The Old Courthouse Inn

In 1939 Powell River built itself a Tudor-style courthouse, complete with courtrooms, a jail and a police station, then eventually concluded the whole apparatus of justice would work better as an inn. The eight rooms are done up in antiques and collectables, with pillowtop beds, Egyptian cotton sheets and down comforters, which is considerably more than the original inmates were issued.

Breakfast comes from Edie Rae's Cafe downstairs and is included, and guests carry on about it at length; the inn ranks number one of seven Powell River hotels on Tripadvisor, with 675 reviewers largely in agreement. Pets get designated rooms with treats, blankets and bowls on arrival, a warmth of welcome this building never once extended in its first career.

The inn sits in the Townsite, the National Historic District of heritage streets the paper company laid out for its mill a century ago, all of it walkable from the front door. Rooms have been found from around C$105 a night in the off season, which for a night in a national historic district with breakfast thrown in reads like a clerical error.