JANUARY 27, 2022 ISSUE 29.04
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TO PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER
Life after death rders Two snowboa lost a part of fter themselves a d ea devastating h injuries—then they found each other
14
SEEING GREEN
The RMOW is prepping a new Green Building Policy
18
SURF’S UP A surfpark at Britannia Beach is one step closer to becoming a reality
42
HOUSE OF HORROR
Former
Whistlerite self-publishes horror novel
604 932 5538 WHISTLERREALESTATE.CA *Personal Real Estate Corporation
“Let’s Connect” and celebrate family literacy week. Join Nesters Whistler and the Whistler and Pemberton Literacy Partnership for “Stories In The Store”. From January 23rd – 30th, bring your children to aisle 3 and the dairy department to read, Maki Saito’s, Animals Brag About Their Bottoms and Oliver Jeffers’, The Moose Belongs to Me. Enter to win a copy of the book and a $25 Nesters Gift Card.
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THIS WEEK IN PIQUE
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Life after death Two Whistler snowboarders lost a part of themselves after devastating head injuries a dozen years apart—then they found each other. - By Brandon Barrett
14
SEEING GREEN
The Resort Municipality of
Whistler is prepping a new Green Building Policy to help curb emissions in
28
WATER WORKS
Plans for a new water treatment
plant are underway in Pemberton.
the building sector.
15
TRANSIT STRIKE
The clock is ticking on a
potential Sea to Sky transit strike. Will an agreement be reached before
38
STAYING SHARPE
Whistler snowboarder Darcy
Sharpe aims to join some elite company at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
the union’s Jan. 28 deadline?
18
SURF’S UP
A new surf park at Britannia Beach is one
step closer to becoming a reality.
42
HOUSE OF HORROR
Former Whistlerite
Andrew McManaman recently released his first self-published horror novel, Dollhouse.
COVER There are enough people out there suffering with invisible disabilities that maybe it’s time we all just cut everyone a little slack. - By Jon Parris @jon.parris.art // with photo from Irie Smith @smith_irie 4 JANUARY 27, 2022
happy lunar new year!
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* Promotional voucher must be
presented at time of purchase. Excludes applicable taxes, bottle deposits, tobacco, eco-fees & gift cards. This voucher has no cash value so we cannot give cash back. One voucher per person, per household, per purchase, per day. promotional voucher valid for in-store purchases only. This voucher is only valid at Fresh St. Market in Whistler.
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THIS WEEK IN PIQUE
Opinion & Columns 08 OPENING REMARKS An exodus of workers and a rising labour resistance trend may force
#202 -1390 ALPHA LAKE RD., FUNCTION JUNCTION, WHISTLER, B.C. V8E 0H9. PH: (604) 938-0202 FAX: (604) 938-0201 www.piquenewsmagazine.com
Whistler to consider a more modest approach to business—at least in the short term.
Founding Publishers KATHY & BOB BARNETT
10 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A rescued snowboarder shares his gratitude and a local worker
Publisher SARAH STROTHER - sstrother@wplpmedia.com Editor BRADEN DUPUIS - bdupuis@piquenewsmagazine.com Assistant Editor ALYSSA NOEL - arts@piquenewsmagazine.com Sales Manager SUSAN HUTCHINSON - shutchinson@wplpmedia.com Production Manager AMIR SHAHRESTANI - ashahrestani@wplpmedia.com Art Director JON PARRIS - jparris@wplpmedia.com Advertising Representatives TESSA SWEENEY - tsweeney@wplpmedia.com GEORGIA BUTLER - gbutler@wplpmedia.com Digital/Sales Coordinator AMELA DIZDARIC - traffic@wplpmedia.com Production production@piquenewsmagazine.com
expresses her frustration in this week’s letters section.
13 PIQUE’N YER INTEREST Threatening to leave Whistler has long been a local tradition, but the resort would do well to keep its long-term locals around.
58 MAXED OUT Modern society loves tragedy as extravaganza, and disaster as entertainment—at least until the next distraction comes along.
Environment & Adventure
Arts & Entertainment/Features Editor BRANDON BARRETT - bbarrett@piquenewsmagazine.com
31 RANGE ROVER Squamish’s Howe Sound has a vast and vibrant history, whether you’re talking
Social Media Editor MEGAN LALONDE - mlalonde@piquenewsmagazine.com
geology, biology or politics.
Reporters BRANDON BARRETT - bbarrett@piquenewsmagazine.com MEGAN LALONDE - mlalonde@piquenewsmagazine.com ALYSSA NOEL arts@piquenewsmagazine.com HARRISON BROOKS - sports@piquenewsmagazine.com
Lifestyle & Arts
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40 FORK IN THE ROAD Celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee—and Pancake Day—in style
Office and Accounts Manager HEIDI RODE - hrode@wplpmedia.com
with this recipe for the Queen’s own drop scones.
Contributors G.D. MAXWELL, GLENDA BARTOSH, FEET BANKS, LESLIE ANTHONY, ANDREW MITCHELL, ALISON TAYLOR, VINCE SHULEY, LISA RICHARDSON
43 MUSEUM MUSINGS After Whistler Mountain opened for skiing in 1965, the drive up Highway 99
President, Whistler Publishing LP SARAH STROTHER - sstrother@wplpmedia.com
to Whistler could sometimes be treacherous.
Pique Newsmagazine (a publication of Whistler Publishing Limited Partnership, a division of Glacier Media) distributed to over 130 locations in Whistler and to over 200 locations from Vancouver to D’Arcy. The entire contents of Pique Newsmagazine are copyright 2021 by Pique Newsmagazine (a publication of WPLP, a division of Glacier Media). No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the Publisher. In no event shall unsolicited material subject this publication to any claim or fees. Copyright in letters and other (unsolicited) materials submitted and accepted for publication remains with the author but the publisher and its licensees may freely reproduce them in print, electronic or other forms. Letters to the Editor must contain the author’s name, address and daytime telephone number. Maximum length is 250 words. We reserve the right to edit, condense or reject any contribution. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer and not that of Pique Newsmagazine. Pique Newsmagazine is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact (edit@ piquenewsmagazine.com). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil. ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information. This organization replaces the BC Press council (and any mention of it).
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Steve Cartner 604-935-2199 I steve@cartner.com 6 JANUARY 27, 2022
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June 21st, 1968 - December 16th, 2021 A sad farewell to a great colleague and friend with many fond memories from the old Food Plus Crew and the more recent Creekside Market family.
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OPENING REMARKS
Anti-work and the (not so) new politics of labour I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE in the pages of Pique about the eclectic collection of employment experiences I dabbled in before landing in journalism. My first job was sweeping floors and washing semi trucks for an irate rich man on the verge of a heart attack; my second unloading them in the warehouse of the local Walmart.
BY BRADEN DUPUIS I spent a year pounding nails for an old hippie, as he and I and one other employee built a house from the ground up; a summer clearing brush in the remote Saskatchewan wilderness. I laid flooring, delivered furniture, inventoried warehouses, and got severe heat stroke rolling turf on a sod farm; I got fired from a night job driving a forklift at a Coca-Cola bottling plant when I skipped work to go to the lake. I spent two years on the pipeline in Alberta, first as a labourer then as a heavy equipment operator—the only job I ever had that wasn’t woefully underpaid. While I didn’t despise all of these jobs, they all had one thing in common: they were never anything more than jobs—a place I went for a set amount of hours every day out of necessity, always counting down the minutes until I could be free to do something I enjoyed. I lived through my fair share of minor, existential, “is-this-all-there-is” crises before I eventually found my true calling. But I never forgot that feeling. It’s a shared disillusionment that sits at the heart of a rapidly growing labour movement in North America—one where
workers push back against exploitation and stagnant wages, and quit their jobs in droves. Helping fuel the movement is Reddit’s r/ antiwork community, which has witnessed explosive growth in recent months, and now boasts 1.7 million members (up from about 200,000 in January 2021). While there are of course conflicting ideologies about what exactly “antiwork” means, moderators of the community have stated it is not about laziness, but opposing a system that benefits a small minority rather than the workers who make society function. “We’re not against effort, labour, or being productive,” reads a post in the group’s FAQ. “We’re against jobs as they are structured under capitalism and the state: Against exploitative economic relations, against hierarchical social relations at the workplace.”
movement in which millions of workers across sectors participated in organized and wildcat strikes, sabotage actions, walkouts, slowdowns and absenteeism,” writes art historian Abigail Susik in an essay for the Washington Post. “As a result, the French labour force soon succeeded in winning a major demand: the enactment of the eight-hour workday by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau in 1919.” That marked a big win for the movement— led by a group of young veterans calling themselves “Surrealists”—but the fight for fairness continued, and things like significant wage increases, the 40-hour workweek and paid holidays wouldn’t be signed into French law until 1936. The United States established its own 40-hour week in 1938, but the practice didn’t become commonplace in Canada until the early 1960s.
The broader shift in the mindset of the labour pool should bode well for workers, but for business in Whistler? Not so much. At least not in the short term. The COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated them, but they’re not exactly new ideas—and historically, similar society-shifting events have also pushed workers to act. In the wake of the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic (or Spanish flu), French workers leveraged a labour shortage into a shorter workday and higher wages. “In a concentrated period between 1917 and 1920, French citizens ignited a protest
Two years into our own pandemic, it seems another shift is underway. Corporations have posted record profits while wages remain stagnant. Frontline workers have faced unsafe conditions and burnout while serving ungrateful, at-times-abusive customers. To top it all off, inflation is out of control, and an entire generation now sees homeownership as a distant dream. Many have had enough. In Whistler, which has always had its
own struggles finding enough workers to staff the resort, the disillusionment is as real as anywhere else. When Pique reached out to local workers for a story taking the temperature of the workforce in June 2021, many shared thoughts in line with today’s antiwork movement—that self-care and selfactualization were more important than empty wage slaving. The broader shift in the mindset of the labour pool should bode well for workers, but for business in Whistler? Not so much. At least not in the short term. An October study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that more than 180,000 Canadian workers left the restaurant sector during the pandemic— and most aren’t coming back. Many employers in Whistler understand the importance of paying good wages, offering useful benefits and attractive perks, and fostering a supportive culture. But with the mass exodus that has already occurred, and the surging labour resistance now underway, will that matter? You can tout your attractive wages and the appeal of the mountain-resort lifestyle of Whistler all you want, but if the workers aren’t there (and if there’s nowhere for them to live comfortably and affordably—as is the case in Whistler right now), you’re going to be understaffed. Local businesses have countered the shortage with compromise: reduced hours, scaled-back menu offerings, and even fullon closures. The short-term answer for Whistler as a whole may be similar: to live within more modest means, accept our limitations, at least for now, and be satisfied operating inside of them. That may amount to economic sacrilege to some, but if recent trends are any indication, it might not be our choice to make. ■
4 Bedroom/3.5 Bathroom Whistler Townhouse This spacious 1,788 sq foot, 4 bed, 3.5 bathroom. Bright open floor plan, generous bedrooms with vaulted ceilings, two decks, and a bonus loft that can be used as office space. The home features forced-air, natural gas furnace, wood fireplace and double car garage.
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SHOLTO SHAW
604.932.3211 332-4370 lorimer road s.shaw@raceandco.com
RACEANDCOMPANY.COM
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Deb Lacroix Designer, Whistler Staging Co, Simplicity Construction, Crystal Cleaning, Scott Brammer Photographer, Don Barr Inspector, RE/MAX Sea to Sky Real Estate Whistler & Squamish team, Joy Pringle, Walton Appraisals, MMI Plumbing, Cindy Yorke, Peter Spark Electrical, Whistler Glass, Cutting Edge Signs, Garibaldi Graphics, BDO Dunwoody, Sholto Shaw Lawyer, Chuck Piercey Lawyer, Karen Garrett & Eileen Craig Mortgage Brokers, Bruce & Ian Nesters, Whistler Baskets, Shaw Carpets, Mario Tiles, Alpine Locks, Richard Drennan, Brian Brown, Doug Bush, Surveyors, Building & Planning Depts RMOW, Heike Landscaping, High Country Landscaping, All Time Moving & Snow, George's War Wagon, Innovation Building, Tourism Whistler, Front desk, Housekeeping, & Owner Relations at all Hotels & Property Managers, Strata Property Managers & Team, Barneys Automotive, Sean Wells VIP Whistler, Mountain Paint, Home Depot, Windsor Plywood, RONA, Senka Florist, SMD Auto, Eagle Springs Carpets, Sea to Sky Couriers, Black Bear Carpet, Poolside Spa, Avalanche Appliances, Ruth Whistler Creative, Bob Deeks, RDC Fine Homes, Whistler Personnel, The Cooperators, Blueshore Financial, CIBC, TD Bank, RBC, RimRock Cafe, Tabletop Group, The Collective Kitchen, Quattro, Pasta Lupino, Mallard Lounge Fairmont Hotel, Evo Village Sports, Whistler Liquor Store, Nesters Liquor Store, Independent Grocery, Enzo Cam Clarke Ford, Whistler Medical Aesthetics, Whistler Dental, Suco's Hair, Mary Melo stylist, The Loft Salon, Ski School Kids and all the Whistler locals and second home owners who have shared their in-depth knowledge as they go about their day to day.
604 902 2033
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Denise@Whistler-RealEstate.ca
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The customer is not always right
Rescued snowboarder offers thanks— and a warning I am the Singaporean snowboarder that Whistler Search and Rescue (WSAR) picked up from the south side of Whistler Mountain, also known as Cake Hole, on Dec. 19, 2021. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the team behind this rescue operation, especially the brave and vigilant people that spotted me from the helicopter that fateful morning. Words cannot describe the sense of relief and hope I felt when I saw a rescuer descending towards me. I am recovering well at home and my condition could be infinitely worse if not for the swift action taken by the WSAR team, as well as the RCMP. I would also like to thank all the health-care workers and paramedics that attended to me at the Whistler Health Care Centre and Lions Gate Hospital. Their attention to detail and professionalism were instrumental to my recovery. Special mention to Terry Salman, Singapore’s Consul-General in Vancouver, for his incredible support during this trying period, and to my friend, Kevin Yap, for being the first to report my disappearance. It was his relentless pursuit, contacting all the relevant agencies and leaving no options unexplored, that led to my swift rescue.
More importantly, I hope to prevent similar tragedies from happening to others in the future. I remember I followed some skiers off the right side of Mathew’s Traverse on top of Whistler Mountain. I did not duck a rope nor go through any barriers. I only saw a small caution sign not unlike the ones at the start of black runs warning about steep and ungroomed terrain, and that did not deter me. Very unfortunately, that was a grave mistake. I can imagine an intermediate skier or snowboarder without knowledge of the terrain could have had a similar thought process and made the same mistake as me. I feel this could
be prevented with more prominent signage on the piste warning about the dangers on the south side of Whistler Mountain. I also hope more could be done in terms of roping off access to create a physical barrier to prevent the unknowing tourist from falling into tragedy. All these efforts could help to create a safer environment for all and further boost the reputation of Whistler Blackcomb as a worldclass winter destination. Finally, I would like to wish the Whistler community all the best and a safe season ahead. Wen Yi Toh // Singapore
I was reflecting on the headline of Max’s latest column (“The customer is always right,” Pique, Jan. 20) after having a lovely interaction with a possibly local fellow who objected to being asked to put on a mask. A couple F-bombs and rather threatening motions later, I was told that I’m ****ing bad at my job, and Whistler is not as welcoming as it used to be. Well, he seemed to have some [stuff] going on in his life... I would try to cut the guy some slack if he didn’t seem to be making a habit of going around harassing the overworked, understaffed and just plain burnt-out frontline workers of Whistler. Am I less welcoming than I used to be? I know I am, and it weighs on me. I come in to work with my guard up every day. I miss the simplicity of prepandemic life when you could pretty much count on having to at least mess something up before getting yelled at by a customer! And honestly, there’s no easy “on” switch to turn me back into that relatively carefree person I used to be. My wish for 2022 is that we figure out how to show each other a little more kindness. These days it takes me 10 times as much energy to put on that smile (under my mask, which I’m tired of wearing too, by the way), and I’m sure I’m not alone. I recently overheard a comment in a local coffee shop that people don’t seem to be saying “please” and “thank you” as much around town. Little things like that do add up when they’re missing. Lastly, I’ll just give a shout-out to the majority in Whistler who realize it’s not appropriate to take your grievances with the
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4 Bedrooms / 3 Bathrooms | Main 3 Bedrooms / 2 Bathrooms | Suite 1 Bedroom / 1 Bathroom This beautiful home is located on the riverside of Fitzsimmons Creek, has a treed and landscaped private lot, wrap-around deck with mountain views. Unique features include your own fully operational iconic Whistler Gondola cab which transports you from the deck across the garden, up to the treehouse viewing deck overlooking Fitzsimmons Creek! Three bedrooms plus office/gym which can be easily converted to an additional bedroom, two bathrooms, and large hot tub under the deck. Modern kitchen includes striking liveedge log slab dining area, and wood-fired pizza oven for creative entertaining. The one bedroom suite is located on the lower level.
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10 JANUARY 27, 2022
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR w Ne ongoing pandemic out on staff. Whistler, for the most part, you rock! Let’s try and keep the good vibes going. As for that guy, if you’re reading this, I hope things get easier for you. I hope things get easier for us all. With that said, you are not welcome back in my store. Best of luck in your future endeavours. Alissa Powell // Whistler
Pay parking is a regressive tax This letter was sent to Whistler’s mayor and council and shared with Pique, in response to a story published in Pique’s Jan. 20 issue titled “RMOW posts highest Q3 parking revenue in history.” Congratulations on this monumental achievement. I think we can do better. I have noticed many places where parking is still free, and the Resort Municipality of Whistler should move to immediately install meters. Some examples include: Every street in Whistler. One may park for free from March to November from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. on even numbered sides of the street. Let’s charge for that.
Meadow Park Sports Centre. Definitely. I can’t even fathom why it is free. We have a captivated audience combined with the reduced operating capacity of local transit forcing parents like me to drive and park. Train Wreck Trail. Cheakamus Community Gardens. Andrée Vajda Janyk Sports Field. Bayly Park. Legacy Way. Jane Lakes Road. Spruce Grove Park. Rainbow Lake trailhead. Condy Park. More captivated audience using those recreational activities. Cheakamus FSR trails and road. Hippie Lake. Seriously. Why don’t we have meters there? Millar’s Pond. There are a few free spots there. Meter them! The Whistler Health Care Centre. Easy one. That lot is always full. Take point from Adrian Dix who re-instituted pay parking at hospitals. Spring Creek Community School. Myrtle Philip and Whistler Secondary. Got to be 100plus spots that could be metered. Pay parking is a regressive tax that hurts lowerincome households. Calling it “non-tax revenue” is an insult. Let’s do better and come up with a solution that is beneficial for the people who live and work here making our community such a success. Patrick Smyth // Whistler ■
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Backcountry Advisory AS OF WEDNESDAY, JAN. 26 At what point can we say that the coastal snowpack has seen it all? This winter has gifted us with cold and snowy conditions, deluges of rain, and, recently, sunny and tropical conditions. All this is to say that the snowpack has been put through its paces. The past week of warm weather produced small, wet avalanches in most areas. Activity was fairly limited compared to the large, natural wet avalanche cycles from early January’s heavy rainfall and high freezing levels. A new crust has formed at mid and lower elevations that will be buried by snow forecast for the weekend. In higher terrain, dry snow is still available for transport into wind-loaded pockets, with the possibility of powder in sheltered terrain. Friday signals a shift in air masses, with an approaching Pacific frontal system dislodging
the ridge of high pressure. Cloud cover will increase and freezing levels will fall. Light-tomoderate snowfall is forecast for the weekend. Avalanche activity is unlikely where a supportive crust sits on the surface. However, as snowfall accumulates above the crust, it will provide a bed surface for storm slab avalanches to slide on. Head to sheltered terrain features at higher elevations to find the best riding conditions. Like the weather, be fluid with your travel plans and check conditions as you move through the backcountry. If you push into bigger lines and more consequential terrain, be on the lookout for pockets of wind loading near ridgelines and cornices made weak from the heat. Check avalanche.ca for up-to-date forecasts on how the weekend is shaping up. ■
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CONDITIONS MAY VARY AND CAN CHANGE RAPIDLY Check for the most current conditions before heading out into the backcountry. Daily updates for the areas adjacent to Whistler Blackcomb are available at 604-938-7676, or surf to www.whistlerblackcomb.com/mountaininfo/snow-report#backcountry or go to www.avalanche.ca.
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Unit 206 Blue Highways, 4368 Main St. Whistler 604.905.8385 * mbpmu@outlook.com
NOTICE
2022 COMMUNITY ENRICHMENT PROGRAM The Resort Municipality of Whistler will be accepting Community Enrichment Program (CEP) applications from community groups looking for financial assistance for 2022. The application period runs from January 25 to February 15, 2022. The CEP provides funding to not-for-profit organizations or societies based within Whistler that are considered by Council to be contributing to the general interest and advantage of the municipality. The categories include ‘Environment’, ‘Community and Social Services’, ‘Recreation and Sport’ and ‘Arts and Culture’. Each interested community group is required to complete a Grant Application Form and present to Council at a Committee of the Whole Meeting on March 22, 2022. All approved funding will be issued no later than April 30, 2022. Grant Application Forms are available at www.whistler.ca/cep or at the reception desk of the Whistler Municipal Hall, 4325 Blackcomb Way, Whistler, B.C., Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding holidays. Please submit applications to: Legislative Services Department Resort Municipality of Whistler 4325 Blackcomb Way Whistler, BC V8E 0X5 Phone: 604-935-8117 Email: corporate@whistler.ca
Mountain Psychology and Neurofeedback Centre
Stephen L. Milstein, Ph.D., R. Psych. BC #765 -604.938.3511 Dawna Dixx Milstein, OT. COTBC # AA0201 - 604.938.3523 Whistler: #107 - 4368 Main St, Whistler, B.C. V0N 1B4 Squamish: 38077 2nd Ave, Squamish, B.C. // 604.848.9273
Serving sea to sky for 18 years
12 JANUARY 27, 2022
Completed applications must be received by 4 p.m., February 15, 2022. No late applications will be accepted. To learn more, visit whistler.ca/cep.
Resort Municipality of Whistler whistler.ca
PIQUE N’ YER INTEREST
What does Whistler’s brain drain mean for our future? THREATENING TO LEAVE Whistler is as much a local tradition as plaid shirts and complaining about pay parking. For as long as I’ve lived here, I’ve heard friends, coworkers and acquaintances talk about making the inevitable move to Squamish, Pemberton or out of the Sea to Sky altogether. For the most part, this kind of talk is simply a way to blow off steam in the pressure
BY BRANDON BARRETT cooker that is Whistler, where a multitude of factors, from affordability to housing to a dearth of real career options, have conspired to make this otherwise wonderful community a difficult place to set down roots. But these threats don’t seem as hollow taken in the context of the last two years. Anecdotally at least, it seems like the pandemic was the final push many longtime locals needed to finally seek out, if not greener pastures, a different kind of meadow altogether. It will be telling to see exactly how this has panned out in the 2021 census. We know that, between 2011 and 2016, Whistler’s population grew by more than a fifth. It’s hard to imagine that trend continuing through the resort’s second pandemic year, when
Whistler’s very raison d’etre—tourism— looked much different than it ever had before. So what does this mean for us in the long term? Well, if more locals are making the move to Pemberton and Squamish, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict heavier traffic, longer commutes, and more accidents on the highway. Of course, that comes with a higher carbon output, as more vehicles plug Whistler’s main thoroughfare. We already saw the effects firsthand of Whistler’s mass exodus of seasonal and foreign workers at the onset of the pandemic—according to an October report from the Whistler Community Foundation, 38 per cent of young adults here lost their job due to COVID-19—exacerbating a labour shortage that was already years, if not decades, in the making. Presumably, at least some of the locals who’ve left for neighbouring communities will continue to hold jobs in the resort, which, as I’ve just mentioned, comes with its own knock-on effects. But you have to assume there is also a segment of those departees who will land work outside of Whistler, if only for the convenience factor. Add in the COVIDfuelled boom in remote work, and you can see how Whistler’s staffing woes are bound to get worse before they get better. You also have to look at housing, the persistent thorn in Whistler’s side if ever there was one. Between those
aforementioned remote workers choosing the relative peace and quiet of Canada’s ski mecca to live, a red-hot real estate market with limited inventory continuing to drive up home prices, and a complete lack of incentive for property owners to rent longterm when they could make more money, with less hassle, posting their place on Airbnb, and you can see how what has historically been the biggest factor pushing locals to leave will only grow in prevalence. Here’s where I should also mention a troubling stat I hope weighs heavily on our local decision-makers: as of 2016, our most recent census, 61 per cent of the town’s private dwellings were empty or temporarily unoccupied for a chunk of the year. For comparison, Squamish’s vacant home rate was a mere four per cent. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the obvious lever authorities could pull on to fix that problem: B.C.’s vacant home tax, already in place in the Metro Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo and Kelowna areas. Three years in, and experts remain divided on its precise effect on the market, given how difficult it is to disentangle from all the other factors impacting homeowners’ decision-making, but the general consensus is it has helped keep units in the rental stock, along with adding new ones. (The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s latest rental market report found that in 2020,
3,631 of the 7,137 condo units added to the rental market were conversions of existing units to long-term rental.) For a town as desperate for affordable housing as we are, this seems a logical route, but for all the lip service our officials pay to the resort’s frontline and seasonal workers, the stark reality is, unlike our second homeowners, the majority of them can’t, or don’t, vote, nor do they possess the same deep pockets. Suffice to say, it’s unlikely our elected officials are keen to bite the hand that feeds them. This speaks to a less tangible and arguably more important impact arising from our local exodus: the fraying of Whistler’s social fabric. The resort has long relied on the ambition, innovation and generosity of people deeply invested in its success. But if we continue to see long-term locals leaving in droves, and employers having to look farther afield just to fill out their staff, then just how many of those deeply-invested folks will remain? Where does that inherent, institutional knowledge that can only be gleaned from years of lived experience go? The joke you often hear about our dire labour situation is if you’ve got a pulse, you’ve got a job. But the people who live, work and play here are so much more than just warm bodies—they’re the essence of what makes Whistler tick, and we would do well to keep them around. ■
JANUARY 27, 2022
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NEWS WHISTLER
Whistler preps update to Green Building Policy SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS HAVE EVOLVED SINCE THE POLICY WAS ORIGINALLY IMPLEMENTED IN 2008, SAY RMOW PLANNERS
BY MEGAN LALONDE WHISTLER IS PREPARING to usher in a revised set of sustainability guidelines for new construction in the resort. On Tuesday, Jan. 25, Whistler’s mayor and council gave Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) staff the go-ahead to begin the process of updating the resort’s existing Green Building Policy, beginning with stakeholder and community engagement. “Since the Green Building Policy was adopted in 2008, green building and sustainable design practice technologies and standards have evolved,” explained planner Louis-Félix Tremblay-Renaud during a presentation to council at the Jan. 25 meeting. That means Whistler’s current policy no longer aligns with the times—or with the resort’s own climate targets. The existing Green Building Policy was based on a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) framework, and covers six broad objectives: site and landscape; energy; water; materials; waste; and indoor environment. In the approximately 14 years since Whistler’s original Green Building Policy was established, the RMOW has adopted a Community Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP), a new Official Community Plan (OCP) in 2020, and the 2020 Climate Action Big Moves Strategy. “The Green Building Policy needs to be updated to reflect these new goals and targets,” said Tremblay-Renaud. “In other
GREEN MACHINE Whistler is moving forward with an update to its Green Building Policy to ensure new construction aligns with climate targets. PHOTO BY NOEL HENDRICKSON / GETTY IMAGES
14 JANUARY 27, 2022
words, we are evolving from the current Green Building Policy because it is out of date in regards to many aspects, it’s not a clear process for applicants and staff on how to use it, and it’s very cumbersome and not used to its best potential.” Under the current system, different checklists exist for different types of buildings, and people applying for permits can choose their own approach when describing how their project meets the Green Building Policy’s objectives. The checklists are mandatory for rezoning applications, and used as reference for development and building permit applications—meaning RMOW staff is currently tasked with analyzing a wide range of responses from project teams. The intended outcome of a modernized Green Building Policy, said RMOW planning manager John Chapman, is a more efficient process. “Something that’s easier for applicants to use and that is more straightforward for staff to administer,” he said. “We’re not looking at introducing a new step in a rezoning process that didn’t exist, but we’re actually looking just to update and improve and refine the existing Green Building Policy.” Since 2008, the province has also utilized a new approach to energy efficiency in buildings with the BC Energy Step Code (an optional compliance path that local governments can use to ensure new construction meets a level of energy efficiency that exceeds the requirements set by the BC Building Code.) The RMOW amended its building and plumbing bylaw in 2018, instituting Step 3 of the Step Code for all Part 9 residential buildings. But some in the community—including Edgar Dearden of sustainable building company GNAR Inc.—have criticized the
RMOW for not moving faster on energy efficiency as of late. In Dearden’s opinion, the answer to reversing Whistler’s increasing emissions lies in “removing the fossil heating systems, [and] achieving Step 5 or passive house, all-electric buildings,” he said at the Oct. 5 council meeting. Dearden has been a fixture at municipal council meetings ever since, asking questions and pressuring the RMOW to act. Through its Green Building Policy update, the RMOW intends to map out the best way forward in terms of full Step Code implementation. With the introduction of its Step Code bylaw in 2018, the RMOW’s existing Green Building Policy is out of date, as emissions from new buildings are now tied to guidelines in the building bylaw rather than the policy itself. “The rationale and the policy intent behind what we’re doing is really to encourage an integrated design approach,” explained Tremblay-Renaud. “The goal is to induce a holistic and integrated approach for new project development in Whistler.” Because Whistler’s OCP, Big Moves Strategy and CECAP all set specific climate goals, Whistler’s updated Green Building Policy should be based on the same priorities. To ensure the policy’s requirements fall in line with the targeted goals set out in these already-adopted initiatives, RMOW staff suggested replacing the six broad objectives that comprise the existing Green Building Policy with six new sections, each containing performance guidelines, requirements and resources: building energy and emissions; material intensity; sustainable site design; green mobility; water conservation and rainwater management; and solid waste.
The green mobility section, for example, could strive to introduce requirements for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, while the building energy and emissions section could cover things like interior lighting and passive design strategies. An updated policy would also consolidate the varying checklists into one standardized list that covers all building types. “The proposed sections were also benchmarked against what other municipalities have in place,” said Tremblay-Renaud, adding, “this proposed approach will ensure not only that the RMOW is advancing its sustainability goals, but also that the requirements for developers are streamlined, clear and focused on current priorities.” With Whistler councillors on board, the next step is engagement with industry stakeholders and the community to explore the feasibility of an updated policy before it can be adopted. RMOW staff plan to accomplish this through a combination of industry workshops, in-person meetings with stakeholders and consultations with relevant non-profit organizations, as well as by sharing information and seeking feedback through the RMOW’s website and social media channels. Public engagement will take place throughout February. Whistler Mayor Jack Crompton told planners he’s eagerly anticipating “seeing [the final policy] return with opportunities to make the process more efficient; to see projects get to where we want them to be, quicker. I look forward to the innovative ways that can happen.” Staff will bring the results of their public engagement efforts back to council later this spring, along with the final Green Building Policy for consideration and approval. n
NEWS WHISTLER 9005 Skiers Rest Lane Located on 1.16 Acres of forested land, this Wedge Woods 7br, 7 bath home allows for a legal suite, along with a ‘Bed and Breakfast’ style business operation or company retreat. The home includes furnishings and proven rental revenue. $3,890,000
Clock ticking on potential Sea to Sky transit strike UNION REPRESENTING MORE THAN 80 LOCAL TRANSIT WORKERS SAYS JOB ACTION WOULD BEGIN JAN. 29 IF NO DEAL IS STRUCK
BY BRANDON BARRETT THE CLOCK IS TICKING on a possible corridor-wide transit strike, with a deadline set for midnight Friday night, Jan. 28, to strike a deal at the bargaining table. According to a release last week from Unifor, BC Transit’s refusal to “close the pay gap” between Whistler-area transit operators and their counterparts in Vancouver and Victoria is at the root of the potential job action. “It’s about treating transit workers with fairness and recognizing the cost of what they do is so important to the travelling public,” said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s western regional director, in a follow-up interview. McGarrigle said Whistler and Squamish transit workers make anywhere between $3 and $5 an hour less than their counterparts in Vancouver and Victoria. “They somehow think that magically the cost of living has changed so much from Vancouver to Whistler and Squamish, when, if anything, it’s the other way around,” he said. Local 114 represents more than 80 transit workers at Whistler Transit; 98 per cent of the bargaining unit voted in favour of a strike in August 2021. In that case, negotiations failed to produce a satisfactory offer from the employer, said Unifor. Wages, a lack of benefits coverage for nearly 40 per cent of the unit, pension, and job security remain sticking points for the union. “In this case, you have things like artificial caps on how many people can be covered on benefits, so it’s not tied so much to the status of the workers and whether they’re working full-time hours, but an artificial cap of how many people would be on benefits at a given time,” McGarrigle said. BC Transit is the provincial Crown agency responsible for delivering transit outside of Greater Vancouver, and contracts these services to private operating companies. In a release, the agency, which declined an interview, said the dispute is between BC Transit contractors Whistler Transit Ltd., Diversified Transit in Squamish and their unionized employees. “BC Transit is closely monitoring the situation and hopes the parties will find resolution soon,” the release said. (A representative for Whistler Transit did not return a request for comment by deadline.) But in McGarrigle’s mind, at the core of the dispute is how BC Transit structures its third-party contracts. “BC Transit controls equipment, overall budgets, a lot of things on a day-to-day basis. What they do is outsource, essentially, the day-to-day labour relations and management of specific employees. But in terms of everything that would be needed to address
broad issues, it is BC Transit,” he explained. “Overall there’s too much money involved to maintain this fiction, even if it holds up legally, that these subsidiary companies are the ones calling the shots. It’s deliberately set up this way so they can try to claim that. But the public knows what’s on the side of the buses: it’s BC Transit.” While Unifor officially filed a 72-hour notice of job action last Friday, Jan. 21, McGarrigle said they wanted to give the public ample notice of a potential strike, with an actual deadline to strike a deal set for 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 28. If no deal is struck by then, the job action would begin the following day. Only HandyDART service in Squamish, which is deemed essential, would continue operations, with full service hours on weekdays. “BC Transit sincerely apologizes to customers for the inconvenience caused by this matter. BC Transit understands the frustration felt by customers, and that the job action is difficult for everyone involved in the region,” BC Transit said in its release. A driver shortage has led to a series of service disruptions in the resort as of late, compounded by recent extreme weather as well as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. But recruiting qualified drivers to Whistler has long been a challenge, even prior to the pandemic.
“If people are going to live in a community they should be able to earn enough to live in the community.”
De live ring the Dream Whistler
CAROLYN HILL PERSONAL REAL ESTATE CORPORATION
WHISTLER, BC
604-907-0770
chill@whistlerbuyer.com ~ whistlerbuyer.com
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“If people are going to live in a community they should be able to earn enough to live in the community. In this case, when people do the economics of moving there, if it doesn’t add up, it doesn’t add up,” McGarrigle said. “The gap’s just gotten too big to be sustainable. The members are fed up and ready to take full action if they can’t get a deal.” BC Transit will update customers as more information becomes available and encourages customers to sign up to receive alerts for their specific transit system at bctransit.com/whistler, bctransit. com/squamish and bctransit.com/ pemberton-valley. Customers may also follow @BCTransit on Twitter for updates. Find the latest on this developing story at piquenewsmagazine.com. n
JANUARY 27, 2022
15
NEWS WHISTLER
Life on hold: the red-tape realities of COVID-19 THE THIRD IN PIQUE’S SERIES LOOKING AT THE HUMAN IMPACT OF COVID-19 IN WHISTLER stretched thin by COVID-19, the 40-year-old said his application was sent to a consulate office in China because it had the most staff available for processing. Then, crucial parts of his application were lost, only adding to the delays. “I’ve had to re-submit my finger prints, background checks, and some parts of my life history because they lost multiple parts
BY BRANDON BARRETT AS 2019 WOUND DOWN, part-time Whistlerites Leah Nurmi and Chas Walter had plenty to look forward to. The couple had just married, after first meeting in Whistler years before, and in November, Walter, an American, made the big move from just outside of Seattle to B.C., with a work permit in process for his new job with a recreational cannabis company. Then a little thing happened in March 2020 that, like so many other best-laid plans in the pandemic, threw a wrench in the husband-and-wife’s new life. The usual six- to eight-month permit processing time ballooned into nearly two years, Canada’s already slow-going immigration pipeline plugged with a backlog of applications. That was exacerbated further by a rush of refugee claimants in the aftermath of the United States’ hasty troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and that government’s subsequent collapse. “I knew there was going to be some downtime regardless of that six- to eightmonth wait, but I wasn’t prepared, nor was my wife, for what unfolded,” Walter said. With immigration staff already
WHISTLER
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“[T]hey make a mistake doing this and your application gets kicked to the back of the line.” - CHAS WALTER
of my application due to the disorganization they are blaming on COVID,” Walter said. “The thing is, too: they make a mistake doing this and your application gets kicked to the back of the line.” Adding to the couple’s worries was the fact Nurmi, a nurse practitioner, was surrounded by COVID patients on a daily basis, and because her husband didn’t have a job or the health coverage that goes with it, she lived in constant fear she would pass the virus on to him.
5
NEW LISTING
$2,595,000
6.5
2
4
3,220 sqft
2
5
3
2
3
2,250 sqft
1,640 sqft •
Soak up the sun and mountain views
the front window
•
2 car garage plus parking out front
Revenue suite or space to run a
•
Ample storage space
successful Daycare
•
Close to all Squamish amenities
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Bright and beautifully renovated
•
2 bedroom/2 bathroom on 1 level
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Corner lot with loads of potential
own private dock
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Self contained 2 bedroom suite
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Zoned for nightly rentals (GST paid)
•
Incredible views of the Chief from
•
Gorgeous lake and mountain views
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Quiet cul-de-sac in Bayshores
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Looks over Chateau Golf Club
with extensive natural light
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Close to trails, shops and gondola
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Completely renovated
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Private ensuite for each bedroom
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2 car garage and ample storage
•
Ski in/Ski out, close to trails & shops
•
HANNAH GARCIA
DAVID WIEBE
JENNA FRANZE
*PREC
*PREC
604 966 8941
604 966 8874
604 345 5415
*PREC
25-39758 GOVERNMENT ROAD, SQUAMISH
$1,327,000
Direct access to Alta Lake with its
DANA FRIESEN SMITH
VANCOUVER
SOLD
$1,599,000
1,058 sqft
|
2030 MAPLE DRIVE, SQUAMISH
11-4644 BLACKCOMB WAY, WHISTLER FOR SALE
$3,999,000
3,634 sqft •
2761 COYOTE PLACE, WHISTLER
6
couple dipped into their savings and were fortunate enough to have family lend them some money as well. “After we burned through all my savings, we started to go into debt. And it was not like I could get a CERB cheque either while everyone else around me was getting $2,000-a-month cheques,” said Walter. “We would pay our bills and then see how much money we had left over for food. We made it by, but we wouldn’t have been able to do it without family.” For Nurmi, it was another layer of uncertainty on top of the stresses she was already facing as a health-care worker in a global pandemic, navigating ever-changing public health orders and pockets of dissent from anti-vaxxers protesting outside of Vancouver hospitals. “It’s been a rollercoaster. When you work in emergency and in health-care, you’re faced with all kinds of stressors,” she said. “There’s a level of constant change you have as an emerg provider, or anybody who works in health-care, but that constant change is exhausting.” Hindsight being 20/20, Nurmi said it’s not a process she nor her husband want to go through again. “Immigrating in a pandemic? Wouldn’t recommend it,” she added. n
NORTH SHORE
SOLD
$7,400,000
He contemplated returning to the U.S., but, with the border closed at the time, wasn’t sure he’d be allowed back into Canada. “He moved up … just after we got married, and having to redo that long distance would have been a challenge,” Nurmi said. “Also, having to do that long distance knowing you couldn’t freely cross the border, that part would have been really awful.” Then there was the financial stress that came from not working, Nurmi being the sole breadwinner for nearly two years. The
SQUAMISH
5694 ALTA LAKE ROAD, WHISTLER FOR SALE
“I worried every single day, especially in the beginning,” she recalled. “Then there’s just the added stress of the financial implications if that happened, or even the hoops you have to jump through just to have him covered. You wouldn’t just walk in, hand over your care card and there you go.” Without residency status or heath coverage, Walter was stuck in a kind of limbo.
from 3 decks
KRISTEN DILLON
*PREC
604 902 3878 dana@seatoskydreamteam.com
hannah@hannahgarcia.com
david@davidwiebe.ca
jenna@jennafranze.com
778 266 0150 kristen@seatoskydreamteam.com
Stilhavn Real Estate Services | 208-1420 Alpha Lake Road, Whistler | 1388 Main Street, Squamish | Stilhavn.com This communication is not intended to cause or induce the break of an existing agency relationship. *Personal Real Estate Corporation. We would like to acknowledge that we work and live on the traditional, unceded territory of the xwməθkwəýəm, səlilwətaɬ, Lil’wat & Sḵwxwú7mesh People.
16 JANUARY 27, 2022
NEWS WHISTLER
Surf park proposed for Britannia Beach passes first hurdle SQUAMISH-LILLOOET REGIONAL DISTRICT GAVE DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL FIRST READING AT DECEMBER BOARD MEETING
BY MEGAN LALONDE A SURF PARK proposed for the Sea to Sky corridor’s Britannia Beach is one step closer to fruition. Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) directors unanimously gave first reading to a pair of bylaw amendments for Tiger Bay Development Corp. at a board meeting on Dec. 15, 2021. It’s a milestone achievement, said Tiger Bay’s head of development Tony Petricevic. “Because of the scale of the project, it’s just taken a long time to get to that point,” he said. If the venture crosses the finish line, the year-round surf park would likely be the first of its kind built in Canada. Petricevic anticipates a targeted opening date in late 2024. The park will be powered by Wavegarden Cove wave-making technology, which is already in use at several other facilities around the world. Though the two-sided pool itself can accommodate up to 90 people at one time, there can be a maximum of six people actively surfing the waves—spaced out by eight- to 10-second intervals—at once. Petricevic said the support has been high
not just from the Canadian Surf Association and surf athletes eager for a training facility closer to home, but from the general public. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds ... of people emailing us their thoughts, and I’d say that probably 95 per cent of them are just pure excitement to see a surf park built in the area,” he explained. The beauty of having a surf park on the mainland, Petricevic added, is “rather than going surfing a few times a year, you’d [be able to] go a few times in a week, so your surfing will get much better so when you do go out and experience decent natural waves, you will be that much better. “It’s a sports facility to improve your skills and for you to enjoy the sport more—and to grow the sport more significantly, as well.”
‘A NEW EXCITING COMMUNITY IN THE AREA’ But it’s more than a surf park, said Petricevic. The project will also create an entirely new community in South Britannia, about 14 kilometres south of Squamish. Though residential properties won’t come until after the surf park is up and running, plans call for a multi-phase build-out over more than two decades that would eventually see 1,050 units of housing created as part of
the development. The Tiger Bay project also includes plans for tourist accommodation, childcare, a pump track and skate park, as well as space for a school and/or community centre and a transit hub. The rezoning application also sets the stage for a 5.2-hectare parcel of oceanfront land at Minaty Bay, currently part of Tiger Bay’s land holdings, to be transferred to public ownership and used as a park. Key changes to Tiger Bay’s application since the SLRD board last heard about the project in June include an increase from 50 units of affordable housing to 150 (in addition to 900 units of market housing), a commitment to meeting Step 4 energyefficiency building requirements rather than Step 3, and formalizing Tiger Bay’s agreement that natural gas will not be used as an energy source as a condition of development. The motion carried after a more than one-hour discussion at the Dec. 15 SLRD board meeting, during which directors raised questions about everything from the proposed neighbourhood’s walkability and the amount of childcare space required, to the size and quantity of affordable housing units. Details of what the 150 affordable housing units will look like and how they would be delivered will be addressed in a housing agreement prior to Phase 2 of the project—
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18 JANUARY 27, 2022
the first phase of residential development, explained planning consultant Eric Vance in a presentation to the board. “The reason we’re holding off on doing [the housing agreement] is because needs are going to change over time,” he told the board. “By the time [Tiger Bay] gets to the residential phase at South Britannia—it’s going to be a number of years out—programs will change, funding sources, needs and so on. To come out with a detailed housing agreement at this point is just too speculative.” A hazard assessment has already been completed for part of the property, but two more detailed debris flow hazard assessments and a development agreement are still needed before the application can proceed to second reading. Preliminary work suggests there is no cause for concern in terms of natural hazards, officials say. Following second reading, the applications would head to a public hearing. Petricevic said he expects the remaining hazard assessments to be completed in the next four months. “Looking at those timeframes, if we could get to second reading by June, that would be fantastic, and to get to the … public hearing by August would be amazing,” he added.
SEE PAGE 20
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NEWS WHISTLER
École La Passerelle Grade 4-5 class wins provincial award for fire safety video ESCAPE PLAN MARKS THE CLASS’ SECOND TIME WINNING FIRE PREVENTION WEEK CONTEST
BY BRANDON BARRETT FOR THE SECOND TIME in three years, a class at Whistler’s École La Passerelle has won a provincial award for their creative video about fire safety. Every year, B.C.’s Professional Fire Fighters Burn Fund invites students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 to create a poster or video about fire safety as part of Fire Prevention Week. This year’s winning entry, Escape Plan, is a two-minute clip conceived by students in Mme. Marie-Philippe Maltais’ Grade 4-5 class, and marks their return to the throne after first winning the provincial contest two years ago. Featuring stop-motion LEGO animation, and a rollicking song and dance that followed this year’s theme of “The Sounds of Fire,” the students were responsible for everything from concept development to costumes, songwriting and video editing. “I’ve never seen a class that was so into a project before,” said educational assistant Andrée Morin, who helped with the film. Nine-year-old director Daxton
20 JANUARY 27, 2022
Bouvier admitted wrangling his fellow students could be a tall task at times, but he appreciated the chance to sit in the director’s chair nonetheless. “It was pretty fun but a lot of work,” he said. “Sometimes people wanted me over there and then people wanted help over here, but it was a lot of fun.”
“I’ve never seen a class that was so into a project before.” - ANDRÉE MORIN
Westin Baxter, nine, and Liam Courchesne, 10, penned the lyrics to the song on a scrap of paper (which features such helpful advice as: Remember this tip: stop, drop and roll/ Look for an exit, ‘cause you don’t wanna get caught on fire, fire, fire) before teaching it to their classmates. “It’s super good. We’re super happy that we won this,” Baxter said. Not wanting to sing, Courchesne spent productive time behind the camera as
co-editor and animator, a skill he has honed since the class’ first provincial win two years ago earned them a GoPro camera and $1,000 prize they used to buy production software. “I think I did a stop-motion [scene] around two years ago and I thought it would be cool to do again,” he said. This year, the team takes home an iPad
8 and a gift certificate for a pizza party. When asked which prize was their favourite, the students were unanimous. “The iPad!” they collectively shouted. “We’re going to use the iPad next year for more editing and more projects,” Courchesne said. To view the winning video, visit youtube.com/watch?v=2ZfHzvE0WJo. n
SURF PARK FROM PAGE 18 PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ‘CAN BE BETTER THAN IT IS’ While SLRD director Karen Elliott, mayor of Squamish, seemed pleased with aspects of the project, overall, it “lacks aspiration as a community of the future,” she said. Elliott credited developers for agreeing to tie the project to a more energy-efficient building code, but said she expected to see builders discussing the possibility of achieving net-zero given the project’s lengthy timeframe. “To me it feels like this development community is still building for today instead of for the future we’re living in where we need to be more resilient, less
carbon-intensive and more focused on community,” she said. “It certainly meets a bar that will get it through first reading, but some of those important details, I think, need to come back as we move through this process. I’m still not convinced that we’ve built a whole community here, with enough employment or services to support the over 1,000 units [of housing] that will be built.” Whistler Mayor Jack Crompton, who questioned the amount of public versus private recreation opportunities the project will offer, agreed. “Overall, I think this moves in a positive direction,” he said, “but I think it can be better than it is.” n
Pettit and Company Family Law Whistler Valley Housing Society’s Notice of Annual General Meeting Who:
Notice to Members
When:
January 28th, 10:00am - 11:00am PT
Where:
Virtual via Zoom Please email WVHS.info@gmail.com for Zoom call in information, a copy of the agenda and the proposed Bylaws to be adopted at the AGM.
The Whistler Valley Housing Society is a not-forprofit established in 1983 and is the owner of Whistler Creek Court, a 20 unit affordable rental housing project for Whistler employees. Our Vision
To provide, and advocate for, a broader spectrum of housing opportunities for the Whistler community.
Caitlin MacDonell
Helping you with your Family Transition. SQUAMISH OFFICE
Suite 100-41105 Tantalus Road Squamish, BC V8B 0N3
Contact WVHS.info@gmail.com for additional information.
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Matthew Callaghan Personal Real Estate Corporation Mobile 604-966-8678 Office 604-962-0324 mcallaghan@sutton.com
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NEWS WHISTLER
Whistler, Sea to Sky residents explore the topic of multiculturalism in their communities BUILDING INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES PANEL DISCUSSIONS TAKING PLACE ONLINE UNTIL FEB. 1
BY JASNA ROWSE THE WHISTLER Multicultural Society heard from Whistler, Squamish and Sunshine Coast residents on the topics of multiculturalism and diversity in a pair of online panel discussions this week. The sessions, collectively titled Building Inclusive Communities, began on Monday, Jan. 24, when panel members answered questions on the importance of respecting different cultures in the Sea to Sky corridor and Sunshine Coast over Zoom. The panel included Whistler Mayor Jack Crompton; Habib Ly, program manager and instructor in the department of community development and outreach at Capilano University; Zhoyi (Joyce) Xie, business owner in Gibsons; Geraldine Guilfoyle, board member of the Squamish Multifaith Association; Christine TlatlaKwot Baker, manager of the Squamish Nation’s valley operations; and Faizel Rawji, the head of international education for the Sea to Sky School District. Squamish Nation elder Donna (Sisolia) Billy opened the event by welcoming
DISCUSSING DIVERSITY The Whistler Multicultural Society is inviting Sea to Sky residents to weigh in on inclusion and diversity in the region this month through a series of panel discussions. Pictured is a pre-pandemic instalment of the Whistler Multicultural Festival. FILE PHOTO everyone with a prayer. “It’s such an awesome subject that you guys are starting,” Billy said in the Zoom meeting. “With us having multiculturalism day at Totem Hall, I am really happy to be participating in this.” Sea to Sky MP Patrick Weiler also welcomed the group, noting it was an honour to attend the event with organizations that have welcomed new Canadians as valued members of the community.
“It’s often said that Canadians take pride in not being American, and of course this is true,” Weiler said. “And apart from the Indigenous peoples who have been here long before settlers, both countries are countries largely [made up] of immigrants … whereas some countries fear losing their cultural identity with immigration, Canadian culture views that as enhancing our identity.” Throughout the session, each panel member fielded two questions, and at the
end audience members were encouraged to share experiences or ask questions themselves. In response to the first question—how does multiculturalism impact your life and your community?—Xie shared a heartfelt message on her experience moving to the Sunshine Coast. Xie speaks a number of languages including Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and more recently, English. “COVID came and just destroyed my life. I am really upset and I cannot go out anymore,” said Xie. “My local friends helped me a lot … Now I am just trying to respect my community to help some mothers like me with new immigration.” Another question asked panel members to speak to the importance of building a welcoming, inclusive multicultural environment in the region. “There is a lot of reasons to feel dislocated … Being away from other people has been extremely difficult for all of us,” said Crompton. “I believe that multiculturalism is a bit of a response to that. It says something about who we are as human beings—we want to be together
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NEWS WHISTLER FEATURE STORY someone you [that in well].” employment,” said Belanger. is common at Squamish’s St. John the another << FROM buried at thePAGE site of22 the old residential school. ordained priest in August, Ottawa pledged $321 million to help “Itthe children were found, fordon’t the know first time Canadian
final minutes what of theresidential meeting, [immigrants] underemployed ... You Divine Church; communities April Struthers, On May 27, Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir toldAnglican the Indigenous search that residential school are rural sites. history listening In andthe understanding the panel members explored the topic of doctors thatNations are now school taxi drivers, [and] want to break down barriers.” consultant worldwe ground-penetrating radar had revealed athemanagement remains But a true specializing reckoning has will justsee begun. First was all about. micro-aggressions dentists that orare now school custodians, At unmarked the end of the session, panel members in prevention research and social change of 215 graves. across Canada are either actively searching planning to “They want to know my story. and answered questions from thewhat audience aboutto the lack of cultural nurses that are caregivers and civil engineers shared brief response on what lessons from us projects; Siegers, of the “I’ma hoping that now people will believe when and we Darnelda dig up the past Mayor in at least another 16 schools. “They want to know happened my family. representation among elected officials. that are now a hotelatrocities houseman.” “They’re looking the they will life. againstDistrict of Sechelt. What that means for reconciling say meeting that there was a apply policytooftheir genocide Indigenous Canada’s at me differently.” Theyremarks were also askedhears to share of members were also asked “Reinforcing thatthe there is no In responseagainst to the Indigenous first question—do peoples,” Ignace the saidnotion following discovery. peoples is not Panel as clear. Seven months There to are some Casimir overexamples and over as equity work in their community. consider how individuals and communities single story. Every addsto to our you feel that youafter live the in an inclusivein society From the 19thstory century the knowledge 1970s, more than 150,000 discovery Kamloops, how far has the country her communitysuccessful interacts with non-Indigenous people. Dark “A group I used to work withtoat the biases, and every story makesaged us better, andtothat you have equal opportunities?—all can do something about harmful Indigenous children six to so 16today were isforced attend really come? realities survivors had kept close for years started reach District of Sechelt … when they had an stereotypes and prejudice, the andears make another example of that,”schools Rawji said. six panellists state-funded Christian designed to assimilate them agreed they don’t quite live in of non-Indigenous Canadians: residential schools accessibility committee that was very communities more inclusive. were designed with sessionsociety offeredinawhat greatthe opportunity an inclusive society. intoThe Canadian Truth and Reconciliation cemeteries. diverse to start I challenged them to “AllI of are Yellowhorn, to increase connections, added Guilfoyle, “I just want to Commission (TRC) report has described as “cultural genocide.” B .say C . how F I honoured N D S H and EALING N us G RinI Eour F communities As Eldon SFUwith, professor and principal on social accessibility as well asgraves physical “andChildren I hope we willremoved take [those] opportunities were from their families, not allowed to investigator of take a team identifying unmarked at accessibility,” said Struthers. level with speakeach theirother.” own language and forced to convert to Christianity. he graves in Kamloops instantly echoed in the lives of Manitoba’s Brandon Indian Residential School“The put it: “It of there collaboration and thedeaths.” agility to which “When show inclusiveness when More than 38,000 children were verbally, physically and wecountless British Columbians, aand void filled by public wasn’t secret that were going to be they could make things happen was great. sexually abused, triggering lifetimes of trauma. According to displays of emptiness. we includeTwo-hundred-and-fifteen others it gives other people In fact, the district took on most of the DIVERSITY AND EQUITY the TRC report, at least 6,000 IndigenousIN children are thought vacant chairs on a school THE TO SKY permission to follow our example.” to have SEA died between the 1880s and 1996. basketball court in North Vancouver. R E C O N C Irecommendations.” LING IN CRISIS Two more Building Inclusive In the second in session, on Tuesday, Jan. more than 200 As experts Kamloops hunted down Two-hundred-and-fifteen cedar saplings planted in a - DARNELDA SIEGERS Communities immigration and 25, a mix ofon elected officials property, and residents “anomalies” the 65-hectare across Canada, other Vancouver park. n a year dominated by onesessions—on crisis after another, a deadly belonging—are set for Monday, Jan. 31 and from Whistler and the whose Sunshine First Squamish, Nations began to question lives were quietly Two-hundred-and-fifteen pairs of shoes on the steps of heat dome and wildfire season quickly consumed the Tuesday, Feb.But 1. like so much public policy Coast met discuss the diversity snuffed outtoand buried ontopic their of own lands. an abandoned church outside Pemberton. public conversation in B.C. Theisonline eventspeople are designed to foster leaders,” said Siegers. “Whenin we showit was and and In inclusion. I am to be invited to thiswoman, panel, herself late June, the Lower Kootenay Band humbled said it had One Indigenous a survivor of the ‘60s Canada, Indigenous that often bear meaningful discussions on multiculturalism, inclusiveness when others The182first the six graves panellists who anwhen found moreof unmarked at the was former particularly St. Eugene’s as someone Scoop, was leftrepresents speechless a memorial and sprung up we on include the brunt of government failure. immigration and building gives other permission to followonediversity, William (Bill) near Ritchie from the Lil’wat institution has steps been of anthe oppressor and ArtitGallery Mission School Cranbrook; within two weeks, anotherthat the Vancouver withinpeople 24 hours of Here’s example:equity, the Canadian Wildland Fire a senseshows of belonging in thehalf diverse Sea to Sky Nation. Ritchie has worked at the Squamish said Gutjahr. “It’s our example.” 160 undocumented and unmarked graves weresuppressor found nearof diversity,” the announcement. Evacuation Database that roughly of all wildfire and Sunshine Coast regions. Inoue added to the conversation Lil’wat Cultural for 14 yearsonand hard to shed [ignorance] because goes One Kamloops the Kuper IslandCentre residential school Penelakut Island. Others took to theitstreet. man committed evacuees by in Canada over the past 40 years have been The series presented bythan the Whistler saying people’s prejudicesIndigenous, often come even though welcomed the group over Zoom.at seven formeragainst the narrative ourselves, As of mid-December, searches residential to runwe 215tell kilometres to that help those whothat survived residential theyismake up less five per Multicultural Society with the Whistler from of things like television commercials andcountry’s The in other included: Izumiand ‘I am aScotia good person [and] I got here onofmy schools B.C.,panellists Saskatchewan, Manitoba Nova schools. In the end, tens thousands dollars would pour in. cent of the population. Pemberton Multicultural conversations Inoue, a settlement worker with graves. the own merit.’” have turned up nearly 1,400 suspected “It is definitely a pivotal point in history,”with said parents. Casimir. In Ignace’s Welcome territory, Centre, it took the Sparks Lake wildfire Squamish Welcome Centre and “Itour is so easy to only hang out with the his Network, Whistler Welcome whose work haveHaving on three different By some metrics,Centre the grisly discoveries finally worked “After years of silence and disbelief, Kamloops Indian threatening band’s survival before firefighters found a Sunshine CoastNation. Welcoming who look like you,” said Inoue. supporting community members hastheled shared School with thesurvivors, group people spurred government to act. In July, B.C. continents, governmentBelanger Residential their firsthand knowledge way to“Let’s work alongside the First For twoCommunities. days, current Funding is provided by Canadian Heritage break thatfeels intentionally—on next dayIndian her for her $475,000 diverse community; believes lives in a community that is at the saidtoitadvocate would provide to investigate she each of the sheabout the deaths of children school like it’s been your Skeetchestn Band Chief Darrel Draney said Emergency thetoResort of Whistler. off … instead of your usual routine, you’re BCand Priscilla Belanger, resource working to be anfinally inclusive society. province’s 18 residentialhuman school sites and three hospitals; confirmed.” Management failed returnMunicipality his calls for help. For more information on howtold to register, to put some effort into going of no response coordinator at the Howe Sound Women’s “In my case, the challengeshe in said, havinghavegoing Canadians, all been awakened since “Weout had to anything,” Draney Glacier visit to know Centre Society; Cameron Gutjahr, an equal opportunity came in the form of your comfort zone and getting n in Media as a “great wallbuildinginclusivecommunities.ca. of fire” approached his community July. “No red shirts anywhere. No aircraft. Not even a visit.”
T
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count YooYou u cancan count onon us!us! As we go through this pandemic, affordable and reliable public services are needed more than ever. We continue to be here for you, whether it’s our regular work day or after hours in a weather emergency. CUPE 2010 members are proud to provide excellent public services that residents and visitors – and our own families – rely on every day in the Village of Pemberton and the Resort Municipality of Whistler. Our members in Pemberton continue to provide essential services such as clean drinking water, maintaining the safe operation of the wastewater plant, all of the snow removal and upkeep for roads, and keeping our parks and trails clean and safe for all to enjoy.
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NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING ELECTORAL AREA C Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 4pm
Public Notice is hereby given in accordance with Section 466 of the Local Government Act that a Public Hearing will be held electronically regarding the following bylaw: 1. Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area C Zoning Bylaw No. 765, 2002, Amendment Bylaw No. 1705-2021. PURPOSE OF BYLAW 1705-2021: The bylaw is associated with an application to amend the zoning to facilitate subdivision of a parcel into 8 residential lots and would see the property rezoned to a new zone (RR2-Rural 2). This will reduce the minimum parcel size to one hectare. The proposed Rural 2 zone would permit one single family dwelling on each parcel. The area covered by Bylaw 1705-2021 is PID 029-238-412, LOT A DISTRICT LOT 5024 LILLOOET DISTRICT PLAN KAP92970 as outlined on the map included in this notice:
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INFORMATION A copy of the proposed bylaw and relevant background documents may be inspected at the Regional District office, 1350 Aster Street, Pemberton, BC, during office hours 8:00 am to 4:30 pm from January 17 to February 1, 2022 not including weekends and statutory holidays or on the SLRD website at www.slrd.bc.ca/9669PH. The public hearing is to be chaired by Electoral Area C Director Russell Mack as a delegate of the SLRD Regional Board. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION All persons who believe that their interest in the property is affected by the proposed bylaw shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to be heard or to present written submissions respecting matters contained in the bylaw at the public hearing. All persons can 1) submit written comments; and/or 2) make oral representations LIVE via online video or phone conferencing (your image will not be broadcast to the Board or the public). 1. Submit Written Comments to the Board: Written submissions must be addressed to “SLRD Board of Directors,” and include your name and mailing address. Until 4:30pm on January 31, 2022, written submissions will be received at the following: Email: Hard Copy:
planning@slrd.bc.ca Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Planning Department PO Box 219, Pemberton, BC V0N 2L0
Written submissions will also be accepted on February 1, 2022 between 8:00am and the time when the motion to close the Public Hearing is made. During this timeframe, written comments must be submitted by email to: cdewar@slrd.bc.ca 2. Participate LIVE via Online Video or Phone Conferencing The live Public Hearing will take place February 1, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. via online video and phone conferencing. The Public Hearing will be conducted using Zoom and can be accessed via either online video or phone conferencing. No registration is required. Log-in details will be posted to the notice page: www.slrd.bc.ca/inside-slrd/notices three days prior to the Public Hearing. You may also call the Planning Department three days prior to the Public Hearing at 604.894.6371 to get the log-in information.
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NEWS PEMBERTON & THE VALLEY
Plans for a new water treatment plant underway in Pemberton THE NEW TREATMENT PLANT WOULD BE DESIGNED TO FILTER OUT HIGHER-THAN-USUAL LEVELS OF MANGANESE AND IRON
BY HARRISON BROOKS AN INVESTIGATION into water quality in the Village of Pemberton’s (VOP) wells has revealed manganese and iron levels that exceed the new standards set by the Canadian government in 2019. The elevated levels were first discussed at the Pemberton council table in June 2021. While they aren’t something to be alarmed about, according to the VOP’s manager of operations and projects Tom Csima, plans are in the works for a new water treatment plant that would bring the levels back to normal range through filtration and oxidation of chlorine injection into the water. “The idea with this was that if we have a treatment facility that can remove manganese and iron, and we’ve specified this with our consultants, that potentially we could look at a new source [of water],” said Csima at the Jan. 18 Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting. With a new facility, the VOP could potentially draw water from the Lillooet River aquifer, which has never been an option before due to its even higher manganese and iron levels. “We know that the Lillooet River aquifer is quite plentiful. The issue is mainly that it’s poor quality. So potentially, we could use this treatment facility to treat a new source. We will consider potential other sources down the road, but it would definitely widen our horizons on what new sources we could tap into.” The proposed water treatment plant would cost somewhere in the range of $7.9 to $8.2 million dollars, with a 40-per-cent contingency added for unforeseen costs. However, the VOP may not be on the hook for the full cost, as Csima’s report to the COW also sought approval to apply for the Canada Infrastructure Program’s Green Infrastructure Stream Grant, which would cover 73.33 per cent of the cost.
WATER WOES The deterioration of water wells in the Village of Pemberton has incresed the urgency for the development of a new water treatment plant. FILE PHOTO BY ALYSSA NOEL
If successful, the grant would reduce the VOP’s costs for the project to $2.1 million dollars. According to Csima, the village’s water can still be distributed safely to the public in the meantime, and while there are no concerns about health problems with the manganese and iron levels, the deterioration of the village’s backup well has put more urgency on the need for a new water treatment plant. “Two years ago, we were looking for a fourth well within that aquifer, thinking that it will be good to have a backup, just in case something happens say with the pump that prevents us from using that primary well, but we were futile in that search,” said Csima. “But essentially, I think that regardless of the future source [of water], we will still need this source, and this issue could become very urgent. So I think that it’s
something that we’re kind of looking at as a ‘right now’ need … but we have enough time to plan it properly and execute it, and also seek funding that is available.” The plan is to build the new water treatment plant in one of two locations, both of which are near the current reservoir located in the northwestern corner of Pemberton. The first proposed location is to have the plant elevated above the reservoir on the north side. This location would add the benefit of having water gravity fed to the reservoir, however, the downside is it would probably require the current pumps to be upgraded. The second proposed location, and the one most likely to be used, according to Csima, is on the reservoir’s southeast bank, because the space is already available. If the VOP were to build the new plant on the north side of the reservoir,
adjustments would have to be made to the Benchlands Neighbourhood Concept Plan, which currently has townhouses planned for development in the same location. The request to prepare an application for the Green Infrastructure grant—due on Jan. 26—as well as to prepare an official authorization to be submitted to council at the Feb. 1 meeting were ultimately approved by the committee. The VOP has been contending with low pH levels in its drinking water for years, and started adding sodium carbonate (or soda ash) to the water to increase pH levels after testing in 2016 showed elevated levels of lead. Water with low pH levels is corrosive, and can result in increased levels of lead in drinking water from interactions with pipes and certain plumbing fixtures. Find the full report and a video of the meeting at pemberton.ca. n
Truth be told.
28 JANUARY 27, 2022
JANUARY 27, 2022
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RANGE ROVER
The How of Howe Sound WHENEVER I MAKE the drive to Whistler after being away, I’m not back in the ’hood’ until I hit Horseshoe Bay and see Howe Sound. I’ve contemplated this majestic indentation on many occasions,
BY LESLIE ANTHONY even beginning a recent book with a bluesky trip along the highway that limns it, describing the water, as I’ve always imagined it, shimmering “like a clinquant carpet.” Although I always appreciated Howe Sound, I didn’t know much about it. Working on the Fire & Ice Aspiring UNESCO Geopark project, however, I’ve learned more of its geology—how it was carved by a lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet during the height of the last Pleistocene glaciation; how the Porteau Cove Sill, sitting some 30 metres under the water’s surface, represents the terminal moraine of that glacier; how the copper mine at Britannia Beach was once the largest in the British Commonwealth; how a scatter of remnant volcanic vents can still be found along its northern reaches; and how the Stawamus Chief, a Cretaceous granitic pluton formed some 20 kilometres below the Earth’s surface, was eventually exposed through the dual processes of tectonic uplift and downward erosion.
HOWE NOW Squamish’s Howe Sound has a vast and vibrant history, whether you’re talking geology, biology or politics. GETTY IMAGES
So it was with these rocks in my head that I recently began work on a feature for British Columbia magazine about the newly designated Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound UNESCO World Biosphere Region. My research brought a lot more into focus, including the First Nations, colonial and natural histories of the area. To begin, of course, none of what Europeans “discovered” about Howe Sound was news to the Squamish or Shishalh First Nations whose villages had flourished along these shores since time immemorial. Yet the Euros still managed to do a halting, hamfisted job of figuring it out for themselves before wrecking the place. In early July of 1791, during a first exploration of the Salish Sea, Spanish naval officer José María Narváez piloted his 10-metre schooner, Santa Saturnina, north through the Strait of Georgia past a large delta (this would be the Fraser). Tacking far offshore to avoid sandbars and crosscurrents from the debouching river, he anchored off what’s today known as Point Grey, where Musqueam canoes soon arrived to trade. Departing, he entered Burrard Inlet, the harbour Vancouver would eventually coalesce around, but penetrated only as far as English Bay. Heading north again, he picked his way through a scatter of islands occupying an even larger break in the precipitous shoreline palisade. Eschewing another inlet to go ashore on the Sunshine Coast, he nevertheless liked what he’d seen, inking it in as Bocas del Carmelo—“mouths of abundance”—on his chart. The following summer intrepid British explorer Captain George Vancouver would fully survey the Bocas, discovering how
its islands occupied a funnel-shaped area (the virtual definition of “sound” to British navigators) before narrowing to a lengthy fjord. With typical colonial hubris, he named it after fellow naval officer Richard Scrope, a.k.a. Lord Admiral Earl Howe. Travelling that time of year, both he and Narváez may have seen grey or humpback whales surfacing, orcas chasing salmon, dolphins or seals, rock islets coated in lazing sea lions, sea otters floating on kelp mats, and everywhere scarlet ribbons of sockeye heading into coastal rivers to spawn—a plentitude neither could have imagined would be wiped out in a century, then take another century to even begin to reestablish. Though it would lose entirely some of its iconic megafauna to overhunting, overfishing and the food-chain ravages of industrial pollution from mines and paper mills as Vancouver burgeoned into a city of 2.5 million, Howe Sound nevertheless remained relatively wild for such a near-urban enclave. The fact that it’s still a place of fragile abundance and teetering beauty underscores the need for everyone who depends on it to work together to protect and enjoy it in a sustainable manner—the very reason behind the Biosphere Region designation. “We’ve seen a shift toward tourism and recreation and many more people visiting the region,” said Ruth Simons after shepherding the initiative to a successful completion through a five-year process. “Going forward there will be an emphasis on ensuring we’re conserving and protecting sensitive ecological areas and habitat so we don’t suffer any more biodiversity loss.” Jessica Shultz, a PhD candidate in marine
biodiversity at the University of Guelph who was also involved, outlines the strong biological arguments for protecting Howe Sound. “Over 700 species of marine animals live there. That’s representative of other coastal areas but the biosphere region is one way we can call attention to them. Relatively speaking, it’s easier to take care of more remote wildernesses, so the fact this one is used for activities that range from industrial to recreational to food harvesting make managing threats to its integrity a huge task. The work that needs to be done is finding a sustainable approach to all these.” Underpinning the sound’s biodiversity are its several special habitats. “These waters are important for forage fish that feed whales and salmon. Eel grass beds offer important nursery habitat for salmon and rockfish, provide a storm buffer and are important for climate change because they’re so efficient at transferring carbon into the sediments,” says Schultz. “And the 18 or so glass sponge reefs that have been discovered? Well, they’re a cornerstone for conservation and biological diversity, creating habitat for other creatures.” Bonus factoid: as it turns out, glass sponge reefs require two things to get started: bottom areas of low sedimentation—like the kind of towering substrates plowed up by glaciers; and high levels of dissolved silica—the kind an abundance of upstream volcanic rock delivers daily to the sound. How’s that for circling back to the rocks in my head? Leslie Anthony is a biologist, writer and author of several popular books on environmental science. ■
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Life after h t a e d
rders Two snowboa lost a part of fter themselves a d ea devastating h injuries—then they found each other
By Brandon Barrett / Photos by Irie Smith ON AN UNSEASONABLY WARM February day 17 years ago, Julie Smith died. Riding on Mount Seymour in spring-like weather, the 32-year-old was on a run she had done countless times before, and just at the point where she started to pick up some speed, she caught the heel-side edge of her board and fell backwards, her skull bearing the brunt of the impact. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. At Lions Gate Hospital, a social worker pulled her husband aside and, in hushed tones, told him the news no loved one wants to hear: Julie might not make it. 32 JANUARY 27, 2022
FEATURE STORY
O
n a chilly December day five years ago, Kody Williams died. The 23-year-old pro snowboarder was filming a session in Stanley Park, where he was riding a rail on a wooden staircase, when he fell and struck his head. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. Drifting in and out of consciousness, Kody was rushed to Vancouver General Hospital, where his mother remembers a doctor ushering the family into a small conference room. He drew a diagram of the head injury and explained the challenging surgery that would temporarily remove a part of Kody’s skull. Afterwards, he would be placed in a medically induced coma. It wasn’t clear whether he would survive the devastating brain injury, let alone walk, talk or ride again. “It was a lot of wait-and-see, a lot of pacing the walls, going to the chapel,” Kody’s mom, Jocelyn, told Pique in a 2020 interview. “A lot of tears, a lot of silent moments.”
‘I did die that day. My body didn’t and my soul didn’t, but I did’ Sitting here in Cranked on a bright December morning, cappuccinos steaming in front of us, Julie, now 49, and Kody, 27, are very much still alive. But both of them maintain an essential piece of themselves was lost on the day of their respective accidents, a dozen years apart. “I did die that day. My body didn’t, and my soul didn’t, but I did,” Julie says. “And as much as I kept trying to be here, I was just failing all the time. So I felt shitty all the time. I felt like a fraud and I felt like a fake, because I’m showing up as Julie, but she’s not there.” It’s something you hear from many people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries—or TBIs, as they’re known: physically at least, you appear the same as you always have, but internally, you’re anything but. “People think you’re fine on the outside but you’re still reflecting on yourself and figuring out how you are, personally,” Kody says. “It’s different all the time for me. There’s good days and bad days. The smallest things can trigger me sometimes. Not in an aggressive way. Onto myself. It’s hard to explain.” Both Kody and Julie can’t remember huge chunks of time both before and after their injuries, and pretty much everything they know about their lives from that time has been relayed to them by someone else. Julie still doesn’t recall the births of two of her sons. When I first ask Kody his age, he hesitates, initially unsure of the answer. It makes any kind of long-term planning an obstacle, and means even the simplest tasks have to get written down to jog the memory—although, as Kody joked, even remembering to do that can be difficult. I say it reminds me of Memento, the 2000 Christopher Nolan thriller about a man with a rare form of amnesia who uses an elaborate system of Polaroids and tattoos
to remember key memories in his quest to avenge his wife’s murder. Julie prefers the comparison to a much lighter film. “Have you watched 50 First Dates?” she asked. “Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, that was my husband and I. He would leave the hospital room. He’d go to the coffee shop because he was exhausted. He’d come back and I’d be like, ‘You haven’t been to see me in days.’ He was like, ‘I literally left five minutes ago.’” The irony is the one event that has altered the course of their lives more than any other is also the one they will never remember. Their accidents live like ghost stories inside them, told and retold by friends and family who have no interest in reliving them. For years after her fall, Julie would ask her husband again and again to tell her what happened that fateful day, poring over every small detail. “All I wanted to do was link it, and say, ‘Babe, tell me the story again.’ And all he wanted to do was forget the story. So it was brutal, because he was the only piece linking me to it. And yet I’d forget anyway. So then he had to keep reliving it,” she says. “Meanwhile, the person over here, us, we’re sitting here getting lonelier and lonelier. How the hell do I not remember that? How do you die on a mountain, come back and yet you don’t remember? How does that even happen?” Like Julie, Kody has had to rely on the recollection of friends to piece together what happened that day five years ago, but he did have a flash of memory when he happened to be walking though Stanley Park last summer and a strange sense of déjà vu came over him. “We were in Stanley Park and we were just walking and, I dunno, I saw the rail and had this weird gut feeling,” he says. Kody texted a photo of the rail to a friend who had witnessed the accident. “He was like, ‘Holy shit, that’s the rail. How did you know?’ I just had a feeling. No one’s been back to that rail since that day, other than myself, and I just stumbled upon it.”
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Born again At home with three kids, unable to drive, unable to do so many of the things that used to make her who she was, Julie spent the first three years post-accident in an identity crisis, living a pantomime of her past self. It got to the point where she woke up one morning and decided she needed a change. But first, she needed to grieve the loss of the old Julie. “I felt strongly I had to go back to Seymour and reckon with her. I call it a reckoning. I had to reckon with her,” she explains. Despite her family’s objections, Julie decided she needed to ride the same run that had been the scene of her crash three years prior, and she needed to do it alone. The conditions were approaching blizzard-like, and as Julie began the descent, she started to scream and cry out loud, first at the mountain. You’re not going to take me! she remembers yelling. Then she began talking to herself. Or at least the self she used to know, the Julie
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“There are times we don’t even have words because we can’t get them out properly. But I can look in Kody’s eyes on a painful day and know what he’s feeling.”
she pictures as a baby hanging around her neck, slowly suffocating her. “That day I physically took her hands out from my neck and I put her in my own hands, like this, like a baby Julie, and I looked her in the eyes, and I told her it was time to go. And I let her go,” she says. “I stood there and I cried for a while. Because there are parts of you that don’t want to let her go. But I can tell you that that was the day I received more freedom from my own self, and in giving myself permission to feel free, it allowed others to see me differently, whether they liked it or not.” Grieving her past self also came with an acceptance of who the new Julie had become. “What this has forced me to do is find out the essence of Julie. What is my essence? What did I show up in the world as before I hit my head? What were the healthy things? The not-so healthy things?” she says. “When I tapped into that, I was like, ‘Well, I know I love people. I know that I bring light to the world. I know that I love to laugh. I know that I’m compassionate.’ And so when I started to tap into who I was, that whole rebirth helped me fall in love with myself. I’ve never loved myself more in my whole life.” Nearly five years from his debilitating accident and Kody admits he hasn’t yet reached the point where he’s quite ready to grieve the loss of his past self. Where Julie is self-possessed and almost radically honest, Kody is less sure of himself, guarded. He is, by his own account, still figuring out what the new Kody is all about, while reconciling the parts of himself that have been irrevocably changed. The head injury left him with epilepsy, for instance, which means he has to take a cocktail of pills every day to stave off potential seizures, a new facet of his life he is still working through. “I’m still trying to figure myself out, I guess. It’s something I do need to work on more,” he says. “I hate taking those pills but I have to take them because it’s just who the new Kody is and it’s something I have to do. I still need to accept that this is something I’m going to have to take, it sounds like, for the rest of my life. It frustrates me but it’s not doing anything but making me the new me.” Kody has experienced a rebirth of sorts, though. After having to relearn how to walk, talk and even chew, doctors never expected he would ever ride a board again. But, like he has so many times since his life-altering accident, Kody defied the odds. In the 2020-‘21 winter season, he got back on snow, and all he can remember from that day is smiling. Lots of smiling. “What pushes me the most is probably when they said I wouldn’t ever be able to walk again. So being able to snowboard again and ride the way I’m riding is kind of an eff you to my injury. It’s me beating my injury,” he says. When we meet, it’s only days before the fifth anniversary of Kody’s accident, a day he looks forward to all season. “This is my favourite day to snowboard for me,” he adds. “Just because I had a 25-per-cent chance of making it through that night, so being able to go and snowboard on the day I almost died, it’s just my favourite day to go snowboarding.”
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FEATURE STORY ‘It’s like a soul thing’ Whistler’s snowboarding community being as insular as it is, Julie learned of Kody’s catastrophic injury not long after it happened. “I obviously didn’t know Kody but that was like a punch in the gut when I heard about his accident,” she recalls. Fast-forward a couple years, and Julie’s son, Truth, a regular at the Whistler Skate Park, told her about a friend and fellow skater named Kody he thought she should meet. She would see him at the skate park from time to time, but didn’t have the heart to approach him. That is until one day in the summer of 2019, when something inside her told her she had to take the leap. Julie walked straight into evo, where Kody worked at the time, and introduced herself. “At first I think I was a little shy and then I would open up more to you. Then seeing you at the skate park and seeing you more often, I got very familiarized and comfortable around you,” Kody tells Julie. Soon enough, plans were hatched to go for coffee, and the two friends have been meeting regularly ever since. Sometimes they dish about their injuries, laugh about their brain hiccups and short memories, while other times, they talk about their shared interests, like fashion or the latest absorbing article they’ve read. “The injury is what really brought us together and what made the friendship, but we’re more than just two brain injuries,” Kody says. At times, Julie will slip into mother mode, giving Kody advice on everything from his relationship to his latest filming session. “It’s funny because my role is as a friend, but then also Whistler mom. It’s like, OK, you’re my friend but also I’m going to mother you a little bit,” Julie laughs. “It’s always nice having her there. I can reach out to her,” adds Kody. “She is like my mother. She’s always there for me if I call.” The truth is they don’t even think about their 22-year age gap until someone else brings it up. Even from spending an hour with them, you can tell this is a friendship that defies age. Theirs is a natural, comforting chemistry, the kind that goes beyond just words, a world of emotion shared through a simple glance or knowing nod. “There are times we don’t even have words because we can’t get them out properly. But I can look in Kody’s eyes on a painful day and know what he’s feeling,” Julie says. “It’s like a soul thing. That’s all I can explain it as. It’s two souls who’ve gone through a really traumatic and difficult thing. And yet there’s an understanding there, and a love and a respect and an admiration.” Discussing his past trauma hasn’t always come easy for Kody, who admits he has been reluctant to talk with a therapist, despite the urgings of loved ones. But with Julie, there’s no therapeutic playbook to follow, but a mutual understanding that allows him to be whatever he is that day. “It’s a deeper understanding. A lot of people, nothing
“It’s like a soul thing. That’s all I can explain it as. It’s two souls who’ve gone through a really traumatic and difficult thing. And yet there’s an understanding there, and a love and a respect and an admiration.” - Julie Smith MisMack Clean Cosmetics, Salmon Arm, B.C.
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FEATURE STORY against them, but they can say they understand but there’s no way they’ll understand. I can look Julie in the eyes and I know she knows what I’m saying and she’s not just nodding her head,” he explains. “I’ve been told to talk to somebody, but Julie, not knowing who she was at first, I was comfortable just to talk with her because she actually lived it and she’s not just someone there to listen to me talk.”
Risk takers A few months ago, Julie had a dream. In her telling of it, the dream looked and felt like they were living inside of a movie, a movie called Kody and Me. “It’s just Kody and me and we’re just doing shit,” she describes. Visiting the farmers’ market. Eating snowcones. Walking alongside each other, balloons in hand. A simple, idyllic day— just two friends enjoying each other’s company. “I woke up and I was journaling about it and I was like, obviously this can’t be a movie. We’re not making a whole movie about Kody and me,” Julie says. “Then I started to think about how grateful I was.” Two-and-a-half years from that fateful day when Julie walked into evo to introduce herself, and that profound sense of gratitude remains. Gratitude for each other, for how far they’ve come, for the people they are today. “I think we protect ourselves so much from human connection because we’re so scared. I’m grateful. All I can say is: my gratitude for Kody in my life is so big,” Julie says. “Sometimes you have to take the risk. Sometimes it’s not the norm. And yet both of us were told we would never walk or talk again. So we get to be alive. That’s important. We get to do this life. We got a second chance. How do you want to live it? I tell you what, I’m going to risk it. I’m going to risk having someone say, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to connect with you.’ But I’ll always take the risk now.” n
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NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2022 – 5:30 P.M. This Public Hearing will be held electronically pursuant to s.465 of the Local Government Act and Council Procedure Bylaw No. 2207, 2018. ZONING AMENDMENT AND LAND USE CONTRACT DISCHARGE BYLAW (4700 GLACIER DRIVE) NO. 2322, 2021 SUBJECT LANDS: The parcels that are the subject of the proposed Bylaw are located at 4700 Glacier Drive, Whistler, and are legally described as Strata Lots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, together with an interest in Common Property, Strata Plan VAS2065, District Lot 3903. These lands are identified as “Subject Lands” on the map attached to this notice. PURPOSE: In general terms, the purpose of the proposed Bylaw is to discharge the Land Use Contract from the subject lands, and to zone the subject lands to a new Residential Tourist Accommodation Twenty-Nine Zone (RTA29). The RTA29 Zone will continue to permit the existing uses on the subject lands by permitting duplex dwelling, townhouse and auxiliary building and uses, and, in addition, will allow tourist accommodation when the dwellings are not occupied for residential use. The RTA29 Zone will allow an additional 2,884 m2 of gross floor area to be developed on the subject lands by permitting a maximum allowable gross floor area of 13,082 square metres, or a floor space ratio of 0.42, whichever is less. The RTA29 Zone will reduce the maximum building height from a maximum of six storeys or 65 feet (19.8 metres) under the Land Use Contract to a maximum of 14 metres, and will establish a maximum permitted site coverage of 40 percent. INSPECTION OF DOCUMENTS: A copy of the proposed Bylaw and relevant background documentation along with written submissions received may be inspected at the Reception Desk of Municipal Hall at 4325 Blackcomb Way, Whistler, BC, during regular office hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday (statutory holidays excluded) from January 20, 2022 to and including February 1, 2022. A copy of the proposed Bylaw and relevant background documentation along with written submissions received may also be viewed online on the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) website at: whistler.ca/RZ001141 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: All persons who believe that their interest in property is affected by the proposed Bylaw will be afforded a reasonable opportunity to be heard by Council at the Public Hearing. All persons can: 1) submit written comments to Council; and/or 2) make oral representations LIVE via online video or phone conferencing. (Your image will not be broadcast to Council or the public.) 1. Submit Written Comments to Council Written comments must be addressed to “Mayor and Council”, and include your name and mailing address. Until 3:30 p.m. on February 1, 2022, written submissions will be received at the following: Email: corporate@whistler.ca Hard Copy: Resort Municipality of Whistler | Legislative Services Department | 4325 Blackcomb Way, Whistler BC V8E 0X5 Written submissions will also be accepted on February 1, 2022 between 3:30 p.m. and the time when the motion to close the Public Hearing is made. During this timeframe, written comments must be submitted by email to: corporate@whistler.ca All submissions will form part of the Public Hearing record and will be added to the Public Hearing Package as they are received. The Public Hearing Package will be available on the RMOW website at: whistler.ca/RZ001141 2. Participate LIVE via Online Video or Phone Conferencing The live Public Hearing will take place February 1, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. via online video and phone conferencing. The Public Hearing will be conducted using Zoom and can be accessed via either online video or phone conferencing. No registration is required. If you wish to make oral representations to Council on the proposed Bylaw by online video or by phone, please use the Public Hearing web link or one of the phone numbers (including Webinar ID) provided below. • The web link for the Public Hearing online video option is: https://whistler.zoom.us/j/62404962049 • The phone numbers to access the Public Hearing phone conferencing option are as follows: +1-778-907-2071 +1-647-374-4685 • The Webinar ID is: 624 0496 2049 Instructions for Participating via Zoom Online Video or Phone Conferencing • Online video: It is possible to access the Public Hearing on a computer, tablet or smartphone using the web link above. Your camera will not be available, but your microphone will need to be enabled. To indicate that you wish to make an oral representation, click on the ‘raise hand’ feature. The moderator will allow each person to speak in turn. When it is your turn to speak, your microphone will be unmuted and you will be asked to provide your name and address for the public record. Please be patient as there may be others in the queue before you. • Phone conferencing: To access the Public Hearing by phone, use one of the phone numbers above along with the Webinar ID as prompted. To indicate that you wish to make an oral representation, use the ‘raise hand’ feature by dialing [*9]. When it is your turn to speak, the moderator will announce the last three digits of your phone number, and your line will be unmuted. You will be asked to provide your name and address for the public record. Please be patient as there may be others in the queue before you. After the conclusion of this Public Hearing, Council cannot receive representations from the public on the proposed Bylaw. General information on participating in the RMOW’s electronic public hearings is available here: https://www.whistler.ca/municipal-gov/council/public-hearings Members of the public can also view the Live Stream of the Public Hearing at: https://www.whistler.ca/municipal-gov/council/watch-council-meetings
ZONING AMENDMENT AND LAND USE CONTRACT DISCHARGE BYLAW (4700 GLACIER DRIVE) NO. 2322, 2021 Map showing Subject Lands
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SPORTS THE SCORE
Darcy Sharpe ready for opportunity to join snowboard superstardom HITTING THE PODIUM IN BEIJING WOULD PUT THE WHISTLER RESIDENT AMONG ELITE COMPANY WHO HAVE WON BOTH OLYMPIC AND X GAMES MEDALS
BY HARRISON BROOKS AT JUST 13 years old, Comox, B.C.’s Darcy Sharpe made the move to Whistler to pursue his snowboard career in what he calls the “glory land of good terrain parks.” While the five days a week on the mountain with the Whistler Valley Snowboard Club did wonders for the now 25-year-old first-time Olympian, moving away from home before even starting high school proved to be a challenging endeavour for the slopestyle rider. Describing that first year away from home as a “lonely and difficult time” due to not being accustomed to the different lifestyle of his host family, snowboarding became an escape to normalcy for Sharpe. And as his skills continued to grow exponentially, Sharpe won his first major event at 15 years old, when he bested all his peers on the Canadian National Team to snag the $15,000 grand prize at Monster Energy’s Shred Show in Whistler. The years following that win were mired by injuries that included a broken pelvis, punctured lungs, broken ribs, and a concussion. Then, in the first Olympic qualifying event of the 2017 season, a broken ankle effectively eliminated Sharpe’s chances of going to the PyeongChang Games the following year.
X GAMES GOLD Whistler’s Darcy Sharpe celebrates his X Games gold medal in Aspen, Colo., on Jan. 25, 2020. PHOTO BY TREVOR BROWN JR./ESPN
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“That was pretty devastating,” he said. “I missed the year and couldn’t qualify for the Olympics when I felt like I could have, and should have been there, even though the team was pretty stacked. It was going to still be a battle, but I felt like I was riding pretty good and ready to do it.” While watching those Games was, at times, depressing for Sharpe, one small silver lining was getting to watch his sister Cassie take home the gold for Canada in halfpipe skiing.
place finish at the US Open Championships. With his chances of making the 2022 Olympic Games increasingly likely, disaster nearly struck, as another major injury, this time a torn ACL, took Sharpe out during the Olympic qualifying season once again. Returning from that injury at the start of this season, Sharpe needed three good results in three events to qualify for the Games, putting him in the most pressure-filled situation he has faced so far as a professional. “I can’t even describe [it] … I’ve never
“Dropping into that run, I’ve never felt such bodily pressure before. I felt almost euphoric and lethargic and almost like stoned and psychedelic-y.” - DARCY SHARPE
“I went into a pretty dark place when I was just hanging out in my room and pissed off and not wanting to do a whole lot, and feeling pretty bummed and super low … That was definitely a rough time,” he said. “But when my sister’s event went, that was really a morale booster, for sure. It made me really happy and proud, so it wasn’t an all-bad Olympics.” After recovering from his nagging injuries, Sharpe overcame the disappointment of missing the 2018 games to continue his ascension up the slopestyle mountain. The 2020 season was one for the ages for Sharpe, as he took home three X Games medals (gold, silver and bronze) and a fourth-
felt that much pressure in my life,” said Sharpe, about his Olympic dreams all coming down to needing one more good finish at the World Cup stop at Mammoth Mountain, Calif. earlier this month. “Dropping into that run, I’ve never felt such bodily pressure before. I felt almost euphoric and lethargic and almost like stoned and psychedelic-y. The rail started to look different, my vision started to go a little blurry, and I was just tripping—and they were like, ‘OK, you’ve got to drop.’” Sharpe rubbed his eyes and cleaned his lens, but his vision didn’t get any clearer. “So I just dropped and landed my run, and that was another great feeling of relief,”
he said. “It was a great reminder that I do know how to deal with substantial amounts of pressure. That got me through to finals and I got fourth, so that was my best result ranking that I had through the qualifying year, and it got me my spot [in the Olympics].” Despite this being his first Games, with a handful of X Games and World Cup medals already under his belt, Sharpe knows he can compete with the top guys and has his sights set on landing on the podium in Beijing. With China being one of Sharpe’s favourite places to compete, the stage is set for him to achieve his goal and vault himself into snowboard stardom—a challenge and opportunity that he is more than ready for so he can give back some of the inspiration that Whistler has instilled in him since he moved here more than a decade ago. “I’m inspired by the local community in Whistler all the time, every time I ride the park and I see the Instagram edits and all that stuff. We’re one big community and it’s pretty cool, and I just appreciate the town of Whistler and all the people in it,” he said. “So I think that’s a pretty cool opportunity, and I don’t take it as wanting to be a household name so I can be famous, I take it more like it would be really cool to be able to inspire kids and also inspire more people to be active and be themselves. All that would be really cool.” This article is part of a series of profile stories highlighting athletes heading to the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, or those who hope to make it there. For others go to piquenewsmagazine.com. n
Back in Action Physiotherapy: Welcome to our team
Baye Drury
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FORK IN THE ROAD
Her Majesty’s drop… scones, that is A ROYAL TREAT FOR TEA TIME OR ANYTIME A BIG DAY’S coming up: Feb. 6 marks Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee celebrating 70 years since her accession to the throne after her father, George VI, died in 1952. Come on, now—I won’t tell anyone, but you do sometimes follow the royal family’s comings and goings (mostly goings these days), don’t you? After all, it’s a bit like life mimicking the hit Netflix series, The Crown, only tastier and more incredible. I’ve always kind of admired the Queen. She came to the throne just months after I was born, so we had that in common (add winking emoji), plus there weren’t many interesting role models for a young
BY GLENDA BARTOSH girl growing up in Edmonton in the 1950s who wasn’t remotely interested in being A., a nurse; B., a teacher; or C., an airline stewardess. Well, at least you got to travel to exotic places for free with that last one. But all those drunk and disorderly businessmen swilling rye and water?! No thanks. The clincher was my Auntie Clare, who defied all expectations of post-war women’s roles, professionally and otherwise, travelling the world and living in Palm Springs or Lake Tahoe, where she met everyone from Bob Hope to Lucille Ball. She gave us kids a View-Master and a threereel set of news images from the Queen’s coronation in London. That was a real eye-
SCONES FIT FOR A QUEEN With Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee and Pancake Day both coming up, drop scones from the U.K. will nicely celebrate both. PHOTO BY CATHERINE FALLS COMMERCIAL / GETTY IMAGES
40 JANUARY 27, 2022
opener to so many things, the power of the press included. So began my modest but continual interest in the Queen, who, as a human being (note, that excludes all the symbolism and baggage the monarchy embodies), seemed intelligent, witty and compassionate despite having the monstrous weight of The Crown to bear in her 20s. I think I was hitchhiking around Morocco about that age. Leading up to the start of the Queen’s platinum jubilee—a distinction, reports The Guardian, shared only by three other monarchs: Louis XIV of France; Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein; and King Bhumibol of Thailand—one of my favourite emails arrived: Shaun Usher’s Letters of Note. Always a delight. Usually featuring an image of the original letter, complete with yellowed paper and hand-or-typewritten messages, these are a smorgasbord of insight and fun. They range from a letter Patti Smith wrote to her soulmate Robert Mapplethorpe just before he died from complications of HIV/AIDS, to Bertrand Russell, at age 89, brilliantly turning down a debate with a fascist: “Nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.” The latest email featured a letter and recipe from the Queen to then-U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who loved Her Majesty’s drop scones. The timing, though, had nothing to do with the upcoming jubilee; today is the anniversary of the Queen’s original letter—January 24, 1960. The president along with his wife, Mamie, had visited Queen Elizabeth et al. at Balmoral Castle in Scotland a few months earlier and the Queen had forgotten to fulfil his request for the drop scone recipe until she happened to see his photo in the newspaper. (That darn power of the press again.) Since I had no idea what the difference might be between a drop scone versus a
regular scone, I called my old pal who grew up in England and lives there now—Janine Gavin, a.k.a. Jan Hurley, depending on when and where you knew her at Whistler. That might have been 1973, when she first arrived and catered for Toni Sailer’s Summer Ski Camps out of the old Keg ’N Cleaver Restaurant on Alta Lake, which was trucked in sections up Lorimer Road to become Whistler’s muni hall, something I bore witness to, cub reporter for the Whistler Question that I was then. Or it might be when she worked at the Question itself as one of our fabulous typesetters, or helped Nancy Greene and Al Raine start their hotel in the village. Either way, I figured Janine would be a good scone source, and she was. First off, is it “skawns” (rhymes with “lawns”) or “scones” (rhymes with Jones)? “It might have been a class thing
Enough for 16 people.
originally,” says Janine. “But more in the north they seem to say ‘skawns’ and in the rest of England it’s ‘scones.’” Oxford dictionary says both pronunciations are equally correct, but the Queen probably would have offered a drop “skawn” to President Eisenhower and Mamie at Balmoral, a fitting location since scones likely originated in Scotland around the 1500s. Mind you, those historic ones were thick and heavy, made with oats and formed into one large round, then sliced like a cake, whereas the Queen’s recipe is for drop scones “are really more like a pancake,” says Janine. “You cook them on a medium griddle on top of the stove, then serve them warm with butter in a chafing dish.” Likely a silver one for The Queen and her pals, and likely at afternoon tea. Butter only. No syrup or jam or clotted cream allowed. Drop scones are also perfect for Pancake Day, a.k.a. Shrove Tuesday. It falls right before Ash Wednesday, 47 days before Easter Sunday. This year it’s on March 1, so get out your griddle, or a nice iron frying pan will do. Otherwise, dig out your flour and eggs and caster sugar (we call it berry sugar) and get ready to celebrate Feb. 6 with the authentic recipe below. Better yet, check out the Letters of Note website, where you can see the original typewritten recipe from the National Archives and hear it read aloud by Queen Elizabeth herself… oops, I mean the inimitable Olivia Colman, who played Her Majesty in Netflix’s The Crown. There’s no going back. Don’t forget your white gloves. And keep your phone handy for updates on Prince Andrew.
Cook on a medium griddle on the stove top like pancakes, and serve warm with butter. n
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who foolishly gave away her grandad’s pancake griddle at Whistler. n
QUEEN ELIZABETH II’S DROP SCONES 4 teacups flour 4 tablespoons caster sugar (fine sugar like berry sugar) 2 teacups milk 2 whole eggs 2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda 3 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons melted butter Beat eggs, sugar and about half the milk together, add flour, and mix well together adding remainder of milk as required, also bicarbonate and cream of tartar, fold in the melted butter.
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Stuff of nightmares: Horror novel Dollhouse was inspired by dream from 20 years ago ANDREW MCMANAMAN DRAWS ON ’80S HORROR FLICKS AND HIS OWN SUBCONSCIOUS IN NEW BOOK
BY BRANDON BARRETT MOST OF US still have that one nightmare that was so vivid, so frightening that the memory of it lingers within us, sometimes for years on end. For former Whistlerite Andrew McManaman, it was a particularly terrifying dream he had as a seven-year-old that has refused to relinquish its hold on his psyche all these years later. “It was horrible. I’ll never forget it,” the author says. “I’m 27 and I still remember it clear as day 20 years later.” Not one to let a good idea go to waste, McManaman laid his two-decade-old nightmare into the foundation of his new horror-thriller novel, Dollhouse, about single mother Darla, who awakens to find herself trapped in a house in the woods, surrounded by six complete strangers and with no memory of how she got there. Every night when the clock strikes nine, the house’s only door unlocks. But as the group ventures out into the forest, it becomes clear something is lurking in the darkness that wants to do them harm, forcing them back to the cabin. With limited food and no water, Darla must solve the puzzle of who put them there,
HOUSE OF HORROR Andrew McManaman at a signing for his new horror novel, Dollhouse. PHOTO SUBMITTED
42 JANUARY 27, 2022
while deciphering the true intentions of her fellow housemates. A lover of horror from the late ’70 and ’80s, McManaman says films like John Carpenter’s The Thing and even Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and The Hateful Eight served as inspiration for the book. “I love when characters are isolated in a location. I don’t know if it’s a real term or not, but I consider those kinds of
While the idea for Dollhouse came well before the pandemic, the bulk of McManaman’s writing happened while he was living in Whistler (he moved to Vancouver last spring), much of it during lockdown. Dollhouse’s themes of isolation and paranoia ended up being timelier than he could have imagined. “As I kept writing Dollhouse, I was also in isolation and that feeling was obviously
“I love when characters are isolated in a location. I don’t know if it’s a real term or not, but I consider those kinds of movies a pickoff, like each character getting picked off one by one until there’s the final person.” - ANDREW MCMANAMAN
movies a pickoff, like each character getting picked off one by one until there’s the final person,” he explains. Like most great horrors of that ilk, the real threat lies not just in the monster lurking outside, but the people inside. “I’m so fascinated by human nature, and especially groups of people and how they react in a stressful situation. With Darla and all these other characters, not everyone is who they seem to be. That paranoia and that fear of one another is so prevalent,” McManaman says.
not nearly as extreme as [in the book] but it did help to experience that feeling of being stuck, a little freaked out and paranoid,” he says. “I love that drama, that chaos. I don’t know why, but I’m fascinated by it. Even now with everything going on, it’s interesting to see how people are reacting to this pandemic. There are people you didn’t even expect to have certain beliefs, but they do. It’s interesting times.” Dollhouse was originally put on paper as a short story, before McManaman, an avowed film buff, adapted it into a
screenplay. It wasn’t until the Ottawa native made the move to Whistler a few years back that he truly buckled down on the novel. As it turned out, Whistler’s distinct landscape loomed large over the writing process. “In my old dream as a kid, it was actually a house in the middle of the desert. Well, woods are way scarier,” he says. “I was on a hike in the middle of the woods and that feeling of night in the woods is a unique feeling. I know it sounds so cliché, but it is scary once you’re there. It’s a freaky feeling. I think being in Whistler was definitely helpful.” Now with his third novel under his belt, McManaman went the independent route for Dollhouse, releasing it through his own imprint, Popcorn Publishers, a nod to his love of films and the visual way he works. “There are certain books that read like a movie, and I love books like that, and that’s what I was trying to get at with it,” he says. But while the 27-year-old enjoys the freedom of self-publishing, he has his eyes set on a traditional publisher that specializes in horror Westerns, a subgenre that is near and dear to McManaman’s heart. “I love Westerns,” he admits. “One story is written, first-draft-wise, and I have three horror-Western ideas that I’m working on. I was maybe going to pitch out to them. I wouldn’t mind having a traditionally published book; I think it’d be great.” Dollhouse is available at the Whistler Public Library, on Amazon and wherever books are sold. n
MUSEUM MUSINGS
HIGHWAY HISTORY After Whistler Mountain opened for skiing in 1965, the drive to Whistler could sometimes be treacherous. LAFORCE COLLECTION
A harrowing journey up the Sea to Sky BY ALLYN PRINGLE FOR MANY PEOPLE, their first impression of Whistler begins with a trip up Highway 99 from Vancouver. Depending on the time of year and the weather, this can be anything from an inspiring journey with spectacular views, to a frustrating, slowmoving slog through traffic, to a harrowing experience sharing the road with drivers unprepared for snowy conditions. For Lynn Mathews’ mother, her first impressions were closer to the latter. Lynn’s mother had already visited the West Coast before her first visit to Whistler; when Lynn and David Mathews first moved out to Vancouver from Quebec, both her parents came out to see their new home. At the time, Lynn’s mother had never been in an airplane and didn’t particularly want to be in one, so she boarded a bus in New York and three days later Lynn’s father boarded a plane. Lynn picked her father up from the airport, and together they drove to Vancouver’s bus station to collect her mother. A year or two later, when Lynn had her first child in November 1967, her mother got on her first plane and ventured out to visit her new grandson in Whistler. She arrived the day after her grandson was born and, until that day, there had been no snow in the Whistler Valley. David picked her up at the airport and they stopped at the Squamish hospital where Lynn and the baby were staying the night. While they were there, it began to snow in Squamish. David, who had the lift company truck, suggested they leave before it snowed too much. When they returned the next day to collect Lynn and the baby, she got to hear about their adventures driving up
to Whistler. The highway between Squamish and Whistler today is very different from that of 1967 but, as Lynn put it, “the hill at Daisy Lake is still there.” She described this section at the time as “a very narrow hill with no shoulders, and very steep.” Though there wasn’t a large number of cars travelling up the highway, many of those that were encountered difficulties getting up that hill. By the time David and Lynn’s mother got to the hill, there were cars off the side of the road, some of them leaning towards the cliff. As they told Lynn, it was fortunate no cars ended up in the lake. David and Lynn’s mother came across a couple on their way home to Pemberton whose car was “definitely in the ditch.” Despite the fact the bench in the lift company truck would only comfortably fit three, David and Lynn’s mother offered the couple a ride as far as Whistler, where they could arrange for friends to pick them up. The four of them squished into the truck and zigzagged up the hill between the cars stuck on the sides. As it happened, one of the people they had picked up was from Norway, not too far from where Lynn’s mother was from. The two had a great visit as David drove them safely through the snowy conditions to Whistler. The next day, David and Lynn’s mother returned to Squamish to bring Lynn and the baby home to Whistler. It continued to snow steadily in the area and, according to Lynn, “my mother wasn’t sure just what I had moved to.” This sentiment was echoed by David’s mother when she came out to visit from Quebec in January 1968, a visit that involved a lot of snow, a power outage, and an evacuation by snowcat to the Ski Boot Motel—but that’s a story for another day. n
JANUARY 27, 2022
43
ASTROLOGY
Free Will Astrology WEEK OF JANUARY 27 BY ROB BREZSNY
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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Author Helen Hunt Jackson said that one component of happiness is “a little less time than you want.” Why? Because you always “have so many things you want to see, to have, and to do” and “no day is quite long enough for all you would like to get done before you go to bed.” I propose you experiment with this definition in the coming weeks. According to my astrological analysis, you will have even more interesting assignments and challenges than usual—as well as a brimming vitality that will make it possible for you to accomplish many but not all of them. Your happiness should be abundant! TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Born under the sign of Taurus, Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) had considerable skills as a composer of music, an athlete, an author, a passionate lover, and an activist working for women’s rights. She was successful in all of them. I propose we make her one of your role models for the coming months. Why? First, because she did more than one thing really well, and you are now primed to enhance your versatility, flexibility, and adaptability. Second, because she described a formula for high achievement that would suit you well. She said, “Night after night I went to sleep murmuring, ‘Tomorrow I will be easy, strong, quick, supple, accurate, dashing and self-controlled all at once!’” (PS: I suggest you make “supple” your word of power in 2022.) GEMINI (May 21-June 20): According to author Olivia Dresher, “Feelings want to be free. Thoughts want to be right.” Well, then, what about intuitions? In a sense, they’re hybrids of feelings and thoughts. They’re a way of knowing that transcends both feelings and thoughts. When intuitions come from the clear-seeing part of your deep psyche rather than the fear-prone part of your conditioning, they are sweet and fun and accurate and humble and brisk and pure. They don’t “want” to be anything. I’m pleased to inform you, Gemini, that in the coming weeks, your intuitions will be working at peak efficiency. It should be relatively easy for you to distinguish between the clear-seeing and fear-prone modes of intuition. CANCER (June 21-July 22): “If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it,” wrote humourist Leo Rosten. I offer his counsel to you right now because I want you to have fun if you wander away from your usual upstanding behaviour. But may I make a suggestion? As you depart from normal, boring niceness, please remain honourable and righteous. What I’m envisioning for you are experiments that are disruptive in healthy ways, and dares that stir up interesting problems, and rebellious explorations that inspire beauty and truth. They’ll be “wrong” only in the sense of being mutinies against static, even stagnant, situations that should indeed be prodded and pricked. Remember Bob Dylan’s idea: “To live outside the law, you must be honest.” LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo actor Anna Kendrick bragged, “I’m so humble it’s crazy. I’m like the Kanye West of humility.” I’d like to see you adopt that extravagant approach to expressing your magnificence in the coming weeks. I hope you’ll add another perspective to your repertoire, too—this one from Leo actor Mae West. She exulted, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!” Here’s one further attitude I encourage you to incorporate, courtesy of Leo author Rachel Pollack: “To learn to play seriously is one of the great secrets of spiritual exploration.” VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Sammy Davis Jr. (1925– 1990) was multi-talented: an actor, singer, comedian, and dancer. One critic described him as “the greatest entertainer ever to grace a stage.” He didn’t think highly of his own physical appearance, however. “I know I’m dreadfully ugly,” Davis said, “one of the ugliest men you could meet. But ugliness, like beauty, is something you must learn how to use.” That’s an interesting lesson to meditate on. I think it’s true that each of us has rough, awkward, irregular aspects—if not in our physical appearance, then in our psyches. And yet, as
Davis suggested, we can learn to not just tolerate those qualities, but use them to our advantage. Now is a favourable time for you to do that. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “It is the nature of love to work in a thousand different ways,” wrote the mystic Saint Teresa of Avila. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you’re due to discover new and different ways to wield your love magic—in addition to the many you already know and use. For best results, you’ll have to be willing to depart from old reliable methods for expressing care and tenderness and nurturing. You must be willing to experiment with fresh approaches that may require you to stretch yourself. Sounds like fun to me! SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “If you are drilling for water, it’s better to drill one 60-foot well than 10 sixfoot wells,” advised author and religious scholar Huston Smith. He was using well-drilling as a metaphor, of course—as a symbol for solving a problem, for example, or developing a spiritual practice, or formulating an approach to psychological healing. The metaphor might not be perfectly applicable for everyone in every situation. But I believe it is vividly apropos for you and your current situations. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): A well-worn proverb tells us, “All good things come to those who wait.” There’s a variation, whose author is unknown (although it’s often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln): “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustle.” I think that’s far more useful advice for you in the coming weeks. I’d much rather see you hustle than wait. Here’s a third variant, which may be the best counsel of all. It’s by author Holly Woodward: “All good things come to those who bait.” CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Author Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, “To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.” I agree, which is why I authorize you to add “Saint” to the front of your name in the coming weeks. There’s an excellent chance you will fit the description Stowe articulated. You’ll be at the peak of your power to elevate the daily rhythm into a stream of subtle marvels. You’ll be quietly heroic. If you’re not fond of the designation “Saint,” you could use the Muslim equivalent term, “Wali,” the Jewish “Tzadik,” Buddhist “Arhat,” or Hindu “Swami.” AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Since the iconoclastic planet Uranus is a chief symbol for the Aquarian tribe, you people are more likely to be dissenters and mavericks and questioners than all the other signs. That doesn’t mean your departures from orthodoxy are always successful or popular. Sometimes you meet resistance from the status quo. Having offered that caveat, I’m happy to announce that in the coming weeks, your unique offerings are more likely than usual to be effective. For inspiration, read these observations by author Kristine Kathryn Rusch: “Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style.” PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean author Juansen Dizon tells us, “Don’t find yourself in places where people have it all figured out.” That’s always good advice, but it will be especially germane for you in the coming weeks and months. You need the catalytic stimulation that comes from associating with curious, open-minded folks who are committed to the high art of not being know-italls. The influences you surround yourself with will be key in your efforts to learn new information and master new skills. And that will be an essential assignment for you throughout 2022. Homework: What is the feeling you want to have the most during 2022? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.
In addition to this column, Rob Brezsny creates
EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES In-depth weekly forecasts designed to inspire and uplift you. To buy access, phone 1-888-499-4425. Once you’ve chosen the Block of Time you like, call 1-888-682-8777 to hear Rob’s forecasts. www.freewillastrology.com
44 JANUARY 27, 2022
PARTIAL RECALL
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INTO INVERSIONS There’s nothing like a warm, sunny January inversion, as seen from the top of 7th Heaven on Friday, January 21. PHOTO BY JESSLYN GATES. 2 FIERY SKY Whistler might be due for a reset, but on the bright side, this string of clear days has meant a handful of fiery sunsets, best seen as always from a mountaintop. PHOTO BY ELISE DORE. 3 FLY THE FLAG A skier taking part in a Whistler Pride group ride day was spotted flying the rainbow flag on 7th Heaven on Tuesday, Jan. 25. PHOTO BY SUE KELLY 4 RACE WINNERS Whistler Mountain Ski Club (WMSC) athletes made the most of their home-course advantage at a pair of races on Whistler Mountain over the weekend. In the mens slalom event on Sunday, Jan. 23, WMSC’s Dreas Gibbons and Marek Novak finished first and second overall, while Jaden Chow of Cypress Mountain Ski Club came third. PHOTO SUBMITTED. 5 GETTING LIT Whistler Pride attendees mingle outdoors during Monday night’s” LIT! A Night at Vallea Lumina” event on Jan. 24. PHOTO COURTESY OF WHISTLER PRIDE. 6 SKI BUDDIES A fun day skiing with the ladies Jan. 23 on Whistler Mountain. Heidi Rode (left), Rachael Lythe and Catherine Power-Chartrand. PHOTO BY CATHERINE POWER-CHARTRAND. 1
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RE-USE-IT CENTRE Donations daily 10 am to 4 pm Accepting pre-loved clothing, gear and household items. Shopping daily 10 am to 6 pm 8000 Nesters Road 604-932-1121
RE-BUILD-IT CENTRE Donations daily 10 am to 5 pm Accepting pre-loved furniture, tools and building supplies Shopping daily 10 am to 5 pm 1003 Lynham Road 604-932-1125 Visit mywcss.org and our social channels for updates.
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Wiebe Construction Services Serving Whistler for over 25 years
• Kitchen and Bath • Renovations & Repairs • Drywall • Painting • Finishing • Minor Electrical & Plumbing VISITORS’ GUIDE 2017-2018 FREE
Ray Wiebe 604.935.2432 Pat Wiebe 604.902.9300 raymondo99.69@gmail.com
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BUY
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HOME SERVICES
HOME SERVICES
NOTICES
FLOORING
MOVING AND STORAGE
GENERAL NOTICES
SHAW
NORTHLANDS
CARPET & FLOOR CENTRE
Family owned & operated
Open Monday through Friday 8:30 - 4:30 Saturday 10:00 -4:00 Sundays and Evenings by appointment only.
STORAGE STORAGE SPACE AVAILABLE
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3-1365 Alpha Lake Road Whistler, B.C, V0N1B1 Phone 604-938-1126 email shawcarpet@shaw.ca
ROTARY CLUBS OF WHISTLER The Rotary Clubs of Whistler are now meeting virtually. The Whistler Club Tuesdays at 3. The Millennium Club Thursdays at 12:15. Contact us at info@Whistler-rotary.org for log in info. All welcome.
EMPLOYMENT
604.932.1968
ofce@northlandstorage.ca
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES ***Local Automotive*** Automotive technician for year round position in Whistler. 604-905-9109 steve@localautomotive.com
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RISE TO THE CHALLENGE GOLF MAINTENANCE OPPORTUNITIES Join the Whistler Golf Club Maintenance crew for the 2022 summer season! The Golf Maintenance department is hiring for the following specialized positions: • Irrigation Technician (Full Time, Seasonal)
MOVING AND STORAGE
• Grounds Maintenance (Full Time & Part Time Seasonal) • Volunteers (Seasonal) All positions require individuals who enjoy working outdoors, have golf experience, and the ability to deliver “Whistler’s Attitude”.
Services
HEALTH & WELLBEING
TO APPLY, PLEASE EMAIL YOUR COVER LETTER AND RESUME TO ANDREW ARSENEAULT: ANDREW@WHISTLERGOLF.COM.
PHYSICAL THERAPY
big or small we do it all! Call 604-902-MOVE www.alltimemoving.ca
Sally John Physiotherapy COVID-19 PRECAUTIONS TAKEN PRIOR TO APPOINTMENT DOUBLE VACCINATION REQUIRED
Resort Municipality of Whistler
Employment Opportunities · Legislative and Privacy Coordinator Instructor •· Lifeguard/Swim Assistant Recreation Facilities Coordinator – Outdoor ·· Program Leader Skate Host •·· Lifeguard/Swim Building Clerk I Instructor Wastewater Treatment Process Supervisor Resort Municipality ofPlant Whistler ·· Solid Waste Technician Labourer I – Village Maintenance •· Accountant Computer Systems Technician Supervisor · Youth and Public Services Specialist
REGISTERED PHYSIOTHERAPIST
IN HOME PHYSIOTHERAPY AVAILABLE
Employment Opportunities
CUSTOM-MADE ORTHOTICS at competitive prices for ski boots & shoes, including training shoes. 17 years of making orthotics
Legislative Coordinator Lifeguard/Swim Instructor • ··Fire Chief and Privacy ·· Program Leader Skate Host
Municipality of Whistler ··Senior Lifeguard/Swim Instructor •Resort Systems Analyst Wastewater Treatment Plant Process Supervisor
‘Sally John Physiotherapy’
whistler.ca/careers ·· Solid Waste Labourer I – Technician Village Maintenance
• ··Wastewater Operator I Specialist Accountant Youth and Public Services
2997 Alpine Cresent (Alta Vista)
(604) 698-6661
www.sallyjohnphysiotherapy.com
Resort Municipality of Whistler whistler.ca/careers
SPORTS & ACTIVITIES
Group Fitness Classes are BACK! Friday – Low Impact Strength @ 7:45-8:45 am w Carly Monday – Zumba @ 5:45-6:45 pm w Carmen Tuesday – SPIN @ 5:45-6:45 pm w Alex Wednesday – TRX Mixer @ 6:15-7:15 pm w Courtney
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See our full page schedule ad in this issue of Pique for details
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THE FIRST PLACE TO LOOK FOR LOCAL JOB OPENINGS NOVEMB ER 25, 2021 ISSUE 28.47 WWW.PIQ UENEWS MAGAZIN
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Vacasa Whistler is currently hiring:
GUEST EXPERIENCE AGENT 14
OPENING DAY Pique speaks to WB’s COO Geoff Buchheister for an update
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TAX TIME The RMOW is proposing a 6.72% property tax increase
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CANNABIS COMING The RMOW is
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ELIGIBILITY EXPANDING
COVID-19 vaccines available to Whistler kids
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TO GET SOME author SEQUENCING Whistler SKINS INreleases THE GAME thriller about dangers of genetic manipulation
UPH
Glacier Media Group is growing. Check our job board regularly for the latest openings:
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Recently opened uphill skiing corridor leaves much to be desired, advocates say
DECEMBER 23, 2021 ISSUE 28.51
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HISTORIC BID? First Nations exploring the feasibility of a 2030 Olympic bid
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GIVING SEASON There are plenty of ways to give back this holiday season
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SURVEY SERVICES LTD.
is looking for a
OFFICE ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR WeWe areare currently hiring for currently hiringthe thefollowing following positions positions for projectsininWHISTLER. WHISTLER. projects Journeymen Carpenters (5+ years) Journeymen Carpenters (5+ years)
Skilled Labourers Skilled Labourers
We offer competitive pay, a benefits package, company cell phone plan, interesting projects, We offer competitive pay, a benefits package, company cell a collaborative team environment, andteam phone plan, interesting projects, a collaborative environment, chance toyour improve your existing a chanceand toaimprove existing skills. skills. We are looking for dedicated team players who want to join a We arerapidly looking for dedicated team players growing company and establish a who long-term career in construction. want to join a rapidly growing company and
establish a long-term career in construction. Please forward your resume to Lea@gccltd.ca
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ISSUE 28.52 Mixing old and new 2021 CHRISTMAS DECEMBER 30,VARIED
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traditions to make Christmas special
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COVID CUTBACKS
Whistler new COVID-19 health orders
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YOUR HEART OR OFFER IT TO SOMEONE ELSE THAT NEEDS IT
SURVEY FIELD TECHNICIAN:
with a two or three year college or technical school program in geomatics. Three years’ experience and Proficient in the use of robotic survey instruments and GPS equipment for engineering and building construction layout, topographic site surveys, site improvement surveys and precise monitoring. Experience with AutoCAD Civil 3D also an asset to assist in office with computations and drawing preparation. 14JANUARY 6, 2022 ISSUE 29.01 15 RMOW shares some details of the cyber attack
RANSOMWARE
Please call Ian @ 604-932-3314 or email @ ian@dbss.ca
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Exciting Career Opportunities APPLY TODAY! Diamond Resorts Canada Ltd., Whistler, BC
SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS Eligible successful candidates may receive*: • Extensive benefits package that may include: ski pass or wellness allowance, disability coverage, travel insurance and extended health and dental
• New hire bonus up to $1,000 • Discounted employee rates at any Diamond Resorts property • Full-time work year-round and a FUN work environment
Email your resume with the position you wish to apply for to:
embarc_hr@diamondresorts.com Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV) acquired Diamond Resorts International (DRI), and its subsidiary companies, such as Diamond Resorts Canada, Ltd. (DRCL), as of August 02, 2021. If you apply to work at Embarc, you will be an applicant of a subsidiary of HGV. A transition to HGV will occur as we integrate technology, systems and branding, but it will take time until our separate operating systems, employment policies and benefits are fully integrated. As a result, for a period of time, employees will receive correspondence and messaging from Embarc as well as from HGV and related entities. *Eligibility and conditions based on DRCL policies and practices set out in general terms and conditions of employment. 2112-1001
Whistler’s premier visitor magazine is on stands now!
Whistler Premier Resorts, Whistler’s leading property management firm is currently recruiting!
What We Offer You:
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The current career opportunities are:
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Look for our Winter 2022 Issue! Find it on select stands and in Whistler hotel rooms.
ROOM ATTENDANT GUEST SERVICE AGENT ROOM •ATTENDANT NIGHT AUDIT HOUSEMAN/INSPECTOR GUEST• SERVICE AGENT GUEST SERVICE NIGHT AUDIT • SUPERVISOR HOUSEMAN APPLY TODAY AT PEOPLE@WHISTLERPREMIER.COM
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EXCITING CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, APPLY TODAY! Diamond Resorts Canada Ltd., Whistler, BC
Currently seeking a full time Quality Assurance Representative to explain contracts to potential & existing Embarc Members at time of purchase. $25.00 per hour plus bonus Eligible successful candidates may receive*: •
Extensive benefits package which may include; ski pass or wellness allowance, disability coverage, travel insurance and extended health and dental. • Discounted employee rates at any Diamond Resort International resort. • Full-time work year round and a FUN work environment.
*eligibility and conditions based on DRCL policies and practices set out in general terms and conditions of employment. Please note that Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV) acquired Diamond Resorts International (DRI) as of August 02, 2021. If you apply to work at a Diamond Resorts company you will be an applicant of a subsidiary of HGV. A transition to HGV will occur as we integrate technology, systems and branding but it will take time until our separate operating systems, employment policies and benefits are fully integrated. As a result, for a period of time, employees will receive correspondence and messaging from Diamond Resorts as well as from HGV and related entities.
Email your resume with the position you wish to apply for to: embarc_hr@hgv.com
The Pinnacle Hotel Whistler has the following positions available:
ROOM ATTENDANTS Starting rate of $23 p/h
Please reply by email: parmstrong@pinnaclehotels.ca JANUARY 27, 2022
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Join our team!
UNLIMITED SEASON SKI PASS INCLUDED IN YOUR HIRING PACKAGE! we also provide our staff with: Competitive Wages, Health Benefits, Gratuities, Employee Discounts and Staff Housing
JOIN OUR TEAM Cooks, Dishwashers, Expeditors, Hosts
PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR RESUME TO: CAREERS@ILCAMINETTO.CA
Chef wanted – The Chef is responsible for showcasing fresh, Indigenous inspired cuisine to our guests. With your expertise in menu planning and experience in event style food production, your passion for food is evident. As the Chef, you provide consistently high quality food offerings that are a natural extension of our unique cultural guest experience. The Chef will strengthen the skills of the kitchen and café team and continue to mentor team members who are enrolled in the Red Seal certification program. The Chef will work closely with our leadership team to plan and execute menu tastings, menu pairings and banquet style food for our events. Your critical thinking, organization and excellent communication skills elevate those around you; you lead by example. This position is hands on and focuses on the kitchen and café with some administrative tasks familiar to a leadership role. We offer a flexible schedule, benefits package, wellness benefit, training and education allowance, great wages and a supportive workplace. If you are interested in this position, we would love to hear from you.
Please send your cover letter and resume to human.resources@slcc.ca by Thursday, February 10th, 2022.
For a full job description, please visit our website at slcc.ca/careers.
NORTH ARM FARM FARM FIELD LABOURER
Weeding, irrigating, harvesting and processing fruits & vegetables. At least 2 full seasons of agricultural experience required. Looking for hardworking individuals able to work in all types of outside conditions. Minimum 40hrs/wk over a minimum 5 days/wk. 40 to 65 hours/week. $15.20 - $18/hr. Job duration: 32 weeks Jan 1st-Aug 31st -or- March 3rd-November 3rd 2022 Applicants can mail, or email resumes to North Arm Farm PO BOX 165, Pemberton, BC V0N 2L0 Email: info@northarmfarm.com
EXCITING CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, APPLY TODAY! Diamond Resorts Canada Ltd., Whistler, BC
Full Time & Part Time Housekeepers Eligible successful candidates may receive* • $750.00 Hiring Bonus for successful full time candidates; $375.00 Hiring Bonus for successful part time candidates! ((if hired between January 1, 2022 and June 30, 2022) • Extensive benefits package which may include; ski pass or wellness allowance, disability coverage, travel insurance and extended health and dental. • Travel Allowance and discounted employee rates at any Diamond Resort International resort. • Full-time work year round and a FUN work environment. *eligibility and conditions based on DRCL policies and practices set out in general terms and conditions of employment. Please note that Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV) acquired Diamond Resorts International (DRI) as of August 02, 2021. If you apply to work at a Diamond Resorts company you will be an applicant of a subsidiary of HGV. A transition to HGV will occur as we integrate technology, systems and branding but it will take time until our separate operating systems, employment policies and benefits are fully integrated. As a result, for a period of time, employees will receive correspondence and messaging from Diamond Resorts as well as from HGV and related entities.
Email your resume with the position you wish to apply for to: embarc_hr@hgv.com
50 JANUARY 27, 2022
We all crave what is beyond the everyday. The new, the exciting, the unordinary. At The Adventure Group we don’t just pass the time, we forget it even exists. Come and grow with us.
NOW HIRING THE FOLLOWING FULL TIME ROLES
ADVENTURE SPECIALIST VALLEA LUMINA SUPERVISOR (All Vallea Lumina Roles offer Top Industry Rates & End of Season Bonus)
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6 9 TRAVEL CONSULTANT Full Time, Year Round
Travel Consultants have a passion for ensuring that guests have the best possible vacation experience in Whistler. The main goal of a Travel Consultant is to sell an entire Whistler vacation package, including accommodations, activities and transportation.
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What we offer: a great schedule offering work-life balance, excellent benefits, and a great team environment.
THE FIRST PLACE TO LOOK FOR LOCAL JOB OPENINGS
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2 6 4 3 5 7 the delivery of an unforgettable culinary experience for guests 5 6 2 •• Lead 4 8 1 Provide leadership, development and motivation to the team to Currently seeking a Restaurant Director to inspire and oversee the front-of-house team and deliver a unique, elevated guest experience.
ensure is always paramount through consistent # 5 guest experience MEDIUM delivery of high-quality food and beverages
MEDIUM
What we’re looking for: individuals with outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, a high level of enthusiasm and initiative, and an interest in sharing their love of Whistler.
#6
• Oversee all day to day and event activity to ensure proper planning and execution • Minimum 8 years of experience in food and beverage industry
TO VIEW OUR CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, AND TO APPLY, VISIT US ONLINE AT WHISTLER.COM/CAREERS.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in a management role in food and beverage industry preferably within a similar venue
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9 7 8 1PLEASE 3 SUBMIT YOUR RESUME TO: 4
2 CAREERS@TOPTABLE.CA 6 8 7 9 4 3 2 8 3 3 9 3 2 Employment Opportunities: 6 4 2 8 9 1 2 5 6 www.whistlerexcavations.com 5 9 7 9 The Sea to Sky corridor’s top civil construction company. 5 6 1 3 1 We are currently recruiting professionally minded 2 6 3 7 Apply 4 to: jobs@pembertonvalleylodge.com 6 5 4 people to join our team. Competitive wages, health benefits, casual environment 9 6 5 6 8 Required are:
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Heavy Duty Technician MEDIUM Class 1 Truck Drivers
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Please send resume to: Email: info@whistlerexcavations.com
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is now hiring for
Assistant Maintenance Manager
This dynamic role includes the following Perks and Benefits: 3 7 9 8 1 6 5 4 2
#7
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9 1 2 6 6 9 4 5 4 7 8 3 3 5 9 1 7 6 9 4 1 2 3 8 5 9 1 2 4 7 8 reply cover letter and 2Please 4 1 8 5 3with 7 6a 9 8 resume 7 5 6 to 3 2 4 7 5 2 8 9 hr@listelhotel.com 6 1 3 2 4 8 3 1 7 8 Thank 2 6 5 1 your 9 7 interest. 4 6 applicants 9 1 8 5 4 you3 for Only those 1being 9 3 considered 6 4 7 5 for 2 an 8 interview will be 5 contacted. 3 7 2 6 9
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Building Clerk
(Regular, Full-time)
Youth Case Worker
The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) is located in southwestern BC and consists of four member municipalities (Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, Lillooet) and 4 electoral areas. The region contains some of the most spectacular forests, waterways, and mountains in the province and affords an endless range of opportunities for outdoor adventure. Headquartered in Pemberton, which is the approximate geographic centre of the region, the SLRD delivers a wide range of regional, sub-regional and local services to its residents. Services include land use planning, solid waste management, building inspection, fire protection, emergency preparedness, 911 services, recreation, water and sewer utilities, regional transit, trails and open spaces as well as financial support for various community services. The SLRD is seeking an experienced, energetic and customer-focused individual to fill the fulltime position of Building Clerk. Reporting to the Director of Planning and Development Services, the Building Clerk will be responsible for coordinating and processing building permit applications, maintaining building files and information, conducting background research, providing building statistics and assisting with other day to day building department administration activities. The Building Clerk will also provide front line service to the public, providing information on building permit applications, building processes, policies, and regulations. The ideal candidate will have 1-2 years of related work experience, preferably in a local government Planning and Building department setting, and will possess a high school diploma supplemented with courses in building technology, public administration or related field (an equivalent combination of training and experience may be considered). For further information, please refer to the full job description at www.slrd.bc.ca/employment. Based in the SLRD Office in Pemberton, this position offers a competitive salary based on experience, a comprehensive benefits package, participation in the Municipal Pension Plan and a compressed work week (nine-day fortnight). Interested candidates are invited to submit their cover letter and resume (preferably in pdf format) by email, no later than February 13, 2021 at 11:59 pm, to careers@slrd.bc.ca. We sincerely thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those shortlisted will be contacted.
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FACILITIES ENGINEER
Flexible Roles & Flexible Hours
52 JANUARY 27, 2022
P: Justa Jeskova
Full Time, Year Round
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WE ARE HIRING
UNLIMITED SEASON SKI PASS Part-time Labourers and Full-time Scaffolder/Carpenter • Great working atmosphere with a fun crew operating in the Sea to Sky corridor • Competitive wage negotiable based on experience • Experience preferred but not mandatory for Labourer position • Internal paid training • Physical ability to complete the tasks; heavy lifting, bending, reaching etc. is required on a daily basis
Included in your HIRING PACKAGE! we also provide our staff with: Competitive Wages, Health Benefits, Gratuities, Employee Discounts and Sta�f Housing
JOIN OUR TEAM Hosts, Server Assistants, Cooks, Dishwashers, Food Expeditors
• Schedule is typically Monday – Friday 7am-3pm
Send cover letter and resume to admin@alpinescaffolding.com
JOIN OUR TEAM, WE ARE HIRING! We have the following positions available to join our well established family practice: REGISTERED DENTAL HYGIENIST (FT or PT) who is a team player, hard working, able to multi-task, and is very personable. New grads welcome! No weekend or evening shifts! Free parking in Creekside! Extended benefits package provided after 3 months of employment. Please send your resume to: managercreeksidedentalwhistler@gmail.com
Submit your resume to: elle.boutilier@araxi.com
STEP INTO THE SOUL OF WHISTLER Crystal Lodge is recruiting fun and friendly individuals to join our team in the following roles: • • • • • • • •
Reservations Coordinator Manager on Duty Front Desk Agent Housekeeper Night Janitor Bell Person Experience Ambassador Maintenance Technician
IT’S EASY TO APPLY VIA OUR WEBSITE: WWW.CRYSTAL-LODGE.COM/CAREERS
JANUARY 27, 2022
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Lil’wat Nation
Employment Opportunities • • • • • • •
Be a part of an amazing team as our newest Digital Account Representative!
• • • • • • • •
Accounting Assistant Worker - Finance Administrative Assistant to Health Director Cashier - Gas Station Cultural Coordinator - Social Services Early Childhood Educator and/or Assistant - Daycare Early Childhood Educator Infant Toddler - Daycare Education Jurisdiction Coordinator - Xet’olacw Community School Family Enhancement Worker - Social Services Home Care Nurse RN or LPN Indigenous Support Worker Casual - Ts’zil Learning Centre IT Co-ordinator Kindergarten Teacher - Xet’olacw Community School Kitchen Helper Tsipun Project Coordinator - Social Services Receptionist - Ts’zil Learning Centre
We have a rare opportunity to work at one of Canada’s best-read online newsmedia companies, Glacier Media. You will be part of the Pique Newsmagazine team, a division of Glacier Media. In your role you will consult with local businesses to offer cutting edge marketing solutions: programmatic, social media, SEO, sponsored content and community display advertising on our website and yes, we still reach customers through our trusted newspaper as well.
Benefits Pension Plan Employee Assistance Program Extended Health Benefits Professional Development Gym facility Please visit our career page for more information: lilwat.ca/careers/career-opportunities-2/
What we are looking for • • • • •
You are comfortable making cold calls and setting up/leading meetings with new and existing clients. A self-starter with a consultative selling approach working with clients planning both digital and print advertising campaigns. Building and maintaining client relationships with your exceptional communication skills comes easy to you. You are a goal orientated individual with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn. You possess strong organizational skills and have the ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment.
What we offer • • •
Competitive salary + uncapped commission package. Comprehensive / competitive group health and welfare benefits Extensive onboarding training and ongoing support.
Whistler has a worldwide reputation for outdoor recreation and boasts a vibrant village featuring restaurants, bars, retail and more. While this legendary resort is an international mountain sports mecca, it is also a down-to-earth mountain town, where community and culture have forged a unique environment. This opportunity offers you the chance to call a world-class ski hill you own—and if you are a local, well you know you’re in the right place to forge a career and lucky to call Whistler your home.
To apply, please submit your cover letter and resume in confidence to Susan Hutchinson, shutchinson@wplpmedia.com Closing date: Open until filled.
54 JANUARY 27, 2022
NESTERS MARKET & WELLNESS CENTRE
NOW HIRING Deli, Bakery, Produce, Grocery and Meat Clerks Cashiers Full or Part Time E-mail or drop in your resume to: bruce_stewart@nestersmarket.com please cc ian_fairweather@nestersmarket.com or call us at 604-932-3545
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Reporter Pique Newsmagazine has a rare opportunity for an experienced and committed journalist to cover local news, politics and mountain culture in North America’s premier mountain resort. You are passionate about news and politics, and have a sense of what makes a compelling local news story. You seek to engage and inform your community in print and online platforms, and use social media effectively. You are selfmotivated, efficient and deadline driven, with a curious, critical mind and an acute attention to detail. You are able to work well both on your own and with a team.
We offer competitive wages, a unique environment, seasonal bonuses, staff discounts and benefits. Ask about accommodation.
Come Grow Sport with us at our Whistler Olympic Legacy Venues
Whistler Athletes’ Centre (High-Performance Training & Accommodation) Guest Service Agent/Lodge Attendant
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You have experience working in a newsroom, and ideally in covering municipal council, elections, and governments at all levels. Other relevant skills include copy editing, long-form feature writing, Instagram posting and story creation, and newspaper layout using InDesign. Located in the mountain resort town of Whistler, British Columbia, Pique Newsmagazine is the unequivocal leader in reporting, interpreting and understanding the culture of the Coast Mountains and what it means to those who live, work and play in Whistler. At 27 years young, we’ve established ourselves as the locals’ publication that’s inquisitive and edgy, provoking conversation and building community. With our peers we’re acknowledged perennial winners at the BC & Yukon Community Newsmedia Awards (BCYCNA) and Canadian Community Newsmedia Awards (CCNA) for general excellence and reporting categories, as well as several Webster Awards honours over the years. We’re known for our unique artsy design, weekly long-form features and comprehensive news coverage, but of course our reach is global, with loyal readers from Vancouver, Seattle, Toronto, Hong Kong and all over the world who come to piquenewsmagazine.com daily for the best Whistler storytelling and news source. To apply, send your resume, clippings, or other relevant materials, as well as a cover letter making the case for why we should hire you to Braden Dupuis, bdupuis@piquenewsmagazine.com Application deadline: February 3, 2022
WHISTLER PUBLISHING Visit our website to view current postings and to apply:
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PUZZLES ACROSS 1 5 10 14 19 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 35 39 41 42 44 45 48 52 53 56 60 61 63 64 65 68 69 71 73 74
Oft-misused pronoun Nightclub Willie of baseball Crush Residences Kind of committee (2 wds.) Audibly Free Torpid Fencer’s ploy Boom box Brainy Socked in Bean used in falafel Healthy upstairs “Star Wars” name Weak point Hooded pullover Foliage Teachers’ org. Spring blossom Son of Prince Valiant Pirate’s booty Gloss target Mag execs Quart or inch Ketch cousin Cozy seat Oval Eurasian range Jungle crusher Tailors’ needs Shakespeare’s shrew Apply more asphalt Edible bulb Bodily strength Writer -- Grey
76 77 78 79 80 82 83 84 85 86 87 91 93 94 95 96 99 100 102 103 104 106 108 109 110 111 114 115 117 118 119 120 121 123 125 127 132
135 139 140 142 144 145 146 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157
Ration out Ringo, once “The Vampire Diaries” lead Rower’s need Landscape Mine and thine Whiskey grains Some bout enders Go shopping Make into leather Under tension Downtown Chicago Tempted Treat fractures Terra -Hoity-toity (hyph.) Honda rival Black mark Bounds Get hitched quick Flowery Vacation destination Go around the world North African lute Straighten Lack of experience Wrath EPA concern Ax cousin Friend Distinct periods Clinched, as a deal “Oh, gross!” Room to maneuver Soft lid 1942 naval battle site (2 wds.) Plan
Moth repellent Sulu crew member Cry of dismay Prevail upon Fill with joy Musical groups Proclamation Ring-shaped reef Moisten with drippings Ohio Amerindians Fakes out, on the rink Robust Poker stakes Sharp dresser Classroom fixture Overpublicizes Weight deduction
DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20
Faint smell Esteem Sweater letter Blending together Wacky Brainstorm Mourning period, in Judaism Role for Arnold Harvest moon mo. Nick or scratch North Slope state Jedi master Taking to court Tremble Weird Chopin opus Metric measure Untrusting Panache
23 34 36 37 38 40 43 45 46 47 49 50 51 54 55 57 58 59 62 63 66 67 70 71 72 75 77 79 81 82 84 85 86 88 89 90 92 93 94
Mover and shaker Story Fiesta shouts Policy addendum Pacino and Hirt Hits the buffet Parish priest Splinter Cautiously Highest point Class Public squares Ravi’s forte Pew locale Seine moorage Just slightly (2 wds.) Warm fabric Byway Briefcase item Tip over Like bathmats Tijuana “Mrs.” Corrects a text Poet’s contraction More spiteful -- de corps Coiled hairdo Ooola’s Alley -So-so mark Cereal grain Campground initials Khartoum’s land Tie up a horse Mullah’s tongue Strike caller Took a bite Poem by Keats Sword thrusts Urbane
95 96 97 98 99 101 104 105 107 110 112 113 116 118 120 122 124
Sitcom waitress Some August people Pickling ingredient Extinct bird Grand Canyon st. Miss Piggy’s pronoun Passe Pass legislation Actress -- Hagen Long sighs Toward shelter Are, in Taxco Protected Kitchen utensil Fix firmly Slick Guns, in cop shows
126 127 128 129 130 131 133 134 135 136 137 138 141 143 147 148
It divides to multiply (var.) To the third power John or Maureen Minor quarrel (hyph.) Gazed at Relieved Harebrained Sag Stonehenge builders “-- luego, senor!” Riverbank clown Brooklyn Dodger great Explorer Zebulon -Paste “For shame!” Hearth residue
LAST WEEKS’ ANSWERS
Enter a digit from 1 through 9 in each cell, in such a way that: • Each horizontal row contains each digit exactly once • Each vertical column contains each digit exactly once • Each 3x3 box contains each digit exactly once Solving a sudoku puzzle does not require any mathematics; simple logic suffices.
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM
9 1 5
3 4
2 4 1 7
1
6
4
5
2 6 7 8 1
9 7
3 7
8 4
7 6
MEDIUM Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com # 6
ANSWERS ON PAGE 51
JANUARY 27, 2022
57
MAXED OUT
Disaster as entertainment—until the next distraction TWO TECTONIC plates budge slightly and the Earth shrugs indifferently, the way it’s been doing forever. Villages disappear. Thousands die. Dreams, homes, lives, the past, the future are swept away, ground to bits, bloated by the tropical sun. Change the channel, honey, we’ve seen this movie before. A somnambulant, hungover first world awakens from its post-Christmas binge of indulgence, reaches into its pocket and flips some spare change, a Tums and the insurance settlement it got for the trip it didn’t take because we haven’t reached
BY G.D. MAXWELL peak covid yet. “Sorry, it’s the best I can do on short notice.” Challenged by an unimportant do-gooder from an irrelevant part of town and upbraided by a friend for being stingy—stingy? Moi?—it fumbles in the other pocket, the one with foldin’ money, and coughs up another $20. The friend, not waiting for the taunts of parsimonious penny-pincher, ups the ante with $40 of its own. And the new wave of giving goes round and round, each friend, each country in turn raising the bet, sweetening the pot in a seemingly endless cycle of call and raise. The game takes on a life of its own. But no one stops to ask, “Hey, just what the heck is the appropriate response to this catastrophe?” In the aftermath of the unwanted late Christmas present visited on some remote place people had given passing thought to as a potential vacation, what’s a first-world boy or girl supposed to do? Send money? Lots of that being promised, bundled and headed in the direction of the people who need it and the miscreants who’ll siphon off more than their share. Demand government action? Lots of that being demanded, with heads of state being chided for stinginess and delay and general inaction. Pitch in and help? Don’t know if it’s such a good idea to add another body to an area unable to nurture the living already on the ground. Go on vacation? What the hell, why not? I mean we—and by we I mean those who still have either cash or credit—have deprived ourselves for, let’s see, two years! And there’s all those ads beckoning us. Those photos. Under a colourful beach umbrella poked into the sand sit two comfy-looking chaise longues. In one, a man so white he’d better have slathered on SPF 5,000 sunscreen, reclines. He looks well rested but for all we know, he’s just spent three days in travel hell trying desperately to escape from a high-pressure human resources job where he’s spent the previous year downsizing
58 JANUARY 27, 2022
GETTYIMAGES.CA
thousands of working stiffs into oblivion for the benefit of the company’s shareholders. He might be asleep or just resting his eyes. We can’t tell since he has shades on. A small table beside him holds a drink with melting ice and a book. Maybe he’ll read later. Maybe he’ll go for a swim. Maybe he’ll just order another drink. The beach itself looks very well tended. The sand is inviting, the sky is blue and the picture feels warm. A tropical vacation. Next to him is another chaise. Its thin, blue pad is covered at the upper end by a colourful beach towel showing a blazing sun setting behind palm trees and a distant mountain across a postcard bay. The man’s female companion sits pensively on the
tsunami. Branches, sticks, seaweed, ropes, fishing floats, a blue tarp, swaths of red, white and blue cloth all litter the expanse between the couple and the buildings that still stand in the background. One worker, a lean, sun-darkened local man dressed in a dirty white T-shirt and long, dark shorts, stands facing the direction of the couple. One hand is on his hip, the other raised to his masked mouth. He’s looking away from the couple. He might be disgusted; he might be diverting his face as he yawns or coughs. He might be exhausted. He might have been removing bodies from the rubble moments or days before. The woman tourist looks tormented,
Are tourists in a tourist resort after a catastrophe more out of place than the world’s media clamouring to cover the event? edge of her longue. She sports stylish swimwear and the same super strength sunscreen. She looks concerned. Her attention, unlike her partner’s, is directed toward the scene of rubble behind them. The foreshortened scene suggests a long, telephoto lens, but perhaps 20 metres behind the couple, a dozen or so workmen are busy clearing away the flotsam deposited amongst the palm trees by the
especially compared to her snoozing companion. Should she pitch in and help? Is there a language barrier? Has she already proffered help and been graciously turned down by workers who are thankful tourists are still in their midst so cooks, busboys, chambermaids and bartenders still have work? After all, someone had to deliver those cold drinks. The picture perfectly encapsulates the
tortured reality of a devastated people and a puzzled outside world. What to do? Are tourists in a tourist resort after a catastrophe more out of place than the world’s media clamouring to cover the event? Did all the reporters on the scene, packaging and repackaging the same soundbites, pack their own food and water when they went over? Are they staying at the tourist hotels or crashing with local media types? Is the incremental value of the thousandth “news” story greater than the incremental value of the thousandth tourist? Is the contribution made by seemingly clueless tourists more or less valuable than the contribution made by the distraught survivor pestering local officials to help him find his missing family member? Don’t know. We all have problems, eh? Especially now. Especially since the pandemic has upended our lives, cheated us out of our god-given right to travel to such tropical wonders and warm our cold toes in hot sand without having to jump through hoops, get swabbed incessantly, worry about having our flight delayed by some numbskull who won’t keep his mask on for the six-hour flight. I mean, yeah, we feel for these—those— folks. But after all, this was a natural disaster. It’s not like it was our fault. We’ve got enough problems of our own. Don’t we? Tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, these are disaster as extravaganza. Fodder for the 24-hour “news” cycle. Disaster as entertainment. Real reality TV. They focus our attention... at least until—oh, look, a squirrel. ■
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