Faro

We went to Faro this past weekend. 

Faro has intrigued me every since we moved to Whitehorse. It is a town about 4 hours north-east. They were established in the 1960s as a mining town, except that now the mine is closed. The community is trying revive itself through tourism and inviting artists, etc. to live there, which I greatly admire, and I really wanted to see what it is like. 

Truth is, I remain fascinated. There is no denying that that the people who live in Faro are committed to it, and it really feels like a tremendous community to live in. It is, nevertheless, a bit of a ghost 

town. Their website boasts a community of 400, which I find hard to believe, with infrastructure for 1500 - which I do believe. The downtown is so sad and run down and vacant, but the people were lovely and, as I mentioned, very proud, committed citizens. 

It is interesting when a town is dying (or on its way back) what infrastructure stays open and what closes. The two ski hills that once existed in town are closed, the rec centre with pool seem pretty nice and a 9-hole golf course runs right through town. The church seems to have closed (even after going multi-denominational), but a chapel of sorts still exists. There is no grocery store in town, although the hardware store does sell some groceries, and there is no gas station, but there is a pretty great liquor store/ government services office. 

The most tremendous asset the town has is its location. There is spectacular wildlife viewing, hiking, etc. available in the area. I hope for their sake they can over come the chicken and egg aspect of demand and services - what comes first?

Perhaps having grown up so close to Detroit, I wasn't nearly as disturbed by the condition of the town as the rest of my group. Yeah, it looks

abandoned in places, but I can see how hard people are working and how committed they are.  I hope it works for them, they definitely have my support!