival side stages. It felt like coming in contact with an exotic culture - and we were in the same federal riding.
In hindsight, the exoticism was because Smithereens partied like they were rebelling against something.
And they were, there’s more religion in the valley, more regularity, Smithers is more wholesome overall.
The parents of these Smithers kids didn’t experience the same things as the parents of Rupertite children. Jobs in the interior were (and still are) more steady there wasn’t the same opportunity to make - and lose - money like there was in Rupert.
In many ways, you can liken Prince Rupert's rich party town persona to that of an addict, the town may not be getting the fix of that it once was, but the characteristics of an addict are hard to change.
Everyone in Smithers says that no matter where you go in the world, you’ll meet somebody from Smithers in your travels. Well rounded people finding each other around the world.
There's similar folklore in Rupert, that no matter where you go in the world, you’ll be disappointed and proud that you were the last one up partying.