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DEPARTMENTS
TABLE of CONTENTS
P.15 FEET FIRST Editor’s Message P.84 TECH Electric Car Debate P.86 GALLERY One From Each Town P.98 BACK PAGE Vote Now!
FEATURE SEA TO SKY ROYAL RUMBLE The Battle for Mountain-Town Supremacy
ON THIS PAGE Harry Kearney and Timmy Taussig—Tag Team Champions. Pemberton backcountry.
BEN GIRARDI
ON THE COVER In an uncertain Sea to Sky future, giant Kaiju emerge from the landscape to wage battle with each other for territorial dominance and the right to rule the corridor. ARTWORK BY STU MACKAY-SMITH
11
Mountain Life Coast Mountains operates within and shares stories primarily set upon the unceded territories of two distinct Nations—the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and the Li l̓wat7úl. We honour and celebrate their history, land, culture and language.
PUBLISHERS
VOTED WHISTLER’S FAVOURITE LOCAL’S HANGOUT
Jon Burak Todd Lawson Glen Harris
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EDITOR Feet Banks
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CREATIVE & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR, DESIGNER Amélie Légaré
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DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, DIGITAL & SOCIAL Noémie-Capucine Quessy noemie@mountainlifemedia.ca
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CONTRIBUTORS Colin Adair, Jorge Alvarez, Steve Andrews, Leslie Anthony, Dagan Beach, Bryanna Bradley, Jessy Braidwood, Chris Bowers, Mary-Jane Castor, Anastasia Chomlack, Chris Christie, Joel Ducrot, Ben Girardi, Rich Glass, Robert Greso, Mark Gribbon, Jussi Grznar, Grant Gunderson, Erin Hogue, Lani Imre, Beau Jarvis, Alex Joel, Blake Jorgenson, Reuben Krabbe, Stu MacKay-Smith, Jimmy Martinello, Mason Mashon, David McColm, Oisin McHugh, Paul Morrison, Mikey Nixon, Robin O’Neill, Alessandro Papa, Celeste Pomerantz, Lisa Richardson, Spencer Seabrooke, Steve Shannon, Christopher Spring, Andrew Strain, Jeff Thomas, Anatole Tuzlak.
SALES & MARKETING Jon Burak Todd Lawson Glen Harris
jon@mountainlifemedia.ca todd@mountainlifemedia.ca glen@mountainlifemedia.ca
Published by Mountain Life Media, Copyright ©2024. All rights reserved. Publications Mail Agreement Number 40026703. Tel: 604 815 1900. To send feedback or for contributors guidelines email feet@mountainlifemedia.ca. Mountain Life Coast Mountains is published every February, June and November and circulated throughout Whistler and the Sea to Sky corridor from Pemberton to Vancouver. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited. Views expressed herein are those of the author exclusively. To learn more about Mountain Life, visit mountainlifemedia.ca. To distribute Mountain Life in your store please call 604 815 1900.
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EDITOR'S MESSAGE
FEET FIRST Yeah, so it’s a metaphor—the cover of this mag. You know, where one (or more) things are meant to represent something else? Because there are no actual giant monster Kaiju lurking in south Coast Mountains anymore (shout out to Sínulhkay, the double-headed sea serpent of Skwxwú7mesh lore, who seems to have been the last one). I suppose there could still be the odd sasquatch popping in and out. (As best anyone can tell, sasquatches utilize interdimensional portals to zip between our reality and…somewhere else. It gets weirder the deeper you dig into it, but that legitimately is anyone’s best guess as to why those buggers are so elusive. Multiverse stuff.) But even then, sasquatches aren’t that big, nothing like the hulking beasts brawling across the entire Sea to Sky like on this cover. It’s all just a visual technique we’re using to set up our weirdest issue yet—the idea is to let each of the three mountain towns in our region battle it out so the world can finally know which is the best. The Sea to Sky Royal Rumble. Of course it’s all a bit tongue in cheek and certainly we’ve presented nothing even close to a complete history of anything. It would take a very hefty tome to capture the rich backstories and characters of even one of these incredible communities. Instead, this issue is a tiny slice, a few rings of the tree that has grown from the people, landscapes, musings and anecdotes we’ve mostly pulled from the “modern” era of Sea to Sky history—those post-boom years when
recreation and adventure began revolutionizing this area and the people drawn to it. Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton: each unique and ever-changing in its own way. But which town is the best? Or, at least, your favourite? Jump in the ring and find out. And, despite the odd tinge or localism, hometown pride or friendly ribbing, the truth is we are all big winners in this Royal Rumble. Each town has plenty to offer, and while the imaginary monsters wield their lightning bolts, blast their frozen dragon fire and rake their talons across each other’s hides, we are down here enjoying one of the most beautiful and ecologically diverse regions on the planet. So have fun with this issue. And have fun in these mountains. Enjoy the season as more and more sunlight creeps into the peaks, forests, rivers, lakes and crags that speak to us so much. And think about how fortunate we are to be here at all. And think about what this all means to you. This land, the people here who love it, the ones within these pages and those you meet out in the world. Think about the feelings you get here—is it connection, inspiration, awe, respect? Then ask yourself, are we doing our best to preserve the very things that drew us here in the first place? That keep us here? Because I might have lied, up there at the start. Maybe there are monsters afoot, recklessly bashing each other across these lands for dominance, ego, glory and pride. Maybe we just don’t see them. Maybe we choose not to. Maybe the monsters are us. –Feet Banks
ARTWORK BY STU MACKAY-SMITH
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R0YAL RUMBLE
ARTWORK BY STU MACKAY-SMITH
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words :: Feet Banks Squamish, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Mother of the Wind, Newport, Recreation Capital of Canada, Hardwired for Adventure, Squamptown, Squawsone, Squambodia, Squeamish or just plain Squam. Call it what you will, but the secret is out on the once-industry town slammed into the spot where the white-capped waters of Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound (North America’s southernmost fjord) meet the mountain-fed flows of no fewer than five regional rivers. With mountain views (and access), Canada’s most accessible big-wall
recently, a running joke for the fancy-pants drivethrough crowds from Whistler and Vancouver. “She asked me to kiss her where it smells,” the old joke goes, “so I took her to Squamish.” But it wasn’t always so. The Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Stélmexw/Squamish People have been here since time immemorial, and an area this bountiful and exciting has a rich Indigenous history. There’s Say-noth-Ka, the giant two-headed serpent whose slithering route into the mountains formed Shannon Falls, or the time the Nation tied their canoes to the summit of Nch’kay/Mount Garibaldi to wait out the great flood.
SQUAMISH
(and small-wall) rock climbing and the third-highest waterfall in the province, the place is a veritable dream for adventure seekers (and real estate developers). But it wasn’t always so—thanks to unchecked industry on the Squamish estuary and the nearby Britannia Beach copper mine, the waters of the sound were essentially an ecological wasteland for decades. And thanks to the endless sulfur fumes pumping from the Woodfibre pulp mill, the whole place usually smelled like a thick, wet fart. This made for a tough—though tight-knit— working-class community of folks who were, until
In 2004, Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) filmed his fifth movie, Walking Tall, in Squamish. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Star Trek Beyond and Insomnia were also shot there. 17
HOWE SOUND PHOTO
Welcome to Squamish ( Climbing Wall Included )
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My favourite story comes from trapper/author Clarence “Hank” Tatlow, nicknamed Ta Kaya/Lone Wolfby the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation. He arrived in the Squamish Valley in 1907 at the age of three, eventually becoming a close friend of the storied Chief Jimmy Jimmy and spending much of his life on the Squamish River. In his book “I Remember,” Hank recounts a story told to him about how, one summer, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh scouts rushed back to a midsummer fishing camp to report raiders from the Chilcotin tribes had crossed the glaciers to the north (the area now known as the Pemberton Icecap) and had stopped up river, fishing and resting, planning to attack the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh camp in the next few days.
"The place still smelled, but there was fun to be had. " Serendipitously, another group of scouts paddling in from the ocean had witnessed war canoes from up the coast gathered in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound. With most of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh nation camped at villages far to the south in what’s now Vancouver, the chief at the midsummer fishing camp evacuated his people and hid all the valuables, leaving a few men behind to tend the fires all night and keep everything looking inhabited. As the chief expected, both raiding parties attacked at dawn and ended up battling each other! Not a single Sḵwx̱wú7mesh local was injured. In his book, Ta Kaya admits hearing all this thirdhand: “Even if it’s not true, it shows that someone had a gift for plotting a story.”
TOUGHEST GANG
THE POCKETKNIFE POSSE Famed warriors of justice (and accidental murder), The Squamish Five were not actually from Squamish (they just were apprehended here). And certainly, no gang of the modern era will ever be as tough (in a bad way) as a small subsection of 1990s Squamish youth who garnered much media attention for their beatings, intimidation, racism and even murder. But we like to keep things positive, so rather than focus on that stuff let’s instead shift our attention to the Pocketknife Posse. Less of a gang and more a collection of sensible friends, the Pocketknife Posse (PKP) is all-inclusive and (mostly) non-violent (don’t test them, though— they are armed). “Basically, it started back in 2006 when I found some 99-cent keychain pocketknives at Surplus Herby’s in Kamloops and gave them to all my friends,” says Squamish photographer and long-time Mountain Life contributor Mark Gribbon. “Pretty much immediately, we all realized how handy it was to have a blade on you at all times—except at the airport.” After losing too many keychain knives at airport security, most PKP members upgraded to knives that also included screwdrivers and other useful tools. And while people have been carrying pocketknives since the invention of pockets, the rise of the hipster in the 2010s saw a massive uptick in what the PKP (and Boy Scouts) have known all along—it’s nice to be prepared, to be utilitarian and be ready to fix what’s broken or help when needed. “It’s a tool above all,” Gribbon says. “It saves the day again and again. And none of us has stabbed anyone yet, though [Mountain Life editor] Feet Banks could snap at any time.”
ARTWORK BY STU MACKAY-SMITH
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In the mid-to-late 1800s, colonists and farmers began trickling into the area, followed by railway, logging and other industries. The construction of a road connecting the farms of Brackendale to the ferry terminus at Newport in 1892 set the mold for modernday Squamish, which was incorporated in 1948—with the road to Vancouver finally punched in a decade later. Mountaineers had been accessing Coast Mountain peaks since the early 1900s, but with a serviceable road, the area’s mountains, rivers, rocks and winds were suddenly available to anyone wanting to tie their nerves to the short end of a hemp rope or venture into the icy waters of Squamish River estuaries like the Elaho or Ashlu. The place still smelled, but there was fun to be had. In 1993, skier/ climber/Whistler kid Damian Kelly moved to town to pursue life as a climbing bum. “I lived at Psyche Ledge, a campground at the base of the Chief—it wasn’t a park yet back then so we had a camp overlooking Shannon Falls and a veggie garden for food. Squamish was this empty, lawless, depressed, super-cheap town back then. It attracted misfits and people who didn’t fit in anywhere else. And the natural environment was off the charts. It was paradise.”
MY SCARIEST MOMENT
ABOVE Downtown Squamish, 1951.
MORGAN COLLECTION / SQUAMISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARCHIVE BELOW Spencer, on take off. JIMMY MARTINELLO
OH CRAP... WITH SPENCER SEABROOKE As co-founder and leader of SlacklifeBC, Canada’s top slacklining gang, a onetime highline world record holder, a lover of huge pendulum jumps and a veteran of more than 350 BASE jumps off Siy Siy̓ám á̓ m̓ Smánit/Stawamus Chief, Spencer Seabrook is no stranger to air time. On a standard Siy Siy̓ám á̓ m Smánit jump one a sunny day in June of 2023, however, things didn’t go quite as planned. Spencer’s canopy didn’t open correctly, and he slammed into Squamish’s iconic granite wall, 150 to 200 meters above the ground. “My worst nightmare. My chute opened facing the cliff and I slammed into it. You think about it every time you do that hour hike up, about it NOT happening. And then it did—the worst-case scenario, just a bunch of small, little contributing factors: My body position was not perfect, and after so many jumps the lines on your canopy wear a bit and are slower to open. That made a bit of a twist and turned me to face the wall and that was it. I tried to reach up to steer the lines above my riser, but really it
was all so fast. All I could do was kick my body around to face the rock so I would be able to grab something. It was pure luck on my end; I hit a ledge—Lucky Ledge—and was able to grab some bushes. Had I not hit in that spot, my canopy would have collapsed and I’d have slid down the face of the Chief. “First thing I did was get my phone and call my girlfriend; she was at the bottom and would have seen me hit. So let her know I’m fine. Then call my friends at the top—they thought I was dead. The next call was to Search and Rescue. They rappelled a tech down and lowered both of us to the ground. Shout out to Search and Rescue! “For sure there’s fear—the thing I worry about happening, the worst-case scenario… It happened, but I am fine. So what did I learn? That has riddled my brain. I find myself being a bit more conservative, now I’m more concerned with finding new or interesting jumps rather than repeating the same jump over and over. This brought me back to square one a bit.” www.slacklifebc.com
Population of Squamish (2021 census): 23,819 souls. Average detached home price in December 2022: $1,541,900. Average townhouse: $1,041,800. Apartment: $658,200. 21
RANDOM MEASUREMENTS
KNOTS As the primary oceanfront community in the Sea to Sky (yes, Lions Bay and Britannia Beach, you count, too), Squamish is home to most of the region’s nautical enthusiasts—the sailors, kiters, Sea-Doo crews and general mariner types. Thankfully, few if any of them are using fathoms or leagues to measure distances and depths; yet on the water there persists a tendency to measure speed in knots. But what the heck is a knot anyway? “The quickest definition is that it’s short for one nautical mile per hour,” explains Mitch Mitchell, a 26-year Squamish resident and sailor who once helped team an 80-foot racing yacht (with an 11-storey mast) on an eight-day voyage from Sydney, Australia, to New Zealand. “And a nautical mile is 1.15 regular miles [1.85 km]. Nautical miles break down like this: One degree of latitude on earth represents sixty nautical miles (NM) and there are 90 degrees of latitude from the equator to the pole, so 60 NM times 90 equals 5,400 NM,” he says. “Ancient sailors on open water only had the stars [and thus longitude and latitude] to base their measurements off, so the nautical mile became the standard.” That takes care of the distance aspect of a knot, but what about the time? Apparently, to gauge speed in the old days, sailors would throw a piece of wood overboard with a rope attached to it. The rope would have knots tied every 47 feet 3 inches (14.4 metres) and as the board floated away, the knots would slip through the fingers of a sailor holding the rope. Another sailor would use an hourglass to time how many knots passed through in 30 seconds. Using math more complicated than most Sea to Sky kids ever learned, the sailing master would use that number to determine the boat’s speed. Every knot that went through within the 30 seconds would equate to one nautical mile per hour. (These days the “hourglass” is globally standardized at 28 seconds.) “It’s confusing,” Mitch admits, “but just remember one knot is 1.85 km/h or 1.15 mph, and that’s all 99 per cent of people will ever need.”
Set your phaser for 10 knots! Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound..
CHRIS CHRISTIE
At the same time, Squamish’s reputation as a roughneck mill town was well-earned. “We got along well with the working-class locals,” Kelly says. “The climbers were also loggers and railway guys and excavator operators. It was all blue-collar but there were tons of really talented athletes—kayakers, windsurfers, climbers, bikers later on, Olympians—but everyone was chill about it. For sure, though, if you came from out of town your vehicle was gonna get broken into and you’d have sketchy interactions. It kept the American climbers away, though.” And then, in 2006, someone shut off the Woodfibre pulp mill and the heavy stench of an irresponsibly extractive era began to lift. At the same time, cleanup efforts at both the Britannia Mine site and the chemically 22
Evan Stevens and Ross Mailloux discuss the day's objectives and hazards in the Squamish backcountry.
poisoned Squamish Oceanfront industrial zone began. With human effort and natural revitalization aligned, the land and water rebounded and Squamish house prices began to rise as savvy adventurers from across the globe (and crusty Whistler locals who discovered their newborn kids weren’t chipping in on rent) realized, There’s an oceanfront mountain community an hour from Canada’s third-largest city and 40 minutes from North America’s greatest ski resort? Let’s go! “Another big draw,” Kelly recalls, “was a decade prior they took down the ‘Don’t Meth Around’ sign on the side of the highway and put up one that said, ‘Come Grow With Us.’ That started the era of everyone growing really good weed here. You could rent a house for $700 bucks and light up the extra bedroom. There wasn’t much money for Sea to Sky locals in the ‘90s, so that was a real local
CHRIS CHRISTIE
industry. By then the mountain bikers had joined the fun—Al and Lorraine Ross from Tantalus Bikes, Dave Heisler and Sandra Brull from Corsa, the Test of Metal races, Ted Tempany building trails. Along with the old-school climbers like Hamish Fraser and Peter Ourum, everyone was just creating this incredible outdoor community.” And then the money came to town, thanks to the successful Whistler/Vancouver Winter Olympic bid, construction of a four-lane highway and a construction boom. After the world shut down for the Covid global pandemic, people began realizing the drawbacks of living piled on top of each other in an urban setting. By then it was all over for Squamish—or maybe it was all beginning anew? Or maybe two realities or ideas can exist simultaneously? Or maybe 2017 Downhill Mountain Bike World Champion and local hero Miranda Miller said it best: “Squamish sucks. Don’t go.” 23
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B L OW N S P O T
BROHM LAKE “It kinda feels like every lake in the Sea to Sky is blown out now,” says Cherry OnTop, burlesque performer/instructor, mother of two and Squamptonian since childhood. “But around here Brohm is the worst for sure. And I’ll never not be mad about it. Growing up in the ‘90s, Brohm was my pool. I could hop in my shitty old Mazda pickup and be there in ten minutes from Brackendale. We’d always bump into friends or people we knew, jump the cliffs together, party. It was a real community asset.” Cherry says she started to feel the masses flocking in post2010 Olympics, after the highway upgrades made it easier for lower mainlanders to zip up for the day. “Instagram probably didn’t help either,” she says. “But Brohm is so accessible, so visible…When I try to go there and it’s lined up to the highway it gets intense with hot, impatient kids in the car. It is what it is but it doesn’t make for an enjoyable family trip.
it's so accessible, so visible. “These days Brohm is flooded with people who have driven up from Vancouver, which is funny because back in the old days all the city kids really looked down on us Squamish skids and they were pretty rude about it. But if they showed up to a party at the lake the locals might slash their tires, or worse. None of the lakes feel like a community spot anymore, but Brohm is the one I miss the most. But at least no one’s car is getting torched!” www.itscherryontop.com
To make a business work you need (healthy) guts. Sabrina and Kristin.
ANASTASIA CHOMLACK
NOURISHED COMMUNITY
SQUAMISH WATER KEFIR Like so many good business endeavors, this one started with a shady transaction in a dimly lit parking lot. “I had heard of this centuries-old kefir culture that originated from the prickly pear cactus in Mexico,” explains Sabrina Horlyck, co-founder of Squamish Water Kefir. “But the only place I could find it was some dude online who I met down in Deep Cove in a parking lot. I gave him 20 bucks and he handed over a teaspoon of this crystal-y, opaque, granular stuff. It felt shady for sure.” But that “stuff” was exactly what Horlyck and her friend Kristin Campbell needed. Kefir (pronounced “kuh-feer”) is a colony of living bacteria and yeast that, when fed organic cane sugar, will produce digestive enzymes, amino acids, pre-digested nutrients, minerals and billions of probiotics. “Gut health and probiotics have been buzzwords for more than a couple years now,” Campbell says, “but when we first started cooking this up in Sabrina’s kitchen, we just wanted it for ourselves.” “I had nagging gut issues,” Horlyck says. “I had a nutrition background, and I was looking for anything that didn’t require a commute to the city. So we made some water kefir and sold it at the farmer’s market. Sold 60 bottles the first week, out of a red wagon with a kid in it.” Eight years later, Squamish Water Kefir has a 2,500-square-foot facility in the industrial park, fermenting eight different flavours of sparkling probiotic soda (including Blood Orange and Root Beer!) and four types of frozen probiotic popsicles that ship across Canada.
“The flavours are derived from a mix of essential oils and extracts,” Campbell says. “The sodas have four ingredients—water, organic cane sugar, kefir culture and flavour. That’s it. Through the fermentation process, the culture reduces the sugar content to just a few teaspoons per litre, and the sugar arrives in your gut ‘pre-digested,’ making it more bioavailable. We don’t add any additional sugar beyond what the culture requires to work its magic. Each can boasts more than 2.5 billion living, vegan probiotics.” While scaling up any small business is a challenge, both Horlyck and Campbell say perseverance and stubbornness is their biggest trade secret. “Whatever is in the way, is the way,” Campbell says. “Everything is figureoutable; you just need to believe somehow it is gonna work.” Community support and a hot name/head office location helps, too. “People in Squamish are awesome,” Horlyck says. “And all over the world now, people view Squamish as a place connected to a healthy, outdoor lifestyle. Sometimes we get so caught up in running the business we forget why we started this—the health benefits—but then we get emails saying, ‘I have less anxiety, am sleeping better, have more regular bowel movements and a stronger immune system…’ We’ve even had people email saying, ‘Drinking this stuff has saved my life.’” “Pretty much every traditional culture has some form of fermented drink or food as a staple to their diets,” Campbell says. “Now Squamish has one, too.” www.squamishwaterkefir.com 25
Offices in North Vancouver and Whistler.
P E R F E C T D AY
ROCK AND CHOP WITH T-MAC Trevor McDonald, aka T-Mac, is a climber, skier, paddler and stone mason who moved to Whistler at age 18. “My second day there, my buddy Dave and I were so broke and hungry—waiting for our tree-planting checks to come in—and we saw this dude grilling steaks in his backyard in Brio. Dave went and knocked on his front door and when the dude went to answer I ripped into his backyard and grabbed the steaks right off his grill. We hid in the woods and ate these steaks—they were only cooked on one side, but man, we were starving and they were good.” Employed shortly after, T-Mac spent the next eight years ski-bumming—crime free—before moving to Mount Currie for a few years. He’s called Squamish home since the calendar rolled over into the year 2000. “I came because Pemby was too expensive to buy a house back then,” he says. “I lived downtown with the crackheads and one night they stole a Hibachi BBQ from my backyard. I guess I deserved it though, didn’t I?” Squamish has changed over the years, but one thing that remains the same, the thing T-Mac likes the most, is the sense of community and camaraderie here. “I have the same friends I’ve had since I showed up in this area, we are still tight, we laugh, and we’re still enthusiastic about what we love doing. We’re still finding new places to go and new ways to have fun. It feels pretty much the same as it always has.” Well there are many, but one that really stands out is one nice day in April, Naomi [Allard] and I paddled [on SUPs] out across from the spit to access those big cliffs on the west side of the sound, just south of where the river comes in. It was cool because we had to thread our way through all the kiters and navigate the river mouth to get over to this climbing route Jimmy Martinello and I had put up a few years earlier. At a little cleft in the cliff with a small forested ledge, we stashed the boards and started climbing. “Paddleboards are the only way to access this spot; you can’t leave a boat there unmanned. And climbing over the ocean, there’s just something about combining those elements. Maybe it does something to your vision but it adds an edge to everything, a bit more excitement. It’s a bit similar to climbing in the desert, this stark vastness below
ABOVE T-Mac on the climb... MAIN IMAGE: ..and on the Sound.
JIMMY MARTINELLO
you. This route is mixed climbing, four pitches of 5.11+ with an Arbutus tree on a ledge at the top, a really great perch and kind of a perfect Squamish spot. “The trip home: We had this big tide drop so the Squamish river was just flying out into the sound creating these standing waves out on the sandbar. The kiters were everywhere, too—it was a bit of a wild scene. Naomi is a great paddler so we just had fun with it and ended the day with tacos and beer by the outdoor fire pit at A-Frame. “I think that’s one of my favourite things about Squamish, on those multisport mission days there’s an added romance or an extra feel to it. You’re testing yourself on multiple skill sets and enjoying the feel of two totally different things you love. Plus, paddling is a great warm up for climbing.
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BEHIND THE PHOTO words & photo :: Chris Christie athlete :: Celeste Pomerantz location :: Squamish backcountry “Chris called and said he wanted to go touring and that he’d bring his camera, but mostly we should just have fun. So we hit the Sea to Sky Gondola right at 9 a.m. and hustled out to the bottom of this couloir. We had to strap on ascent plates to climb it. It was waist-deep so we took turns swimming our way up for 45 minutes. Perfect snow, fun day—sometimes going with no expectations gets the best results.”
The annual Brackendale Winter Eagle Count spotted 996 eagles in January of 2024, the most since 2019. (The highest number was 3,769 eagles in 1994.) 29
30
WHISTLER
words :: Leslie Anthony
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: My first view of Whistler was through the windshield of a beat-up van driven cross-country from Ontario. It was pea-soup foggy that March day in the late-1970s, so the view took in very little: a gas station that doubled as a grocery store and post office and, across the “street” (because it hardly bore the mien of a highway), a muddy parking lot, gondola base and skanky bar. The only consolation lay in being assured there was nothing else to see. This was certainly the case when, after parking at the UBC hostel so we could poach its ice-water showers, we spent the next two days skiing a fog-bound mountain with a patroller friend from back east who constantly extolled the virtues of all we couldn’t see. Pilgrims that we were, and despite the zeal of its denizens, Whistler hardly seemed a promised land. It would take several more visits (and decades) before I actually understood, immersing myself in the heady late-’90s vibe of what was, at the time, the undeniable centre of the North American ski universe. That advent changed everything. Enough that Whistler’s combination of ancient glaciers and youthful energy would eventually exert its siren call on me, as well. Part of the draw had to do with the oceanic wilderness in which the town floated—so vast as to render the resort an island within, while always lapping its foreshore. Riding lifts over the years, I’ve seen mama bears just out of hibernation with their nose to the wind, newborn cubs rolling playfully at their feet; I’ve watched mountain lions and bobcats trot across pistes. From the resort’s paired summits of Whistler and Blackcomb, where the village is reduced to the size of a thumbnail, it can seem it isn’t there at all. For visitors from abroad starved for true wilderness, that’s a potent draw—the reason today’s town has gone from a beat-down gas station to a bustling Tower of Babel awash in the lilt and twang of a dozen languages. This ethnic vibrancy makes Whistler the most international and cosmopolitan of places—another point of appeal reflected in the culinary diversity of 200 dining and drinking establishments. Is there another resort in North America where the seeand-be-seen establishment for celebs and site of legendarily debauched parties, where one can earn street cred for life through employment, could be a Japanese restaurant? MAIN IMAGE
DAVE MCCOLM. ARTWORK STU MACKAY-SMITH
Population of Whistler (2021 census): 13,982 souls. Average detached home price in December 2022: $2,367,000. Average townhouse: $1,493,200. Apartment: $756,700. 31
RANDOM MEASUREMENTS
THE CORD Firewood—dry firewood especially—is its own type of currency in any mountain town, but that value amplifies even more up at the “top of the pass” (aka Whistler), where chalets need to be heated and hotel lobbies need that crackling ambiance. A full cord of split, dry (or “seasoned” in the parlance of the industry) and delivered firewood can fetch as much as $800 in Whistle-town, but what is a “cord” anyhow? “A cord is a stack of wood that’s four feet high, four feet wide and eight feet long,” explains legendary Whistler bartender and hand-splitting firewood enthusiast Greg Pondelicek. “I don’t know why; it’s just always been that way—ever since they stopped using bushels, you know, like on the Led Zeppelin album cover?” The name “cord” likely comes from a length of rope or string traditionally used to measure with, but no one knows for sure. “It’s always been measured in cords,” Greg says. In the 1990s he and a couple buddies used to run a firewood business in Whistler. “We called ourselves The Sandwich Bros. We’d go get wood and pick some pine mushrooms at the same time. The days before we had kids. It’s a lot of work—cut, load, unload, split, load it again and drop it off. But it’s also nice to help people out—drop a free load of wood for someone who’s injured or too busy or not expecting it. A cord of wood is a good gift, especially if you have kids to stack it for you.”
32
TOP LEFT
REUBEN KRABBE. ABOVE Blackcomb Terrain Park.
ALESSANDRO PAPA
With Whistler’s one-stop play distractions (a partial list includes heliand cat skiing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, dogsledding, bungee-jumping, zip-lining, tubing, bobsledding, hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, kayaking and rafting); significant cultural offerings like the Audain Art Museum, Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre and surfeit of live music, film, photography, arts, culinary; and action-sport events which, in pre-Covid days, reached an apogee every spring in the legendary World Ski & Snowboard Festival followed by late-summer’s global Crankworx Whistler Mountain Bike Festival, you have the stimulus and variety of a big city in a small-town package—with the former’s implied entreat that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. All of this acted as catnip for a city-bred outdoor journalist like me who craved the authenticity of a ski town but couldn’t see himself in any of BC’s quaint backwaters or neighbouring bergs of the Sea to Sky corridor. Squamish might be the self-proclaimed “Adventure capital of Canada” and Pemberton has adopted “Adventure begins here,” but Whistler didn’t need a tagline. It was all so obvious. Happily for those who settled here, and despite its Disneyland veneer, Whistler is also a community whose vibrant mix of art, culture and outdoor enthusiasm has always dovetailed well with tourism. But in dreaming big and cultivating a life apart from the industries that keep it afloat, Whistler created something even more meaningful to share with visitors—character. Young or old, citizen or passing through, one thing was always clear: In Whistler, exploring was just what you did. You went to the edge, and there you often stayed. For decades, the centripetal force Whistler exerted on dreamers, schemers and fun hogs was matched by the centrifugal force of its effects on first the snowsports then mountain bike industries. Whistler’s ascendancy didn’t just happen, of course. Most gravitational bodies take a while to reach critical mass, and many dedicated individuals worked long and hard to this end. That much is obvious in the town’s many history-making legends: Dag Aabye, Jim McConkey and Hugh Smythe from the early days; the balls-to-the-wall racing style pioneered by the infamous Crazy Canucks on the Dave Murray Downhill course, leading to a hometown World Cup win by Rob Boyd in 1989; groundbreaking first descents in the surrounding Coast Range by Eric Pehota, Trevor Petersen and others in the early 1990s; invention of the twin-tip ski and subsequent park-and-pipe revolution sparked by Mike Douglas and his New Canadian Air Force
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cohorts during the Horstman Glacier’s summer freeride camps; the mountain bike freeride ground zero that led to the development of the world’s first bike park (see sidebar, p.44); a litany of male and female big-mountain freeride staples and world champions; ditto the ranks of Olympian and FIS World Cup moguls, ski cross, pipe and slopestyle heavyweights. Predicting such a diverse mountain culture epicentre would have been difficult back in 1914 when Alex and Myrtle Philip mounted horses to follow the Pemberton Trail from Squamish into a low, lake-filled pass in the Coast Range and built Rainbow
Lodge, turning Alta Lake (Whistler’s original name) into a popular summer fishing destination. Reflecting the hubris of many settler enterprises, it was, of course, already a summer fishing destination for the land’s original inhabitants. The coastal Squamish people and Interior-dwelling Lil’wat shared a seasonal village—Spo7ez—just south of the valley, where they gathered to trade, hunt, fish and forage. (The Pemberton Trail itself was an old First Nations trade route, expanded in an ill-fated attempt to drive cattle from the BC Interior to the Pacific; on the one drive that happened, most of the cattle died.) It wasn’t until 1960 that the Garibaldi Lift Company formed with the intention of building a ski area to bid on the 1964 Winter Olympics. The bid failed, but the ski hill, Whistler Mountain, opened in 1966. Despite a hellish five-hour dirt drive from Vancouver (now reduced by a modern highway to a smooth 1.5 hours), Whistler was an instant hit. With the newly minted Resort Municipality of Whistler coordinating development, phase one of the main village was completed in time for the opening of neighboring Blackcomb Mountain in 1980. The two ski hills
ABOVE Famous hotdoggers George Oskwold, Wayne Wong and Floyd Wilkie on Whistler Mountain in the summer of 1973.
were originally separate but competed like college fraternities, leaking one-upmanship and enterprise into the surroundings. In 1986, resort-development company Intrawest purchased Blackcomb, adding Whistler a decade later to create the slick, dual-mountain behemoth that today flies under the dubious banner of Vail Resorts. When, after three unsuccessful bids, the five-ring circus of the Winter Olympic Games finally did hit town in 2010, Whistler completed a full-circle story and received several high-profile legacies that have only added to the town’s function and appeal. Proof that if Whistler can lay claim to any credo, it’s “Never say never.” During my two-plus decades here, the resort’s transformation included the addition of a small country’s worth of accommodation and real estate as well as continued development of the world-leading bike park and upgrading of ski operations, including the engineering-marvel Peak 2 Peak Gondola (P2P)—akin to taking a helicopter ride while still attached to the ground. Naturally, the P2P was opposed by many crusty Whistlerites (mea culpa) who preferred the $55 million cost go to
WHISTLER MUSEUM & ARCHIVES. BELOW Craig McMorris, Whistler backcountry.
Blackcomb Mountain welcomed snowboarders for the 1987/88 season. Whistler Mountain waited until the following season. 34
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expanding terrain. But we were wronger than wrong and, once again, had to hand it to the visionaries who saw the writing on the wall; beyond its convenience for skiers, the P2P is a tourist draw extraordinaire that has virtually climate-proofed the resort. Such gewgaws are what a global fleet of ski magazines annually point to while singing Whistler’s praises. Like these words from the 1996 POWDER Resort Guide: “Given the hyperbolic publicity it receives, there’s a danger Whistler Blackcomb could become the most overrated ski resort on the planet. The truth, however, is that the size of these mountains, the access to glaciers and high alpine, the sheer scope and diversity of terrain, and the spectacular setting, combine to make it an untouchable experience.” Like many glowing reports rendered by ski writers who needed to make a buck, I wasn’t entirely convinced when I wrote those words. Today, I look back on them as understatement: Even the hype can’t live up to the reality—or the influence. Sure, there are problems—taxes, housing, over-tourism— that can’t be solved by ham-fisted government, but you almost take a sick pleasure in it. Kind of like New Yorkers in the 1970s bragging about their crime rate. As a purpose-built resort town, for years Whistler was alone in the corridor in trying to establish a natural balance between tourists and locals. But now Squamish and Pemberton, themselves mobbed in hitherto unforeseen ways by visitors and their de facto economic umbilicus to Whistler, are juggling the same. Where it was once all Whistler’s fault, now everyone is on the carpet. Which makes the corridor’s halting but long-standing bumper-sticker war in which one community creatively slags the other—one famously stating “Whistler: This Way” with a middle finger pointing up— kinda moot. Whistler may be the glue that binds or bristles, but now we’re all in this together. ARTWORK BY STU MACKAY-SMITH
Talia practices “strength, speed and mental stability” 5 to 6 days a week during her season.
CHRISTOPHER SPRING
LEGACY
THE FUTURE OF FAST Talia Melum grew up hanging around the Whistler Sliding Centre, watching athletes (and the public) speed down the same icy track where Canadian women bobsleighers took gold and silver in the 2010 Winter Games in Whistler. “I knew I wanted to try it,” she says. “And once I did, I loved it right away.” Talia is 15 years old and already in her third season solopiloting the monobob (single-person bobsleigh) competitively. At the end of January (just a week after this magazine went to the printers), she competed for Canada at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) on the 2018 Olympic track in PyeongChang, South Korea. “I’ve raced that track twice before,” Talia calmly explains. “The first time wasn’t great but the second time I finished fourth.” One of only two youth monobob athletes in Canada, Talia’s top speed on the Whistler Sliding Centre track (the fastest track in the world) is 130 km/h, so far. She trains 5 to 6 days a week at the Sliding Centre during the season, and another 4 to 5 days in the gym at the Whistler Athletes’ Centre. And she’s not alone. "Approximately 385 local children currently participate in competitive programs at Whistler Sliding Centre and Whistler Olympic Park, with thousands more next-generation athletes inspired by our community and recreation programs each year,” says Melanie Bitner, communications manager at Whistler Sport Legacies. "For some, it’s about exploring a different kind of sport and fun in the Sea to Sky. But for those with Olympiclevel aspirations, the opportunity exists through our world-class facilities, coaches and collaboration with provincial and national sports organizations.” Since the Winter Games left town, Whistler has seen no fewer than 15 young local athletes go on to compete on the global stage in bobsleigh, luge, biathlon and ski jumping, including Caitlin Nash and Natalie Corless, who nabbed silver in Women’s doubles luge at the 2022 YOG. (The duo also made history in 2019 in Whistler as the first women to compete in a World Cup race against the men.) “I love it,” says Talia. “Nothing I have ever done comes close to the speed and the feeling I experience out there on the track.” www.whistlersportlegacies.com 37
TOUGHEST GANG
NICEST GANG
CREEKSIDE MOB
OLD SCHOOL INITIATIVE
Exhibit A: Whistler Pique Newsmagazine story from January 6, 1994:
Growing up in Whistler, especially in the 1970s and 80s, meant being part of a very small group—every kid knew every other kid and everyone’s parents kept an eye out. It truly was that classic “it takes a village” attitude. “It was a tight community in those days, out of necessity,” says born-andraised Whistler kid Beau Jarvis. “And Pemberton, too. When I was really young, that’s where the medical clinic was, that’s where we all went to high school. Everyone was in it together.” So when Beau and his daughter rolled up to the Whistler Skate Park in the summer of 2020, what he saw reminded him of that old-time spirit. “The place was full of young girls and there were these local teens there who called themselves the Real Wild Kittens, and they were just there to help other girls learn to skate. Every Friday they’d show up, volunteer their time and help their community. They even had energy bars they’d bought to hand out.” A few weeks prior, Beau had been speaking to young alpine ski racer Broderick Thompson about the cost involved to support a World Cup career. (Jarvis grew up racing with the Whistler Mountain Ski Club and four of his five children still race there.) “Between Broderick and these young skater girls, I just felt inspired to help,” Beau explains. First, it was just t-shirts for the skate coaches. “The kids made their own art and I got my brother to print them cheap,” Beau explains. “Around this time the Whistler Skateboard Club started up and we bought them merch as well. One day a family showed up with three kids and only one board, and the coach decided they needed gear, too—pads, helmets, decks. We
“The most visible activity at Creekside comes from a loose-knit group of youths who call themselves the Creekside Mob. They are believed to have been involved in burglaries and graffiti painting. [Whistler Bylaw Enforcement Supervisor Clint] Logue says the Creekside Mob is far from being a gang. Rather, it is a ‘group of young men trying to establish themselves...We know who they are and they’re just a group trying to hang the gang label on themselves, but they aren’t really a gang.’ The Creekside Mob seems to identify with the snowboarder subculture, but the problem seems to exist more with the group mentality than snowboarding.” “Haha,” says one founding member of the Creekside Mob (CSM), who still lives in Whistler. (Editor’s note: All Mob affiliates requested anonymity.) “Really it was just a bunch of us wasted youth playing cee-lo [a dice game] for shots of Crown Royal or collecting [marijuana] roaches for the month leading up to opening day so we could make a ‘ganjala’ royal roach.” Certainly, with an influx of young men pursuing a new sport (snowboarding saved Whistler), there was the odd kerfuffle— mostly fights over girls with resident skiers, or putting some brash “citiots” in line (this was right around the inception of the Whiskey snowboard videos)—but for the most part, the core Mob crew were mainly interested in “getting up early—half wasted still—and shredding pow all day down to Dusty’s so we could do it again.” Their criminal influence was somewhat overstated (and most of the graffiti was done by outsider mob wannabes anyhow). In fact, a number of Mob members have gone onto successful local careers as snowboard icons, film directors, artists, entrepreneurs and more. “We weren’t violent,” our OG contact says, “We were just poor. But for sure, we certainly didn’t speak to skiers, other than a very select few. That was definitely a big no back then.”
38
continue to supply gear to both those programs. They are wildly successful programs—their camps are always full—but they needed assistance to be sustainable.” Jarvis reached out to some old friends. “There are a lot of people who’ve achieved some success in their lives that are still tied to this area and this community,” he says. “Since we were a bunch of old-schoolers, I called it the Old School Initiative.” These days the Old School Initiative supports the Whistler Skateboard Club, the Real Wild Kittens (named such because they are the children of some of Whistler’s infamous Wildcats snowboard crew of the late 1990s/2000s) as well as Whistler Community Services Society. They also help fund Thompson, slopestyle snowboarder Juliette Pelchat, skater/snowboarder Truth Smith and ski cross racer Emiline Bennet. “All four of those athletes are competing at the World Cup level,” says Beau, “but also really community-oriented, that’s a component that we want to focus on. There are a lot of other local athletes who have applied and would qualify, I just need to get more funding in the door. I still fund a lot of it myself and just phone my buddies to ask for help. But I love the energy. I saw an Old School Initiative hat on someone at the Caminetto last week. And I saw two kids at the airport with the stickers on their board bags, probably going to Japan to shred pow. It was so awesome growing up here when the Sea to Sky was undiscovered. I want to make sure the kids and the communities stay connected that way.” www.oldschoolinitiative.com Real Wild Kittens Skate Jam.
BEAU JARVIS
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MY SCARIEST MOMENT
SHOOT OUT
Originally, we reached out to ex-Whistler Mountain ski patroller and Blackcomb founding father Hugh Smythe to talk about that time the only bank in Whistler was set up in a trailer on blocks in Creekside and someone showed up with a set of wheels and stole the whole bank (!!) but within five minutes of chatting, Hugh mentioned something that’s got to be up there for scariest Whistler moment ever.
“It was the Friday of Thanksgiving so most of the people working in town had left for the long weekend. I guess this was 1970. I was ski patrol leader on Whistler and we’d been on the mountain all day piling and burning brush. I was sitting having dinner in the cafeteria, just around the corner from the bar—L’Après, which later became Dusty’s. There were only about five or six other people in there and suddenly we heard this bang go off—it was really loud. There were only two people working behind the counter that night, a young Greek kid named Dino and a young waitress who I believe was named Mary. “So right after this bang, Mary comes crawling out from behind the servery. She’s covered in red—no one knew it was blood at that point—and screaming, ‘He shot him! He shot him!’ So I flipped the counter up and ran in behind to the serving area and lo and behold there’s a man there on the other side with a large pistol. And I’m staring right down the barrel as he yells, ‘I missed him, I missed him!’ Dino was on the floor with a hole in his
neck the size of a coffee cup, there’s blood everywhere and this fellow keeps waving the gun at me, screaming, ‘I missed him!’ “At one point he ended up putting the gun on the countertop, so I grabbed it and stashed it behind the counter—it was a Colt .45. By this point, one of the other people from the cafeteria side rushed in—an Aussie who had once been a beach inspector (we would call them lifeguards) so he knew first aid—so we set to trying to stop the bleeding and save Dino. The other people in the room grabbed the shooter and set him at a table in the corner. He was still mumbling, ‘I missed him. I missed him.’ “We couldn’t save Dino, so we got a blanket from the ski patrol room to cover him. Whistler had no police force, so we had to call one up from Squamish. What had happened, I found out later, was this fellow had come in trying to cash a cheque to buy dinner and Dino had said no. So he’d gone back to his trailer, got his gun and came back. Dino still said no. There was no
management there or anything, it was just them. So he shot Dino. “I was supposed to interview that fellow the next day for a lifty job. He was a prospector, so the gun was registered, but later they found two more high-powered rifles in his trailer. The court-appointed psychiatrist told me he had diagnosed the murderer as a paranoid schizophrenic. I don’t think he served that long of a sentence. But one thing I think about is, I had already decided I wasn’t going to hire him as lifty and was set to tell him at that interview. So who knows, maybe it would have been me the next day. “That day cycled through my head for at least two years. Dino was someone I knew quite well; I ate at the L’Après cafeteria every day. I was only 23 when that happened—pretty young to see someone murdered. Pretty young to be looking down the barrel of a gun. That was the scariest thing that ever happened to me, in this town or anywhere else.”
Dusty the horse was not a real horse. He was a stuffed horse that rode into Whistler in 1979 in the back of a pickup truck and saddled up to the bar in Creekside. That bar was named after him in 1983. 41
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B L OW N S P O T S
THE SECRET’S OUT
Eric Poulin beats the crowds.
ANDREW STRAIN
Mikey Nixon dances the fine line of telling us about Whistler’s most blown-out spots without further blowing them out.
The difference between sacred and overblown isn’t quite as distinct as Sea to Sky rumblers might like. Humans—both the ones who live here and the ones who visit— have proven time and time again that we just can’t have nice things. Take for example that ribbon of flowing water that starts at the north end of Whistler’s Alta Lake and meanders its way through a relatively pristine pocket of wetlands. On the right day, a float down the river can be a tranquil affair disturbed only by a symphony of birdsong. On the wrong day, you might
come across a flotilla of booze-soaked morons blasting club anthems out of iPhone speakers, shouting obscenities at the geese and leaving popped plastic rafts in their wake. What a difference a day makes. Something similar happens up on the mountain as well. There exists a hallowed strip of snow that cuts through a towering V of granite just outside the boundary of the resort. If the same line were anywhere but the Coast Mountains, descents would be reserved for rare periods of snow stability. But with its proximity to civilization and a
notoriety fed by both word-of-mouth and social media, the run sees more traffic than it should. You might skin (or bootpack) to the top of a would-be top-notch backcountry experience only to be greeted by a crew of tourists (sans avalanche gear) smoking darts at the top of the couloir before they sideslip 1,000 metres back into the resort. So it goes in the Sea to Sky it seems. But if you hang a Roger where the tourists took a Larry, there are still a few untrampled pockets to be sniffed out—for now. – Mikey Nixon
For thousands of years, Skwxwú7mesh Nation and L'il'wat7úl Nation members met and traded at a shared village called Spo7ez, located south of Whistler at the junction of Rubble Creek and the Cheakamus River. 43
I N N O VAT I O N
WHAT’S A BIKE PARK? The best way to rip the bike park is "side by each."
It took only a few grim housekeeping shifts back in 1985 for Eric Wight to seize on a better way to spend his summer. Wight approached his ski school boss with an idea to do mountain biking on the hill. When that went nowhere, Wight bought a fleet of rentals to seed the sport at valley level. By 1989, however, on-mountain summer product was a resort-wide priority, and Wight was asked to run guided biking on the hill. In response, Hugh Smythe’s forwardthinking Blackcomb Mountain allowed bikers up without a guide—but only to ride on preexisting roads. By 1996 trail-building keeners like Rob Cocquyt, Paddy Kaye, Dave Kelly and Tom Prochazka were scratching out an ever-expanding network of singletrack that would coalesce into something that existed nowhere else. In 1999, the Whistler Mountain Bike Park officially opened with Jason Roe as manager. Kelly took the development
helm, constructing the world’s first machinebuilt trail, B-Line. Pros loved this “beginner” descent so much that planning for an expert-
The outdoor press declared Whistler’s park the “benchmark for lift-accessed mountain biking.” Crankworx soon became the place to
planning for A-Line began immediately; 1,200 machine hours and two summers later, the 50-jump classic became the park’s claim to fame. level A-Line began immediately; 1,200 machine hours and two summers later, the 50-jump classic became the park’s claim to fame, changing the face of the sport forever. In 2001, legendary rider Dave Watson won the first Joyride, organized by Whistler Summer Gravity Festival founders Paddy Kaye and Chris Winter. By 2002, locals were raising the stakes for international World Cup downhill riders who came to compete. In 2004, the Crankworx festival debuted and Garbanzo Zone opened, tripling the park’s vertical with the alpine Top of the World trail.
Whistler Mountain first opened for skiing on January 15, 1966. Blackcomb opened in December of 1980. 44
STEVE SHANNON
see and be seen, a global crucible of mindblowing, freeriding firsts that continues to this day. From humble beginnings, the Whistler Mountain Bike Park transformed into the biggest, best, most cutting-edge success in the mountain bike world, surpassing the million-rider mark a decade ago. With the recent opening of the Creekside Zone and 2023 addition of a new high-capacity Fitzsimmons chair at the original bike park base, those numbers are set to skyrocket. –Lisa Richardson
ABOVE Another fine morning.
PAUL MORRISON. BELOW And a decent afternoon.
JEFF THOMAS
P E R F E C T D AY
IAN’S DUAL DAY Ian Morrison is a born-and-raised Whistler skier and mountain biker who sees little to no reason to ever leave his hometown. “For me, there is no better place to be. Every time I go somewhere else,” he says, “I come home and realize this is still the best. Even Squamish and Pemberton, sure they’re nice but the only reason anyone lives there is because of Whistler.”
It’s one of those April days where it’s spring in the valley but we somehow still get a foot of fresh up top, then it cracks blue. It happens every year, and it’s always still a pleasant surprise. I’m up at the crack of 7 for a quick breakfast and a coffee. That’s homemade eggs benny and quadruple-shot cappuccino, 30-minute turnaround—spring casual. You gotta relax before skiing pow. “Then it’s straight to lot eight and unload on the best hill in town. Meet a buddy or two and hit the Excalibur gondy. Zip up and get a few mid-mountain laps; on a good snow year the Excelerator zone will deliver. Maybe ski The Bite a few times while we keep an eye on Glacier Chair—need to be on that as soon as it cracks. “As usual, the Blackcomb alpine will be open earlier than Whistler so it’s straight to Spanky’s. I’m forging my own trail up there 100 per cent of the time, the ‘Dirty Line’ for sure. On a good day we’ll get two laps in Spanky’s then toss the skins on and head out for
I’m forging my own trail up there 100 per cent of the time, the ‘Dirty Line’ for sure. D.O.A. or Husume. Some people think D.O.A. is blown out, and it is, but only if you’re old and slow—get there earlier and it’s the same old D.O.A. “By around 1 p.m. it’s time to rip back to the parking lot, refreshment up, then head home for the bike stuff. Head to Function to snack out on a quick ride on those trails, then over to Coast Mountain Brewing, to get some vitamin B’s for après. And if it’s really the perfect day that means you get a chance to shower before your reservation at Sushi Village to get into some Dumbo [sake] with the crew. Is it Ski and Snowboard Fest? There’s probably something going on if so. If not, good night.
In 1989, local skier Rob Boyd won the World Cup Downhill on Whistler Mountain. He was the first Canadian man to win a downhill on home soil. 46
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BEHIND THE PHOTO words & photo :: Ben Girardi athlete :: Ben Poechman location :: Whistler Mountain “Ben and I made a plan to get on Whistler Blackcomb and shoot some photos of handplants off a quarterpipe feature off the back of the mountain. But from the Roundhouse we saw Shale Slope was looking like a vertical wall of moguls with tiny people on it, and had the idea for him to poke out a grab in the middle. In the end, we had to move to Whistler Bowl ‘cause the distance was better. Ben would pop off a mogul, grab, then immediately shut down his speed. He aired a few moguls, and we got this frame. These aren’t the conditions we normally look for but there’s a lot to be said for being adaptable and trying different ideas.”
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PEMBERTO words :: Lisa Richardson
MAIN IMAGE
Wayne Andrew, Líl̓wat horseman and a legendary rodeo rider in his prime, told me recently how Pemberton got its name. A story his grandfather told him. Passed on from his grandfather. The first white people paddled into the valley in birchbark canoes. Pale with scurvy. “We used cedar dugout, not birchbark, canoes—so it was shocking on lots of levels,” Andrew shared. “What is this place?” the newcomers asked. ‘‘Puwámten’,” replied the Líl̓wat, meaning “the canoe log where the canoes beach, where people would pull up and berth their canoes.” (“Puwám” is the sound the canoes make when they beach on the log and “ten” is the tool used.) “Oh, that sounds like
the name of the surveyor general,” they said. And so they called the place Pemberton, after a mustachioed dude in Fort Victoria—the boss of the boss of the boss, the biggest honcho in the Hudson’s Bay Company. The sáma7 (pronounced “shama,” meaning “white folk”) were low on food and unwell, so the Líl̓wat welcomed them, shared dried meat and berries. Later, after a rockslide came down to where they’d set up camp, the newcomers moved further upstream, up the valley, closer to what is now settled as Pemberton. In Ucwalmícwts, the language of the Líl̓wat, the word for Pemberton, nkúkwmá, means “north.” The Líl̓wat were spread all through the valley and
BLAKE JORGENSON. ARTWORK STU MACKAY-SMITH
The railroad arrived in the Pemberton Valley in 1914. Electricity didn’t show up until 1951, and the highway finally opened in 1967. 50
ON
Population of Pemberton (2021 census): 3,407 souls. Average detached home price in 2023: $1,400,000. Average townhouse: $880,000. Apartment: $601,000. 51
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hillsides, Andrew told me, but a smallpox epidemic decimated so much of the population it made it easier for the RCMP and Indian Agents to round them all up and move them onto a reserve. Pemberton has its share of nicknames, depending on the era you landed—Spud Valley, Pemberhole, Pemberbush, Pemberdise—but October 2023 was the first time I heard “Puwámten.” People tend to start the story of a place the moment they first arrive there themselves. As if nothing of real significance happened before you. Thus, my version of Pemberton starts around 2001, even though the Lil’wat have oral histories of connection with this land for 11,000 years and archeological sites dating back at least 5,500 years. In 2001, my partner and I were arguing endlessly about where we should live. Whistler was too expensive, so the Squamish vs Pemberton debate was fierce. His requirements hinged on being able to do everything he loves—recreation-
"...but October 2023 was the first time I heard 'Puwámten'. " wise—out his back door, and at a world-class level. I scoffed at the audacity of such an expectation from life. But he was right. As a slew of pro athletes and lifestylers who landed in waves can attest. Twenty years after Pemberton won our coin toss, the Village has doubled in size and is on track to reach 5,000 souls sometime within the next ten minutes. (It’s closer to 8,000 if you include the surrounding areas, and I’ve started to sound like the crusty locals who once greeted me with an, “I don’t recognise half the people around here anymore.”) In my two decades, I’ve also learned a little more about the forces that shaped the place before I “discovered” it.
Joe Ronayne and Van Der Hoop families, 1920.
COMMUNITY OF PEMBERTON AND PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF BC
How does Leah get the peanut butter in those cups?
COLIN ADAIR
COMMUNITY NOURISHMENT
STAY WILD NATURAL HEALTH Known for ages as Spud Valley, it goes without saying that one of Pemberton’s most beloved foods is a potato. “Helmer’s fingerling potatoes should win,” says Leah Gillies, owner of Stay Wild Natural Health Food Store And Juice Bar. “They are insane—buttery and delicious. I pretty much don’t eat potatoes those few months of the year when Helmer’s are sold out.” Equally popular, however, are Leah’s Stay Wild peanut butter cups, a healthy(er) alternative to everyone’s favourite childhood snack. “I found a recipe online and we just tinkered with it,” she says. “We made it healthier—it’s vegan, it’s gluten free, we don’t add refined sugar. It hits a lot of the boxes. They were an early hit when we opened in 2016 and, if I look at the numbers, we’ve sold 11,000 of them since then. We sold 40 this week, and those are two-packs.” Beyond the delicious wares inside, Stay Wild is also notable for Leah’s commitment to providing her employees with a living wage. She's part of a national program designed to provide workers with an hourly wage that meets their basic expenses and helps them move beyond basic poverty and help them participate in social, civic and cultural aspects of life. Currently, for the Sea to Sky region, the living wage is calculated at $25.68 per hour (minimum wage is $18 per hour). “My husband saw a ‘Living Wage’ sticker on a food truck in Tofino,” Leah says, “And I looked into it right away. I was always embarrassed to hire people at minimum wage anyhow. This is not an affordable part of the world.” After a year in the Living Wage program, Leah says she thinks her employees feel happy and respected. “I take a hit on the bottom line—I didn’t feel it was fair to just raise prices and transfer that over to our customers. This is a small town, everyone is everyone’s neighbour. I think customers like coming here knowing how we treat our employees. Day-to-day, everyone seems happy to be here. I don’t see any drawbacks to it, and I’ve never had so many resumes.” She also gives them a staff discount on groceries and anything else in the store (even peanut butter cups). www.staywildnaturalhealth.com 53
A volcanic eruption and biblical-level flooding 2,400 years ago left behind an incredible growing medium that now supports thousands of pounds of potatoes, incredibly potent garlic and the sweetest carrots and greens. Once the growing season begins, weekly harvest boxes from five different community-supported agriculture (CSA) growers roll out in blue bins to feed (and perplex) people up and down the Sea to Sky. (What do I do with a kohlrabi?) The geology has other beneficiaries— mountain bikers, sledders, trail runners, skiers, anyone who likes going straight up, straight down, very fast, with speed. Ray Mason, aka Pemby Iceman, has been sledding the region since he drove into the Pemberton Valley from the Hurley and his jaw dropped. He’d been skiing Whistler since it first opened—his dad
was a part owner in the Mount Whistler Lodge—but here he found land with enough quiet space for horses, a private runway for his plane and a few groomed crosscountry trails out his back door. He bought 60 acres in 1991, raised a family, ran a sled-guiding business for 15 years and still hasn’t tired of the landscape or “exploring the endless backcountry that only a few people get to see. I was mainly a skier, but once you get a sled…” He has shared beta and loaned his toboggan to a host of pro skiers and riders questing for their own first descents, including godfathering the late Dave Treadway’s 2013 mission to ski Mount Monmouth—the only peak apart from Mount Garibaldi above 10,000 feet in the Coast Range. (Check out the short film Let’s Go Get Small, which documents the adventure.)
Eduard Mikulcik makes some woodland mirth. ROBERT GRESO
B L OW N S P O T
JOFFRE LAKES
The most famous log on Instagram.
BEN GIRARDI
“Nice, but busy.” –Tripadvisor That’s Tripadivsor’s top review of the 545 entries for Joffre Lakes Provincial Park. (For context, Squamish’s Stawamus Chief Park has just 337, despite being less than an hour from Metropolitan Vancouver.) On Instagram, there are more than 95,500 posts tagged #joffrelakes. Whistler’s Pique Newsmagazine reports the park “accommodates up to about 200,000 visitors per year, with 1,053 day-use passes available every day.” While the BC Parks website adds, “Bring your own toilet paper.” And dogs are prohibited. But actually, it used to be worse before the Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua Nations began working with BC Parks to monitor, manage and limit the number of people heading into Joffre. Instigated in 2019, the Joffre Lakes Park Visitor Use Management Strategy expanded parking and created safer access so tourists could stop meandering around a blind-corner highway. “I’ve seen everything up there,” says local resident Seija Halonen, who’s been hiking Joffre for more than 20 years, sometimes three times a week. “Perfumed fancy girls with stereos on their shoulders and shivering dudes in trench coats and dress shoes. I’ve seen people literally poop on the trail. I don’t go much anymore, unless I leave at 4 a.m.” In September of 2023, the Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua Nations even closed the park to the general public to prioritize access for Nation members and to host a harvest celebration (though they did reopen it to tourism for the Labour Day weekend). The popularity is understandable—the park features a stunning trio of supersaturated blue alpine lakes with highway access to a high-elevation starting point with a manicured trail that provides big-alpine vistas with much less elevation gain than a sea-level hike. Best to go early in the warm months, or get out the snowshoes and go now (note the upper campground is closed in the winter due to avalanche risk).
Every year, seed potato purchasers in Florida send their trucks to Pemberton loaded with fresh oranges—gifts for the community and a way for local volunteer groups to fundraise. 55
Ben Davies boosting the vote.
THE RICH GLASS
TOUGHEST GANG
THE DEAD PRIME MINISTERS Using the adjective “tough” for Pemberton is redundant, but the greatest gang to come from the valley is known for humour rather than grit. The Dead Prime Ministers (DPM) formed in the late 1990s, a teenaged skate and snowboard posse named after the popular Hughes Brothers bank heist film Dead Presidents. This was, obviously, the Canadian version. “That was back in the times when it was cool to make your own gang,” explains DPM godfather Ben Davies. “It was really just a bunch of buddies snowboarding and telling jokes and having fun, but this is when gangster rap was colliding into Pemberton’s regular hesher/rocker/construction worker vibe.” Comprised of Ben and his brother Justin Davies, John Coleman, Caine Heintzman and Leigh Grant (with youngster Richy Hartl jumping in a few years later), the Dead Prime Ministers definitely kept it rural. They also produced a number of published snowboard photos, but their true legacy was spreading Pemberton’s unique sense of humour and practical jokes into the ballooning snow/skate scene in Whistler. “I think when you are broke it makes you funny,” Ben explains. “You need something to fill the time. Plus, a lot of us were working with older people and soaking in maybe more adult humour than kids in the other communities. And the Natives in Mount Currie were a huge influence on everyone’s life. Their sense of humour on the Rez is so awesome and different. Very deadpan and patient. It added to the bouquet of humour in the high school. “There were no real gangs,” Ben continues. “But there were crews you would ride with. Except the ski kids from Whistler that had way nicer cars… The skiers were too soft to even be considered a crew.” 56
Home to a solid concentration of female mountain guides and super-fast ultrarunning moms, Pemberton boasts the hardiest souls. In this land, weather is not abstract, and rivers have mood swings that keep everyone on their toes. It’s an intimate experience of heat, mosquitoes, wildfire haze, floods, collapsing mountains and debris flows as a warming climate and receding glaciers melt the permafrost holding a lot of rock together. (When I worked at the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, our emergency services manager told me that a crack in Mount Currie had suddenly appeared, making it the fourth existential threat in the Pemberton valley. He’s since moved away.) As an ecosystem unicorn where the Coast meets the Interior, we also have wilder residents—grizzly and black bears, great blue herons, western screech owls, red-listed sharp-tailed snakes and a unique species of salmon, the Birkenhead chinook. Diehard ski and snowboard pros are still eking out a life in the mountains—Ian McIntosh, Joe Lax, Dave Basterrechea, JD Hare, Delaney Zayac—mixing up some combination of growing food, making things, banging nails and continuing to explore, while the next generation are making their own waves—Trinity Ellis on the World Cup luge tracks, her sweetheart Lucas Cruz on a mountain bike, cyclocross champ Ethan Wood, second-generation ski star Logan Pehota. But they’ve been the lucky ones. Every time another family moves away in search of more affordable climes, or a retiring farmer sells to wealthy buyers and speculators who are thrilled to discover land at $35,000 an acre, I wonder just how hardy the next generation will have to be to grow their futures here. Are we just the last in a long line of “discoverers” who wreck what we found? Are we too far gone to listen to the wisdom that kept the Líl̓wat flourishing here for thousands of years? K’úl’tsam’, take only what you need. It’s not a novel idea. My yoga teacher pointed me to 3,000-year-old texts from the cultures of the Indus Valley that teach the same thing: ahimsa, do no harm, and brahmacharya, non-excess. You can find the medicine still. Out on the land. Or in amongst the crowds. Go stand at the Remembrance Day parade, the Signal Hill pit cook, or a PORCA enduro race with volunteers in costume. Or at BMX night when the gate drops for the toddlers on run bikes, the Children’s Centre’s annual Christmas Bazaar, or the Lil’wat Rodeo—and you’ll see. You’ll see who and what is worth fighting for. Each other. And this land. Which has shaped us more than we’ll ever truly know.
BLAKE JORGENSON
MY SCARIEST MOMENT
OH CRAP... WITH BRAD KNOWLES
RANDOM MEASUREMENTS
THE ACRE As mountain towns (aka towns surrounded by mountains), space is at a premium in all the Sea to Sky communities. But Pemberton has the most space, and therefore is the town where larger chunks of land must be measured in acres. But what the heck is an acre anyhow? “An acre is 43,560 square feet,” explains Kitt Redhead, a Prairie-girl-turned-ski-guide who made the move up to Pemberton in 2019 to get back to the land. “Traditionally, land was measured with 66-foot chains and an acre was ten square chains. With farming, there’s also a “section,” which is 640 acres. Or a “quarter” is 160 acres. That’s how people measure in the Prairies—by sections—but out here we use acres because the land is less open; it’s a tight mountain valley.” Kitt and her family run Za Ropa Ranch, raising sheep and hay for their horses as well as Šarplaninac dogs (“the greatest working farm dogs in the world,” Kitt says). “An acre in a perfect square would be 208.7 feet on each side, but I think the advantage of the acre is its versatility,” she says. “It could be 66 feet by 660 feet, or any other square dimensions that add up to 43,560. An acre can fit into all the weird spaces of nature more easily than, say, a square kilometre.” www.instagram.com/zaroparanch
ARTWORK BY STU MACKAY-SMITH
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A born-and-raised Pemberton fella, Brad Knowles is best known as “The Pemberton Fish Finder,” guiding anglers from around the world into the lakes, rivers and streams he grew up with. But it was a day off, fishing with his then-girlfriend Taya on Duffey Lake, when Brad looked true fear in the eye. “It was a beauty day and we had the boat out on Duffey Lake—catching fish, enjoying the views—until I realized I needed to take a crap. This is back when there was still an old cabin at the end of the lake, and I knew there was an outhouse there so we motored over and I headed up the trail. “It was a decent outhouse, a bit hippie-ish with a halfmoon shape cut in the door and a couple stars. I’m doing my business and suddenly I hear this crunch outside and deep, heavy breathing and all I see through the moon-shaped hole is golden hair going by. A huge grizzly passed within two feet of the door. And that moon is shoulder-height, at least if you’re standing up straight. “Right away I was worried about my girlfriend, who is like 50 feet away and I don’t know if she’s on the boat or on the dock or where she is. So I shout out as loud as I can, ‘Hey Tay, be careful, there’s a huge grizzly up here!’ Then I just sit there listening. “No kidding, not 10 or 15 seconds later here comes Tay up the trail, saying, ‘I got the toilet paper, Babe.’ She had heard me but she hadn’t heard me—she thought I was calling for toilet paper! So I pull her into the shitter with me. We waited, then just made a mad dash for the boat. Fastest I’ve ever run in my life I bet. Getting attacked by wolves up by Meager Creek was a scary day, too, but I think that day on the Duffey was the only time I’ve literally had the crap scared out of me.” www.pembertonfishfinder.com
Ben Davies from the DPM (previous page) says: "One of my scariest moments in the old Pemby Secondary was walking past the bathroom when Brad Knowles was in there taking a dump, so I feel for that grizz... "
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P E R F E C T D AY
TATUM’S HOME ON THE RANGE Tatum Monod is a professional big mountain skier, an ace fly fisher, a hunter and a lover of baking pies. She’s called Pemberton home since 2015, but as an Alberta girl born into a family of guides and national team skiers, Tatum’s first love was riding horses. As she grew up and began skiing full time, filming video parts and shredding larger and larger mountains, a move to Pemberton checked all the boxes. “I’ve always had this thing,” Tatum says, “I’m drawn to it. Where farming and freeskiing meet. Pemberton has this relaxed, cow-town aesthetic but also some of the most incredible backcountry on earth.” And despite the increase in mountain folk and Whistler expats moving in, Tatum says Pemby still delivers the mountain adventure and down-home vibes that lured her in the first place. “There’s so much terrain right at our fingertips, you can explore for the rest of your life. But it’s still sleepy sleep-ville, too. I try to have a dinner party every other week and I am the only one who shows up.”
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ABOVE The escalator to your dreams. Tatum heads up. BELOW Another fine day.
ROBIN O'NEILL
It snowed a foot, what’s the plan? I know a place that’s close where we get this beautiful long vista of all the farmland and Mount Currie with all the great skiing you could ever dream of. But first, I love hitting Al’s shop for oil and parts—grabbing whatever we need for the day. Arrive at the spot just before 8 a.m., maybe 7:30 to be safe. Unload the sled and take in that early morning excitement when you know everyone. Usually someone’s truck gets stuck so that’s always fun. “Then everyone’s machine fires up and the energy escalates for the climb up into all this terrain that I still can’t believe is in our backyard. Depending on the day and the snow, we may stay in the trees and check the stability later for a possible punch into the alpine. That’s the beauty of Pemby though, it doesn’t have to be extreme. You can do fun road laps, noboard laps, or tour up high if you want. It’s all accessible, but also I love doing hippy turns in the trees here all day long. “As the day winds down I’ll probably try to get my sled stuck somewhere, because sledding is so fun. Then watch the sun set over the valley, reminiscing about the day with my friends and neighbours before trying to take shortcuts down the road without hitting trees. It’s a tailgate party at the parking lot while we wait for all the crews to get down safely, then a short drive and you’re home in time to go to bed early…’Cause we’re gonna poke out to Bralorne tomorrow for more of the same. –Feet Banks
PEMBERTON: WHERE YOUR ROOTS HAVE ROOM TO GROW.
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LEFT The 1984 flood left much of Pemberton looking like this. RIGHT The locals will always find a way to get to the PemHo. 1984.
PEMBERTON MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES
C L I M AT E
APOCALYPSE OFTEN More than a couple Hollywood films have chosen Pemberton as the backdrop for their end-of-days stories (The Last Winter, Sheltered, The X-Files movie) but the truth is not much stranger than fiction—Pemby is used to natural disasters. On paper, the autumn floods of 2003 were the largest on record. After an already wet week and a half, October 15to 20 saw enough rainfall to force Pemberton measurement gauges offline, essentially drowning them out midway through the storm. Rainfall estimates those days were as high as 20 mm/h. But it was another huge deluge of water in 1984 that stands as the community’s worst disaster for property damage. With nationwide newscasts reporting on the event, then-mayor Shirley Henry was able to go to the provincial government to fund further investment in diking. (Originally, river-straightening and diking began after a large flood in 1941.) Floods—the ones caused by rain and snowmelt—are only half the story of impending doom. The other lurking catastrophic event is Qẃelqẃelústen/Mount Meager. In 2010, a “large catastrophic debris avalanche” brought an estimated 45 million cubic metres of mountain down to block Meager Creek, wash out bridges and roads and erase access to some of the
most accessible hot springs in the Sea to Sky. (Somehow, they’re still pretty busy, though.) It was one of the largest landslides in Canadian history and made a seismic impression as far away as Alaska and Washington State. The Qẃelqẃelústen/Mount Meager massif remains capable of producing a range of major volcanic hazards including what some experts call “highly explosive eruptions.” In a worst-case scenario, violent debris-flow “lahars” could flow all the way to the end of Pemberton Meadows and ash could fill the sky as far away as Williams Lake. But even without an eruption, the threat of another huge landslide due in part to climate change and glacier retreat creates another, perhaps more pressing, hazard. “In view of the history of landslides on the massif, including the 2010 landslide, future collapses are certain,” explains a paper from no fewer than 11 top scientists, including Dr. Glyn Williams-Jones, professor and chair at the department of earth sciences at Simon Fraser University and the co-director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research. The paper continues: “Of the 27 slopes with signs of instability that we identified, nine slopes have been recently deglaciated and eight are at elevations where permafrost degradation is likely to be
happening. Glacier retreat and permafrost thaw could destabilize these slopes. Meltwater from snow and ice can infiltrate slopes and increase pore water pressures, conditioning them for catastrophic collapse, as happened at Mt. Meager in 2010.” If another massive landslide (or volcanic debris) came down and blocked the Lillooet River, water could potentially build into a giant lake. Should that blockage suddenly dislodge (as it did in 2010), all that water would come rushing into the Pemberton Valley and wreak all kinds of havoc. No bueno either way. The last major environmental threat to Pemberton is the same as pretty much any other community in the province: wildfire. In his 2023 book Fire Weather, author John Valliant explains how decades of increasingly warmer and drier summers are creating “fire storms” unlike anything Canadians have experienced before. “Don’t think of this as the hottest summer in the last 100 years,” Valliant said during a reading at the Whistler Writers Festival. “Think of it as the coolest in the next hundred.” Welcome to the “Pyrocene” era. But don’t worry, Pemberton, Squamish has all those doomsday scenarios and more to contend with. You might want to build a wall.
Until 1996, Pemberton Secondary was home to all the kids from Pinecrest/Black Tusk Village, Whistler, Birken, Mount Currie, Pemberton and D’Arcy. 63
BEHIND THE PHOTO words & photo :: Blake Jorgenson location :: Pemberton backcountry athlete :: Michelle Parker “Michelle was in town filming with MSP [Matchstick Productions], and I was on assignment with her to try and replicate a famous photo I’d gotten of Eric Hjorleifson back in 2007. The impossible photo to duplicate. We hit the same spot, but all trips and photos are totally unique and everyone brings something different to the table. The way the snow stacks up, the weather, even the pilot in the heli has a factor in how things turn out. I don’t think you can ever duplicate a ski photo, but we went up and came back with what I think is still a great photo.”
In 1996, Mark Burnett (creator of TV’s Survivor) brought an Eco-Challenge adventure race to Pemberton. At the finish line (in Squamish!), only 14 of 70 teams remained. 64
BIKE. ZOOM. GOLF. REPEAT. 7:30am
10:00am
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CAMPFIRE COOKOUT & SNOWSHOE ADVENTURE DESK: CARLETON LODGE
CALLAGHAN VALLEY
120-4090 Whistler Way Whistler, B.C. V8E 1J3
R O YA L R U M B L E
PARTY PEOPLE Does any stretch of Canadian landscape party as hard as the Sea to Sky? We doubt it. words :: Steve Andrews Celebration is a fundamental aspect of the human experience, and mountain people are known for their ability to get triumphant and celebrate almost anything. Here amongst the breathtaking backdrops of the Sea To Sky corridor, that party spirit is deep-rooted and all-inclusive. But in a region this tight-knit, do we really need to crown a party king? Attempting to single out the “best night ever” across three communities and a couple generations is a bit futile. Instead, can’t we just revel in the tales, folklore and unique party vibe each town offers?
Whistler: We were made for this. Whistler Village was built to host parties (and reports of locals “surfing” the tops of gondola cabins coming down from a mountaintop gala are all true), but some of the most legendary ragers came from the neighbourhoods. Picture the Stoop in Creekside, the Dirtbag Hotel in White Gold, West Side’s Lake House and A-Frames or
The Oasis of Key in Nordic—these (rental) homes rocked so hard, old-timers swear they vibrated. On powder days, après-ski parties raged till midnight, turning ski boots into dance shoes and ordinary Tuesdays into wild adventures. Before Whistler evolved into a tourist magnet, locals fueled the town’s heartbeat. Stump’s bar at the old Delta, with its “beat the clock” drink prices, was a haven for the thirsty and thrifty. Everyone flocked to Seppo’s grotto, a communal hub where everyone knew your name—and your drink. And the UBC lodge in Nordic played host to a number of shakers so severe, most attendees plead the fifth when asked about them. But most agree, The Boot Pub, demolished in 2006, harboured the soul of old-school Whistler. A place where the Tragically Hip jammed incognito, and Punk Night meant $5 jugs and legendary acts. And let’s not forget the Boot Ballet’s Amateur Night—definitely not your grandma’s ballet (unless she was a local). Live music gradually gave way to DJ beats, with Tommy Africa’s Soul Kitchen leading the revolution. Local hero (and frequent Mountain Life contributor) Ace MacKay-Smith and her go-go girls set the tone while DJs Czech and Vinyl Ritchie
Can't stop, won't stop. Party 'til ya drop. Pemby Fest 2017.
JORGE ALVAREZ
And the UBC lodge in Nordic played host to a number of shakers so severe, most attendees plead the fifth when asked about them. served up a kaleidoscope of dance music— house, breaks, techno, they even introduced hip-hop to crowds more used to “walking 500 miles” with The Proclaimers. The longestrunning DJ night in the country, Soul Kitchen ended up defining Whistler’s dance scene. But perhaps the purest essence of Whistler’s wild heart was the legendary fullmoon parties. Post-bar, excited revelers would spill into cabs, heading off into the night and the wilderness to dance under the stars on remote logging road pullouts. And if you made it to one of Chili Thom’s storied bush bashes, he’d provide sunglasses for all to keep the beats rocking well into the next day. “The whole corridor is full of incredibly creative and artistically gifted humans,” says Pat McKinnon, a party organizer who has lived and celebrated in all three towns. “That makes for good times everywhere, but Whistler obviously has the most consistently raging party scene.”
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Pemberton: Home of the (really big) backyard bash Though less tourist-centric than Whistler, Pemberton still knows how to get down. Once famous for its potatoes (and the Friday-night fights at the PemHo bar), the town found its way on partygoers’ maps back in the ‘80s with the Stein Valley Festival, a benefit to save the now-protected Stein Valley from logging. The yearly event began in the Stein, and eventually outgrew the location, culminating in 1989 with 16,000 people committed to “Save the Stein” alongside Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn, David Suzuki and more. In a sort of “hold my beer” kind of move, Pemberton welcomed upwards of 40,000 partiers to a local hayfield in 2008 for the inaugural Pemberton Festival, which boasted global acts like Coldplay, Tom Petty, Jay-Z and Nine Inch Nails. Traffic was unimaginably bad as the valley transformed into the place to be for loud live music and the antics that come with a three-day send’er. Despite its on-and-off history and the sometimes-disheartening aftermath of littered campgrounds, the festival left an indelible mark on the valley. Not surprisingly, the true essence of
Pemberton’s party scene lies in the more intimate, community-driven events. The Two Acre Shaker, a brainchild of local residents, started as a simple backyard pre-party to the original Pemberton Festival and blossomed into a much-anticipated (and larger) annual event, migrating to the scenic Lillooet Lake Rodeo grounds, courtesy of the Lil’wat Nation. “That was truly a rewarding experience,” reflects Lon Flath, co-organizer of the Shaker. “I think the energy was in the land we were lucky enough to enjoy.” A symbol of Pemberton’s neighbourly camaraderie and love for a good celebration, The Shaker epitomized the joy of reuniting old friends and forging new connections. For its last hurrah in 2014, the event even hosted hiphop duo Blackalicious for one of their final shows before the untimely death of front man Gift of Gab.
Squamish: Giv’er Squamish has leveled up from a highway pit stop to a real estate hotspot, but the party scene hasn’t evolved at the same pace. The James Bondage parties are (sadly) over and the nightly brawls at The Griz are long gone, as is the flannel-clad Loggers Stomp
Build it and they will rave. Bass Coast in Squamish, 2011.
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community hootenanny that used to close out Loggers Sports and Squamish Days each summer. Somewhat appropriately, the Chieftain Pub (or whatever it’s called this month) is the only truly consistent game in town. But outside of town, things happen. In the early 1990s an outdoor rave called Summer Love set up in the Squamish woods and fueled the engines of the electronic dance music scene taking grip throughout the corridor. Ace MacKay-Smith reminisces: “Ohmygosh, it was epic, especially that one by the river with Deee-Lite and Doc Martin!” More than a decade later, that same venue became the birthplace of Bass Coast, a now world-renowned art and music festival spawned by three local ladies and a few hundred friends lending a hand and bringing what co-founder Andrea Graham (aka The Librarian) calls, “really big energy that set the stage for Bass Coast’s growth.” That growth quickly surpassed the available space, and in 2013 Bass Coast moved to Merritt, BC, where it still thrives and has twice been awarded Best Boutique Festival in North America by industry heavyweight DJ Mag. Back in town, LIVE at Squamish started in 2010 and was pretty good (even with the 120,000 attendees at the final fest in 2015) and the annual Arc’teryx Academy gives the best glimpse of what a Squamish festival of the future can be. But before it outgrew us, Bass Coast truly captured Squamish’s soul—good friends working hard to make something that would last. There’s a similar energy in Trickster’s Hideout, Squamish’s latest haunt. A nightclub/dayclub/art/dance/community hybrid, it’s a throwback to the old days, full of events for those itching to ditch the mainstream. MacKay-Smith compares it to “early Whistler days,” a haven for the wonderfully weird. These three towns—nestled amidst nature’s grandeur and with their own rich histories of shaking a leg and hoisting a cup—remind us that at the heart of every celebration is human connection. “When everything lines up perfectly,” McKinnon says, “dancing together in a sweaty, heaving mass, synchronized by the delectably dirty beats of a masterfully curated set, that is pretty hard to beat.” And, around here, pretty easy to find.
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Where the Sea to Sky Goes to Die Or at least... to “retire”
words :: Mikey Nixon As far as migration patterns go, ski bums are full of surprises. Just when you think they’re the right age to settle down and get real jobs, they head west and become surf bums instead. Indeed, there’s a healthy contingent of humans from the corridor who, after years of circulating in the Sea to Sky vortex, have been spat out on the waverich shores of Vancouver Island. Paddle out on any given day in Tofino and you might get called off a set wave by a mother of two who used to work at Sushi Village or her husband, who’s unofficially retired from banging nails and building bike parks. Or you might see Whistler snowboard legend Martin Gallant, aka “The Godfather,” slashing five vertical backhand snaps all the way to—as he likes to call it—“da beach.” “I’m so hungry for it! I go out every day and I just wanna crack da lip,” explains Martin with his rapid-attack French Canadian
delivery. “I dream that I can do everything I can’t do…I wanna become Kelly Slater!” Even though he owns a house near Tofino’s North Chesterman Beach, Gallant hasn’t quite hung the snowboard up for good (he’s still one of the most photogenic riders to ever strap in). Still putting in
“We’re clearly just kids who refuse to grow up and we can’t stop feeding our obsession for boardin’.” solid chunks of mountain time above his place in the Squamish Valley, Martin admits his approach has changed with age. “Me, usually I just wanna hit da launch,” he explains. “I just wanna jump, but now I try to stay on the ground because I need to save those hips. Everyone I know is getting hip replacements, man. If I stay in the Sea to Sky, I’m gonna need one, too.”
Martin Gallant's freedom 50 plan.
ALEX JOEL
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ABOVE Spin to win. Even the commute is a chance for Martin to get a carve in. CHRIS BOWERS. LEFT Ex-Whistlerites Elisha and Colin Duncan seem really upset they moved away. BRYANNA BRADLEY
And “da beach” is calling him home. Yet, for a guy who basically starts vibrating when he talks about surfing, The Godfather’s got a surprisingly stoic approach in the lineup. You can usually find him way out the back, waiting for the waves that have more to offer than the rest. “Surfing is turning me into a better person, more patient,” he says. “I’m finally starting to listen to my body. Now I go out, I’ll wait for four good waves and then I get out. If I catch more than four, then the next day I’m not surfing. I’m too sore.” Gallant recently turned 51, and brings the same youthful stoke that’s fueled everything that got him to this point. “My first chapter was the city with the skateboard, the second was the mountains and now chapter three is the ocean. Three different lives of completely new things and new environments. Now on the coast here, I feel like a newborn child.” Snowboarders (and skiers) being seduced by the sea is one of the best clichés going. And Gallant’s certainly not the only one giving in to that siren call. Marie-France Roy (aka MFR) balances a successful snowboard career in the Coast Mountains with an oceandriven existence that’s staged out of her home in Ucluelet. “I always wanted to be a surfer, since I was a child,” she says, “But Quebec 78
doesn’t have the best waves, so snowboarding had to do!” MFR is surrounded by other mountain folk drawn to surfing and the lifestyle that comes with it. Her boyfriend, Timmy Taussig, rides for the Jones Snowboard team all winter, and froths on every condition Wickaninnish Beach has to offer in the spring, summer and fall. Two of Marie’s long-time snowboard friends, Leanne Pelosi and Robin Van Gyn, have also built homes in Ucluelet with their partners in both life and shred. All of those characters, plus a host of others who previously made their marks on the Sea to Sky, can be found lounging in the Wick parking lot between surfs whenever the snow’s no good. “We’re clearly just kids who refuse to grow up and we can’t stop feeding our obsession for boardin’,” MFR says with a laugh. So after all these years, it looks like the ubiquitous stickers telling everyone “Whistler’s that way” aren’t working. Maybe they need to adjust the direction of those middle fingers. Or it could be that everyone’s just confused—because if you go to Jordan River, there are stickers reminding everyone which way Tofino is, too. But the vibe in Tofino and Ucluelet is actually more welcoming than the stickers suggest. Perhaps because the exchange between the mountains and the ocean goes both ways.
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CHRIS BOWERS. LEFT Marie-France Roy, patiently pondering her
“I made the decision a long time ago. I kinda gave up snowboarding for surfing when I was 19 or 20 years old,” explains Sepp Bruhwiler, a born-and-raised Tofitian whose surfing takes notes from his time in the mountains, especially when he’s boosting airs above the lip. “I felt like the snowboarders were gonna figure out that, just down the road from them, there’s a town where you can surf year-round, so I understand why they’re out here. It makes sense to me.” For those who spent their formative years in the mountains, “chapter three” as Martin calls it, plays out on the ocean. But what about that glorious period of time when chapters two and three overlap? Summers on the island. Winters in the mountains. That’s the BC Dream, baby. And it’s more attainable than Sea to Sky residents might think (especially if you live in a Toyota Matrix). On the other hand, living in two places can also be mentally, physically and financially taxing. Some are forced to choose. “I could skip this winter coming up and not care,” says Martin. “I would rather surf every day or every other day. It’s newer to me. It’s relaxing. Every day I go and I look at the ocean and it just hypnotizes me and there are no problems. Every wave I learn something.”
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TECH
Hype or Hope?
Plug it in, ski all day. Zero emissions back to Squamish.
JOEL DUCROT
The double-edged sword of the zero-emission vehicle transition
words :: Celeste Pomerantz As a life-long devourer of science fiction books and films, I grew up picturing a future society where technology and nature were so intertwined, we would all be living in a beautiful, clean, energy-rich utopia of perfection powered by some form of alternative energy source. Obviously, we have a long way to go to achieve that goal. However, my first glimpse of the future I’d imagined occurred, unexpectedly, the first time I saw a Tesla electric car. I was a relatively new driver at the time, navigating the Sea to Sky Highway, when a white, unseamed, bullet of a vehicle blasted past me in silence. I did a full double take. A decade later, and Tesla is no longer the most common electric vehicle (EV) on the road. Nowadays, nearly every global car manufacturer is producing some form of EV or zero-emission vehicle (ZEV). But I find myself asking more questions than I thought I would. What’s the range? Cost? What about those who need a truck for all-days shuttle laps with the pals, or carrying sleds? And are these all really the “vehicles of the future” I used to daydream about? The Government of British Columbia seems to think so. They’ve announced that, by 2030, 90 per cent of all new car and truck sales will be ZEVs, with a goal of 100 per cent by 2040. Is it hype, or hope? What’s the catch? What even qualifies as a ZEV? Money talks, so—depending on your income, valid driver’s license validity and chosen ZEV—you could receive anywhere from $500 to $5,000 or more in rebates after purchasing one of these vehicles. (That much money saved could mean anything from a new pair of snowboard boots or a trad climbing rack, all the way up to a mountain bike.) Switching to electric can also cut annual fuel costs by as much as 75 per cent, which averages out to be nearly $3,000 84
every year. (That’s an entire new backcountry touring setup.) But what if you require a truck for work and or play? The allelectric Rivian and the Ford F-150 Lightning trucks are becoming common around the Sea to Sky, but they have some drawbacks. The biggest (aside from the price) being their range limit on a single charge. Comparing the F-150 Lightning to the standard F-150 with a full tank of gas, the electric truck goes about half as far. One interesting point, and perhaps a loophole, is that not all ZEVs are all-electric, or battery electric vehicles (BEV). “ZEV” is an all-encompassing term that includes plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), which run on both battery and traditional combustion. PHEV trucks will offer essentially the same range as a full tank of gas, with an added rechargeable battery for short distances or to take you even farther than a conventional truck. The problem is, there are no PHEV trucks on the market yet anywhere in the world. However, Ford recently announced a PHEV Ranger, set to arrive in Canada sometime in the next two years. Regardless of the timeline, any new tech comes with limitations and, digging deeper, going green is truly a double-edged endeavour. The biggest drawback of going electric is the battery itself, specifically its lifecycle. A typical EV utilizes a lithium-ion battery (LIB), which is made of a combination of either lithium and cobalt, nickel and/or graphite. The problem is these minerals are a finite resource much like our fossil fuels, so we are bound to run out of them eventually. With a major shift toward electrified transportation (and our continued use of LIBs in laptops, headlamps, phones, and every other life “necessity” that requires charging) these minerals are being mined en masse. The ecological issues around mining are significant: Increased erosion and deforestation are obvious concerns, but the social issues are more ambiguous. In Canada, mining often results in harmed water
quality and water access for remote Indigenous communities; in other countries it can be even worse. And producing a battery comes with a massive carbon footprint, approximately 3,000 kg of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per battery. For context, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates a typical gas-powered passenger vehicle emits 4,600 kg per year. To put that into perspective, 3,000 kg of GHG emissions is roughly equivalent to driving a gas-powered vehicle about 12,000 kms on a flat road. That’s around 130 trips from the Squamish Tacofino to the Pemberton skatepark (if the Sea to Sky Highway were flat). With the entire manufacturing process of an EV taken into consideration, it turns out that, on average, producing an electric vehicle is 30 per cent more carbon intensive than an internalcombustion-engine vehicle (ICEV). Of course, this excess is balanced by the fact that EVs produce no fossil fuel emissions once they hit the road. However, any emission reductions are entirely dependent on what powers your grid. Here in BC, 87 per cent of our grid is powered by hydroelectricity, which is considered a renewable energy source (take this statement with a grain of salt, as hydroelectricity can be ecologically, socially and environmentally catastrophic). In Alberta, on the other hand, 89 per cent of their grid is powered by coal and natural gas, aka fossil fuels that create emissions. So where you live heavily affects how many carbon emissions you are producing by owning a ZEV. One solution in mitigating some of the issues with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles would be to repurpose or recycle batteries as they reach their end of life. For an EV, once a battery hits around 80 per cent capacity (approximately eight to 10 years in age), legally it must be replaced. The problem with recycling batteries is that, currently, the most common options include melting down the battery to its key components using heat (extremely energy intensive), chemically (extremely expensive) or mechanically (a slow and non-established method). Repurposing the spent EV battery to help power homes has proven to be a more promising short-term solution. In 2022, the provincial government approved the Advanced Research and Commercialization (ARC) program, one component of which is to use spent EV batteries to help power diesel-dependent remote communities and homes. The project, however, is still being tested with no definitive date of activation. In any case, these vehicles need to be charged, and most of the drivers in the Sea to Sky are on vacation or away from home. Squamish already has 41 charging stations; Whistler sports just over 100 and Pemberton nearly a dozen, far surpassing the number of gas pumps on the Sea to Sky. (Though not every EV is compatible with every charger, and availability is an issue—it takes much longer to charge a vehicle than fill a gas tank. Will every spot in the skier day lots come with a charger by 2030?) Converting to ZEVs is a complicated puzzle, but it’s only a single piece in the much larger, more complicated one of tackling climate change. Is it a step in the right direction? Are we slowly achieving the Utopia described by the sci-fi of my youth? Converting to ZEVs feels like just a single drop in the ocean of a much larger issue, but what is an ocean if not a multitude of drops?
Based out of Squamish, Celeste Pomerantz is currently finishing a master’s degree focusing on energy storage for remote communities while pursuing a professional career in both skiing and mountain biking.
GALLERY
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Tim Emmett and Luca Sommaruga Malaguti in Squamish Valley.
CHRIS CHRISTIE
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Jody Wachniak, Whistler backcountry.
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Anna Segal, Pemberton.
ERIN HOGUE
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