Life as a local: Selling vintage ski wear

New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, the United States, and around Canada—there’s no limit to where Jacob Brock ships his vintage clothes. 

Originally from London, Ont., Brock has lived in Sun Peaks since June 2020. Brock fills his days working as a ski patroller for Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR) and volunteering for Sun Peaks Fire Rescue, but in his free time, Brock turns to selling vintage clothes.

Specializing in outdoor apparel, Brock thrift shops clothes and posts them for sale on his Instagram account, JD’s Vintage, or on other online platforms like eBay or Grailed.

“There’s a lot of people that are into that kind of vintage apparel,” said Brock. “I had a few friends of mine back in Ontario that started some Instagram accounts, so that kind of inspired me to start kind of going to that platform.”

Brock started JD’s Vintage in 2019. At first he did a lot of in-person sales, where customers could come into his apartment to look at his selection of clothing and pick out what they wanted. But due to COVID-19, Brock has turned more to online selling.

Since moving to Sun Peaks, Brock said he has found there are quite a few people in the area interested in vintage clothing, especially vintage ski jackets.

“There’s no one else that really does it in Sun Peaks,” said Brock. “I tag Sun Peaks Resort or wherever on my location, so for sure it pops up and people see it.”

But a large portion of his market is outside of the area, and Brock said shipping out clothes has been a bit trickier here than it was when he first began.

“The post office back in London where I’m from is like, you know, a five minute walk away or a minute drive,” said Brock. “I could just sell something and ship it the same day. In Sun Peaks it’s obviously a bit more difficult.”

Brock used to have to go to the Heffley Creek post office to ship his items. Now, the Sun Peaks Pharmacy has begun to offer Canada Post services, as long as he is able to pay for the shipping label online and package the items himself.

Before coming to Sun Peaks, Brock went to school for ecosystem management and worked doing biological research on reptiles and amphibians. In the winters, Brock was a ski patroller and a freestyle coach.

“I basically did the ski patrol in Ontario for volunteer,” said Brock. “I thought it’d be sweet to get paid to do this, so I moved out to British Columbia in hopes to get on with ski patrol. I didn’t have any major leads, I was just kind of banking on that I’d get on through my recent experience.”

When he saw that the Sun Peaks Fire Rescue was recruiting volunteers, he put in his name and got on with the department. Through volunteering Brock met the director of ski patrol at SPR, who hired him for the winter.

Brock is now working his second season as a ski patroller. He also worked as a marshal for the Sun Peaks Golf Course last summer, while going through training for several firefighting certifications and working 12-hour night shifts helping to fight the Embleton Mountain wildfire.

“Living here year round, working for the resort for multiple different positions, and then also being a part of the fire department, I definitely would consider myself a local,” said Brock. “It’s a great spot to be. The summers are great. I love mountain biking, dirt biking, fishing–I have a boat that I fish quite a bit on in a lot of the local lakes.”

Brock said he hopes to be with fire rescue for a couple more years while he works on getting his full paramedic license, with the end goal of becoming a career firefighter located somewhere along the coast of B.C. 

“I’m just getting experience right now, and then hoping to keep building my JD’s vintage account.”