Buy it, sell it, tune it or rent it at Gearhub in Fernie

A passion for outdoor activities inspired Mark Hall and Jonathan Levesque to establish Fernie's Gearhub sports store.

by Nowell Berg — January 21, 2015

Gearhub products outside at a sidewalk sale.

A gearhub sidewalk sale. — Raven Eye Photography photo courtesy of Gearhub

One grew up in Montreal, Quebec, skiing, biking and taking advantage of eastern outdoor adventures. He moved west to Banff and began mountaineering in the Rockies. The other is from Saskatchewan, where it was all about hunting, fishing and snowmobiles. Then he spent many successful years in the IT industry. Eventually they became brothers-in-law, then founders of Fernie's hottest sports store, Gearhub.

Mark Hall and Jonathan Levesque may have started out on separate paths, but their passion for outdoor activities brought them together in Fernie. When inspiration struck they took a risk, and it has paid off.

Hall and Levesque, along with wives Leilani and Aaron, bought an old tire store in May 2010, renovated it themselves and opened the doors in early September. From the beginning it's been a lot of hard work and long hours, but rewarding both personally and in business. Gearhub has grown to become the busiest sports store in Fernie. It is also the Retail Excellence Award winner for the 2014 Fernie Community and Business Excellence Awards.

“There were seven or eight sporting goods stores at the time,” said Levesque of the store's opening. “What was missing was a consignment option, and that was Mark's brainchild.”

Gearhub is a place to sell used sports equipment and offers a specialized range of new equipment, accessories, rentals, equipment tuning and repair services.

“As much as there was already competition here,” said Hall, “I always knew I could do a better job and offer better product, better service and real community feeling.”

Abandoning the traditional boutique ski and bike shop format, the partners not only sold used gear for people but also added a range of quality equipment.

“Mark brought ski and bike,” said Levesque. “I'm a farm boy from the Prairies, so it wasn't too long before we brought in hunting, fishing, guns and snowmobiles.”

Gearhub has SKI-DOO rentals and the town’s largest ski bike rental fleet. The current product line-up covers backcountry, Nordic ski, hunting, bikes and alpine ski, along with full rental and consignment departments. Services include custom boot fitting, tuning and repair, renting and consignment. If they don't have it, they'll source it for you. Who knows, your request could trigger a new product line.

Another innovation is the store’ opening hours.

“We were one of the first shops that were open every day, late hours trying to accommodate miners,” said Levesque.

Listening to their customers is more than a slogan on a piece of paper. It's what the bosses preach.

“I always tell my staff, don't ever try and sell people anything,” said Hall. “Try and really service them, answer all their questions, take care of their needs and if you do a really good job of it, that may make them want to buy something.”

Making the business successful takes not only lots of hard work, but a trained staff executing the company's core values.

“Recruiting and retention is a big deal,” said Levesque, “bringing in high quality talent and keeping that talent.”

Gearhub has two employees who have been with the store since it opened. Other core team members include office manager Jaime Jackson and customer care executives Caleb Brown and Amy Annett.

With talented staff and the right mix of products and services in place, what about the future? According to Hall, they'll keep inspiring people.

“We wanna be stoked, active, healthy. We want people to get inspired by that.”