Chilliwack Wool & Craft Shop

Ontario Avenue sits inside the old commercial grid a short way off Five Corners, in the part of Chilliwack that was the whole of the town's shopping long before Cottonwood Centre and Eagle Landing existed. The blocks here are narrow-fronted and mixed, independent retail alongside banks, clinics, pharmacies and restaurants, and they carry a different sort of shop from the ones out at the malls.

Both a telephone number and a website are published, which is more than most shops in this category have on file, and between them they are the way to establish what is actually stocked. Fibre and craft shops turn their inventory over by season and by whatever the owner has been able to get hold of, so a specific yarn, weight or color is worth confirming before making a trip for it. Anyone coming in from Sardis or one of the hillside neighborhoods for a single item has a real drive to weigh against a two-minute phone call, which usually settles the matter. The Ontario Avenue address is walkable from the rest of the downtown and from the District 1881 blocks, so a visit combines easily with anything else in the core. Parking in this grid is on-street and finite, which is the standing trade-off for being in the oldest part of town.