Hi himawari8,
I’ve been looking in Smithers, Terrace, and Prince George as time permits and making a number of phone calls to see who knows anything about mattresses and who is just selling them.
There is pretty slim pickings in the area to say the least.
You asked earlier about the Springwall pocket coil mattresses in Terrace but The Brick only carries two of them (at least according to their site) and http://totemfurniture.ca/bedrooms/ only carries their lower end and focuses mostly on Simmons (I talked with them). In both cases you would likely need to call Springwall to find out the specifics of the materials in the mattress because neither of them are particularly knowledgeable about mattresses. If I did want to test any of the Springwall pocket coils I would probably combine it with a trip to Prince George.
The two places that did impress me are …
http://www.gelbeds.ca/ Smithers, BC. They carry the Intellibed which is a buckling column gel material. They are quite unusual and costly but they also do a very good job with pressure relief. The main Intellibed site unfortunately has a lot of misinformation on it but they are the licensee for BC and they are independent and much more open and accurate about their mattresses. He knows about this site and actually agreed with my assessments of Intellibed here. He loves the mattress … but not Intellibed’s methods of marketing. They would certainly be worth a visit for anyone that was interested in trying the buckling column gel they use and comparing it to other types of mattresses.
http://www.everythingfoam.com/ Prince George, BC. They sell high quality polyfoam, memory foam, and latex mattresses in many designs and will also custom build. They are very knowledgeable and provide excellent service to their customers in helping them choose the most suitable mattress. They also specialize in more difficult circumstances such as injury or health conditions. In terms of foam mattresses (they don’t carry any innersprings) they are certainly the most knowledgeable in the general area and have better value than the other local options and if they were close enough to visit they would be well worth the trip IMO.
In some areas where there is little in the way of good quality and value available locally … then it may also be worth considering an online purchase depending on your level of comfort with purchasing a mattress online and the return or exchange policies they have which can lower the risk and provide you with options if you make a less than suitable choice. Some of the online retailer or manufacturers that ship to Canada are listed in post #21 here.
Phoenix