I've managed to get interest from a few clients in Kelowna, BC, by attending some of the local New Ventures BC seminars. I'm not a real social guy, so all the networking leaves me pretty exhausted, but I've already made some great contacts and set myself up to do pretty well. I don't think you can beat face-to-face interaction with people.
Edit: Kelowna isn't that big (100k), so I don't think you need to live in an especially large center (unless your skills are extremely specific) for this kind of local networking to be effective.