Kootenay town with its own time zone hopes B.C. will say goodbye to changing clocks
Border town of Creston is always out of sync with at least one neighbour
People in the Kootenay town of Creston are hoping the rest of B.C. will begin living life on "their" time.
Creston has one of the most peculiar time zones in Canada.
The town is in the eastern part of British Columbia, but over a century ago the Canadian Pacific Railway decided to put the valley and the East Kootenay in the mountain time zone, aligning them with Alberta.
"They are the ones who basically invented time zones in Canada and they put us on mountain time," said Creston historian Tammy Bradford.
That means Creston is on Pacific time in summer and mountain time in most of the remaining seasons.
Confused?
They often are in Creston too where they alternate between two time zones, depending on the season.
"The confusing part is everybody around us could be on a different time," said Creston Mayor Ron Toyota.
Now, the province is asking B.C. residents if they'd like to abandon seasonal time changes.
The government has set up an online survey to potentially align B.C. with Washington, Oregon and California which are pushing to dump the clock change.
If B.C. were to get rid of the season time change ... times would be easier in Creston.
"The confusion is eliminated particularly if all of the areas, Idaho, Oregon, Washington are thinking of doing it too, it just aligns everybody," said Toyota.
If the clocks and stars don't align for the picturesque Kootenay valley, they'll keep having to answer the question:
What time is it there?