Nelson is a city located in the Selkirk Mountains on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada.

The city of Nelson is situated in the western Kootenay region of British Columbia, which is part of the traditional territories of the Sinixt (or Lakes) and Ktunaxa (Kutenai) peoples.

By the 1900s, Nelson boasted several fine hotels, a Hudson's Bay Company store and an electric streetcar system.

[3] English immigrants planted lakeside orchards, and Doukhobors from Russia, sponsored by Tolstoy and the Quakers, tilled the valley benchlands.

Nelson's mountainous geography kept growth confined to the narrow valley bottom, except for specific hillside structures such as the local High School and the former Notre Dame University College (NDU) campus.

Throughout the '60s and '70s, when more prosperous cities were tearing down and rebuilding their downtowns to the design of the time, Nelson merchants 'modernized' their buildings with aluminum siding.

In the early 1980s, Nelson suffered a devastating economic downturn when the local Kootenay Forest Products sawmill was closed.

Downtown merchants were already suffering from the opening of a large, regional shopping centre on Nelson's central waterfront, the Chahko Mika Mall.

[citation needed] To save downtown and Baker Street from blight, Nelson quickly followed suit, stripping aluminum facades and restoring the buildings to their original brilliance.

Local designer Bob Inwood, one of Nelson's many American immigrants, played a significant role as a consultant.

Affirmation of the street's success came in 1986 when Steve Martin chose to produce his feature film Roxanne primarily in Nelson, using the local fire hall as a primary set and many historic locations for others.

[12] Many fine craftspeople live in the Nelson region, and the city’s retail sector includes outlets where they can sell their creations.

In recent decades, Nelson and its region had been noted for illegal marijuana production, with The Guardian reporting in 2010 that: Nelson was able to make the transition from a typical rural lumber town into a thriving arts and mountain sports hotbed, due in part to the wealth generated by marijuana growers.

A local news source claimed the Kootenay Country Co-op is "the largest independent member-owned natural food store in Canada and a respected player nationally in organic retail circles.

In 2006, remaining in its own building, the School was absorbed by the region's Selkirk College as a department, renamed Kootenay Studio Arts.

In addition, Selkirk College offers another respected department, its School of Music & Media, in the former Notre Dame buildings.

July, August and September mark three months of exhibitions throughout the downtown core in a variety of galleries and local businesses.

The Nelson Farmers Market located at Cottonwood Falls Park takes place every Saturday from May through October.

After Pulpit Rock, the trail continues up the spine of Elephant Mountain (as the locals call it) to more postcard views and eventually to the radio towers visible everywhere in the city.

Mountain biking is part of the local culture, and Nelson offers a wide variety of MTB-oriented trails for all experience levels.

Highways 3A and 6 pass through Nelson, while a scheduled commercial airline service is available at the West Kootenay Regional Airport in Castlegar, approximately 43 kilometres (27 mi) southwest of the city.