Pique Newsmagazine 3033

Mama Makers

Meet the Sea to Sky moms with young children who turned to making—and found a side hustle. - By Brigitte Mah

14 POOL PARTY Where do heated outdoor pools fit into Whistler’s energy-usage equation?

28 FIRE FIGHT An extended heat wave in B.C. is not doing firefighters any favours north of Pemberton.

15 VILLAGE VISIONARY Remembering visionary Whistler businessman, Dick Gibbons, who passed away last week at the age of 80.

16 TRAGIC DEATH A man found dead on a Whistler mountain bike trail has been identified by family as a longtime local.

36 BLADE RUNNER Whistler rollerblader Zach

Choboter is taking aim at a Guinness World Record—while also raising awareness about the plight of bees.

40 WRITE ON Cody Caetano returns to the resort next month as the Writer in Residence for the 2023 Whistler Writers’ Festival.

COVER As a mom of a wee one, my mind is blown by how much these women managed to achieve while simultaneously raising young kiddos! Whether they are still at it or have moved on, they are rock stars in my eyes! - By Lou O’Brien // www.lobriencreative.com

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Opinion & Columns

08 OPENING REMARKS The rent is too damn high, writes editor Braden Dupuis—and there’s no relief in sight.

10 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

This week’s letter writers advocate for more action on reducing Whistler’s emissions, and call out the prime minister for taking a vacation.

13 PIQUE’N YER INTEREST Universities should try thinking outside the box, writes columnist David Song.

58 MAXED OUT The pandemic may be mostly behind us, but the financial implications—and the exorbitant debt—is still very much in play.

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Environment & Adventure Lifestyle & Arts

31 RANGE ROVER Vince Shuley takes us on a historical deep-dive, dredging up the explosive story of Ripple Rock.

38 FORK IN THE ROAD If we turn our attention to the tiniest things in nature, the better off we’ll all be, writes Glenda Bartosh.

44 MUSEUM MUSINGS B.J. Godson filled various roles in Whistler in the mid ’70s, including founding the resort’s annual Fun Fitness Swim.

Supervisor and management roles are also available with opportunities for career advancement.

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Staff accommodation available for eligible full-time employees.

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Send your resume to info@creeksidemarket.com or apply in-store by asking for Don or Joanna.

The incredible highs and disastrous lows of Whistler’s rental market

VANCOUVER SET a new record last week (and no, we’re not talking about the heat).

The record is the highest-ever asking price for a bachelor apartment in Canada: a whopping $3,150 a month.

What does that get you? Exclusive rental privileges to a 550-square-foot, zero-bedroom, one-bathroom condo on Richards Street.

For context, using the accepted definition of “affordable” housing—no more than 30 per cent

BY BRADEN DUPUIS

of one’s income—your salary would need to top $125,000 annually for this place to fit the bill.

Vancouver is perhaps not indicative of Whistler, or the rest of Canada, being as it is on the higher end of the affordability scale at the best of times.

But the trend isn’t exclusive to the West Coast.

According to rentals.ca and Urbanation’s newest National Rent Report, average rents in Canada jumped 8.9 per cent this year, to a record high of $2,078.

Vancouver topped the list of 35 cities for average monthly rent, as the price to rent a one-bedroom in the city hit $3,013 in July—a 16.2-per-cent increase over last year.

Whistler isn’t included in the National Rent Report, but the sparse offerings to be found online peg most rentals in that absurd, $3,000-a-month stratosphere.

No parties, no smoking, no pets—and no assurances the postings aren’t just scams.

It hasn’t always been this way. There was a time in Whistler’s not-too-distant past where renters had an abundance of abodes to choose from.

In the immediate aftermath of the Olympics, especially, as new neighbourhoods came online and people transitioned to new housing within the community, there was an embarrassment of rental riches to be had.

The Sept. 16, 2010 issue of Pique contained

six full pages of classified ads for housing— yes, pages. Eighty ads per page, and nearly 500 available units.

The going price for a bedroom was about $400; for a one-bedroom suite, it was $1,100; and you could rent an entire five-bedroom house for just $4,000/month.

By Sept. 15, 2011, availability dropped to about 360 units—spread out across 4.5 full pages of classifieds—and by Sept. 13, 2012, it fell to just 200 units.

Prices stayed relatively steady, with onebedroom suites hovering around the $1,200/ month mark, even as availability continued to plummet in 2013 (about 120 units available in September), 2015 (40 units) and 2015 (just 12 measly units).

By Sept. 15, 2016, Pique’s classifieds section contained just seven offers for housing—none of which were for single bedrooms or onebedroom suites—and online offerings weren’t much better.

On Craigslist, there were fewer than 20 postings for housing in Whistler in September 2016, with prices for a one-bedroom hovering between $1,300 and $2,200.

We’ve written before in this space about the concept of Whistler’s “housing continuum,” and how the most important aspect—the entry point—is plugged (see Pique, Jan. 13, 2022: “Whistler’s suite defeat”).

And it’s not as if those in Whistler’s municipal hall don’t understand the problem.

“The erosion of market rental housing is distressing. There is no way that we can replace it,” said Councillor Cathy Jewett in a 2021 interview with Pique. “Every time someone buys a place that has a suite in it and renovates it and takes the suite out, it’s basically a $250,000 hole that we can’t fill. We don’t have the capacity to build as fast as the erosion of suites in rental housing.”

It’s not just a Whistler trend.

According to a recent poll by Leger and the Vancouver Sun, 20 per cent of B.C. homeowners have space in their home they aren’t renting out, but could. A further 15 per cent said they could make rentable space in their home.

So more than a third of B.C. homeowners are simply choosing not to rent, and while the poll didn’t ask why, a representative for Leger

Under that category, the municipality lists a relevant policy contained in the Official Community Plan: “consider creative approaches to encourage homeowners to make their under-utilized dwellings and auxiliary residential suites available for employee housing.”

There has been slight movement on that file in the past: The RMOW launched its Home Run program in 2017, which matches property owners with businesses looking to house their staff. It had some uptake, but clearly not enough to move the dial.

RMOW staff are also hard at work on a new infill housing policy, through which they are considering a range of policy changes, including: reviewing and updating the RI1 (residential infill one) and RS1 (single-family residential) zones; removing or updating size restrictions on auxiliary residential dwellings; expanding areas where duplexes are permitted; allowing up to two suites for detached homes; allowing auxiliary residential dwelling units in duplex and multi-family buildings; allowing stratas to be created for detached and attached auxiliary

Things have only deteriorated further since then, even as more much-needed Whistler Housing Authority inventory was built and occupied in the intervening years.

This year, the Aug. 11 issue of Pique contained no classified ads offering housing, though it did include three ads for businesses looking to rent housing for their workers.

(As an aside, tying accommodation to employment is far from ideal, as it leaves our local workforce prone to coercion and exploitation… but that’s a topic for another column.)

Luxurious, modern, and sophisticated proper ty steps from the Creekside gondola and shops This 2-bedroom allows for 12 weeks of owner use or rental income if desired, including 2 weeks at X-mas this year After a day on the

told the Sun that, in previous polls, the No. 1 reason homeowners don’t rent is due to a fear of “problem tenants.”

And yes, problem tenants exist in Whistler, as they do everywhere. But so do good, honest, hardworking people who just need a place to call home—many of whom have been forced out of Whistler in recent years due to a severe lack of available (and affordable) options.

In Whistler’s new Housing Action Plan, unveiled in May, one of the categories of focus is to “protect and optimize employee housing.”

residential dwelling units; providing preapproved unit plans for detached auxiliary residential dwelling; and allowing large lots to be split.

Council will hear more about that later this year.

As for getting homeowners to rent out those empty suites?

“In the future, we may consider ways to encourage or incentivize rentals,” a communications official said.

As the old saying goes: No time like some vague, unspecified point in the future. ■

“The erosion of market rental housing is distressing. There is no way that we can replace it.”

- CATHY JEWETT

You’re goi n g to lose access to loca l news on Facebook a n d Google.

D ea r reader s ,

Yo u r acce s s to l o c a l , p rov i n cia l a n d nat i o na l n ew s i s go i n g to b e revo ke d o n G o o g l e, Faceb o o k a n d I n s t a g r a m

A n d i t ’s n ot b e c au s e of a ny t h i n g we ’ ve d o n e.

Re ce n t l y, C a na da pa s s e d t h e O n lin e N ew s Ac t , a l s o k n ow n a s B ill C-18 , w h i ch ha s l e d to a s t a n d off b e t we e n t h e gove r n m e n t , G o o g l e a n d M e t a t h e pa re n t co m pa ny b eh in d Faceb o o k a n d I n s t a g r a m

B ot h G o o g l e a n d M e t a have s a i d t h ey p la n to cu t t i e s w i t h t h e n ew s i n d u s t r y i n C a na da a s a re su l t .

T h i s m ea n s M e t a w ill b l o ck t h e p o s t i n g a n d sha r i n g of o u r n ew s a r t i cl e s o n Faceb o o k a n d I n s t a g r a m . G o o g l e w ill a l s o re m ove li n k s to o u r si te s a n d a r t i cl e s in G o o g l e N ew s , D i s cove r a n d s ea rch re su l t s

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Si n ce rel y, T h e Pi q u e N ew s ma g a zi n e tea m

Plastic isn’t the real problem

The world is on fire, and it’s not because of single-use plastics.

Since the early ’90s, let’s call it the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, we’ve known that the real ecological catastrophe we’re facing is from climate change: humans burning more fossil fuels than the atmosphere can absorb without catastrophic change to our weather.

I believe the ban on plastic straws and plastic bags is eco-theatre, with oil companies cheering on the performance at every turn. I believe the same about recycling plastics. I disagree this ban should’ve been done years ago, unless you mean in the 1980s, when plastic companies were actively changing the rules and getting rid of glass.

Back to today. Using the example of a 4,000-pound-plus V8 truck driving from Spruce Grove to Nesters for an iced cappuccino: governments at all levels have joined forces to prevent the plastic straw in the cappuccino. While the world is literally on fire!

If you are going to write about plastics, could you please make sure your readers know that the leading cause of microplastics is car tires and brake pads. The leading cause of plastics inside marine life is fishing gear. This should be included in every article

that discusses plastics. Unfortunately, private automobiles are the leading cause of air pollution and microplastic pollution.

So what problem are we looking to solve?

When we start to explore solutions, the

target is obvious! But instead we are busy talking about bags and straws. Car and oil company boardrooms couldn’t be happier!

As for the argument that governments of all levels are working on both banning single-

use plastics AND reducing emissions, I ask the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) specifically: since the announcement of the Big Moves more than 2.5 years ago, what policies have been implemented here in Whistler that reduce vehicle emissions (which would have the added benefit of reducing microplastics)?

What policies do you see in the RMOW budgets that you expect will substantially reduce vehicle emissions?

I’ve seen nothing, but perhaps you know something about this that I don’t. Is the RMOW working on something meaningful? Now that would be news I would like to read.

Brendan Ladner // Whistler

Another vacation for Trudeau

Justin Trudeau’s new theme song: “Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya;

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama…”

Yup. He’s on vacation again. Meanwhile, the rest of us suffer with inflation, high interest rates, carbon tax and a finance minister who says she bikes everywhere (she doesn’t).

Our MP, Patrick Weiler, used to be an environmentalist and expert to the UN in natural resource management. Meanwhile, his boss travels more on airplanes than any G7 leader.

It would be great if he stepped up and called him out.

Patrick Smyth // Whistler n

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“Is the RMOW working on something meaningful?”

- BRENDAN LADNER

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l l a g e j u st 1 2 m i n s s o u t h o f W h i st l e r Co m p l e te l y re d o n e a n d fi n i s h e d i n J u n e 2 02 3 P i p e r s Pe a k i s fo r t h e d i s ce r n i n g b u ye r w h o a p p re c i ate s q u a l i t y c ra f t s m a n s h i p a n d fi n e d e t a i l s O f fe re d t u r n key t h i s h o m e b o a st s v i ews o f B l a c k Tu s k w i t h p l e n t y o f s u n s h i n e o n a g e n e ro u s s i ze d l o t A s h o r t wa l k i n t h e b a c kya rd j u st p a st t h e c u sto m s a u n a b r i n g s yo u to t h e n o r t h e n d o f t h e n e i g h b o u r h o o d ’s p r i vate l a ke i d e a l fo r c a n o e i n g , p a d d l e b o a rd i n g a n d sw i m m i n g Fe at u re s i n c l u d e n ew re c l a i m e d h e a r t p i n e h a rd wo o d fl o o r i n g wo o l c a r p e t i n g , c u sto m s o l i d -wo o d m i l l wo r k f ro m E l mwo o d K i tc h e n s i n c l u d i n g : e n t r y c a b i n e t m a i n fl o o r b at h ro o m c a b i n e t r y a n d k i tc h e n w i t h b u i l t - i n s a n d h i d d e n a p p l i a n ce s , co m p l e te l i st ava i l a b l e

Universities should try thinking outside the box

IN THE FINAL YEAR of my undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary, I took two classes with a man named Ronald Peter Glasberg. He is a communications, media, and film professor by trade. He was also, as far as I could tell, the most radical man on campus.

Does that mean Dr. Glasberg preached various alt-right conspiracy theories or incited

BY DAVID SONG

dsong@piquenewsmagazine.com

his students to stage dramatic, liberal-minded sit-ins? No—he didn’t espouse any particular viewpoint at all. Instead, what stood out about Glasberg was his approach to teaching: an approach that flew in the face of established educational doctrine.

Glasberg’s curricula included an overview of virtually every major religion and philosophy in existence, from the Christian Bible to the Quran to the teachings of Aristotle and Gandhi. His mission was to expose us to as many different worldviews as possible, and ours was to study each one in good faith without jumping to conclusions. Glasberg practiced a principle that I believe strongly in: no one ever benefited from living in an echo chamber.

Here’s what truly made Glasberg radical, though: he allowed his students to choose their own assignments. It didn’t matter if we wrote essays, built sculptures, painted artwork or recorded podcast episodes— as long as we demonstrated an honest and accurate understanding of class material, we could express that understanding in virtually any way. Far from penalizing his students for holding the “wrong” opinions, Glasberg didn’t even care what medium we did our homework in.

What a strange hack, right? Surely he didn’t last in the regimented world of academia.

Not so. Glasberg has a whole host of awards to his name, and twice in the mid-2010s he was named Best University Teacher in Calgary. That’s because most of his pupils, including myself, could actually engage with his teaching style. Rather than abuse his seemingly lackadaisical methods, we seized the chance to take ownership of our education.

One day, Glasberg recounted to the class a conversation he had with a colleague. He’d been wondering aloud why most universities hire faculty as researchers and then force those researchers to teach, irrespective of their competency in a classroom. Wouldn’t it be better, he said, if our institutions of higher learning tried to fill its lecture halls with the best teachers available?

“That would be too easy,” the other professor remarked.

Glasberg had no idea what she meant. Neither did I.

I was not mature enough at 18 years old to have made something meaningful out of a post-high school gap year. Instead, I needed the structure and direction of university life to remain on a productive path. I’m grateful for my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree, because I gained all kinds of valuable experiences in earning them.

That does not, however, prevent me from looking upon North American post-secondary education with a cynical eye in some respects.

Speak nothing of the exorbitant tuition fees that universities, especially American ones, burden their students with (and then have the gall to ask for donations afterwards). Table for now discussion of mandatory course textbooks with artificially-inflated prices. Let’s circle back to the question Glasberg posed to his colleague: why don’t we hire more professors for their teaching ability rather than just their scholarly credentials?

Those of my friends who took STEMrelated majors like engineering and computer science can tell all kinds of horror stories about lecturers who run the gamut from oblivious to disorganized to blatantly incompetent. I’ve heard so many of these tales I can organize them into tropes: the monotone slide-reader, the consistently

inconsistent marker, and the foreigner whose understanding of their field far outstrips their command of English (despite the fact that they teach in an Englishspeaking nation).

I myself once dealt with a professor who was both wildly scattershot in terms of her marking scheme and unexpectedly flippant in how she disrespected her students. Eventually, I dropped that class.

This type of farce should not happen to young men and women who are paying five or six figures for what they hope will be a quality education—and whose prospective career paths often demand extremely competitive grades.

Admittedly, there’s much I don’t know about how universities operate, and perhaps our current paradigm is deeply entrenched for a reason. Still, I find myself siding with Dr. Glasberg on this topic, and while not every class can be like his, I know that he taught more intuitively and effectively than anyone else I’ve ever learned from.

University is a privilege and degrees should be challenging to complete—but only in ways that students stand to benefit from. A good university equips its disciples to think outside the box, both in their field and in life itself. The institutions themselves should try the same thing when it comes to staffing and curriculum delivery, rather than shoving researchers into classrooms by default.  n

As Whistler looks to curb energy use, councillor wants to get handle on heated outdoor pools

CATHY JEWETT WANTS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW THE RMOW CAN REGULATE POOLS—BUT HOW MUCH OF AN ISSUE ARE THEY, WITH BUILDING STANDARDS HIGHER THAN EVER?

BY BRANDON BARRETT

COUNCILLOR CATHY JEWETT still remembers when there was just a single heated, outdoor pool in Whistler.

“When my kids were growing up [in the ’80s], there was one pool in town in someone’s backyard, and that person gave swimming lessons. Now, I don’t even know how many pools there are, and I’d like to know.”

That was Jewett’s request at the Aug. 1 council meeting, when Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) staff presented the findings from Whistler’s 2022 greenhouse gas inventory and climate action progress report. With the community still not on track to meet its long-stated target of slashing 2007-level carbon emissions in half by 2030, as well as its goal to cut residential building emissions by 20 per cent from 2007 levels in that same span, Jewett is looking to the outdoor heated pools and driveways she sees on her bike ride through Whistler’s luxury neighbourhoods as one potential means to pick up the slack.

“We talk about heating patios with those little lanterns. Heating an entire driveway that goes hundreds of metres, heating a pool

INFINITY AND

that goes uncovered all winter, that’s just energy getting thrown into the atmosphere and being wasted, a lot of times in a place where nobody is there to enjoy it,” she said following the presentation.

Jewett was not without ideas to address the issue—although there remains some digging to be done to determine just how much authority the RMOW actually has to press the matter.

“Summer really only lasts three to four months, so what can we do to start creating a standard where it doesn’t put a strain on our resources, like our water supply?” she said in a follow-up interview. “That’s something we already started to deal with, with landscape and irrigation companies, so if we’re going to restrict irrigation, what are we doing in terms of pools? It’s one thing in the ’80s when there was one pool in town; now there are more.”

That’s why Jewett asked RMOW staff to return with an inventory of Whistler’s outdoor heated pools, something environmental stewardship manager Luisa Burhenne said she would look into through the building department.

Speaking with local pool technicians, however, at least relatively speaking, Whistler is no hotspot for outdoor pools.

“I’d say it’s less than five per cent of the households would even have them in town. We only service … three of them in Whistler right now. All of them are down the corridor, further down in Squamish,” explained Derek Cote, GM and repair and maintenance engineer for The Splash Hot Tubs & Pools in Function Junction.

Poolside Spa Sales and Services owner

Ken Nelson echoed that, estimating his Function-based company services only a handful of heated pools a year. He said a generous, community-wide estimate might put the number of heated pools as high as 100, but added they also tend to be a fraction of the size of the pools in other nearby communities without the same cap Whistler has on developable space—even in Whistler’s tony Kadenwood and Stonebridge neighbourhoods.

“You’re not talking your typical 100,000litre pools. You may have a pool that has maybe 5,000 litres,” he said. “It’s not the same as Vancouver where the average house may have a 500,000-litre pool, and in a luxury home, it could be even 700,000, 800,000 litres. It’s very different.”

What’s more is, because of stringent provincial energy guidelines for new builds, and general environmental consciousness in the resort, even luxury homeowners are cognizant of their carbon output—and they’re willing to pay a premium for a higherefficiency standard, said Tim Regan of local developer Vision Pacific.

“I think it’s a bit of a misnomer to just see the negative. I think a lot of people are spending a lot of time and effort on creating innovative, creative solutions, and I think that has to be celebrated,” he said.

Regan pointed to the $32-million Stonebridge mansion that sold last month in a record-setting deal, which featured an 82-foot-long cantilevered swimming pool that includes a cistern for rainwater and is heated through geothermal energy, a rarity in

Whistler and beyond, with natural gas by far the most common method to heat pools.

Regan said you also have to keep things in context: energy standards are so high thanks to both provincial and municipal legislation that new builds are already far more efficient energy-wise than their older counterparts.

“The last pool we did, it’s fully insulated and it’s almost like a garage door that goes over top of it,” he said. “It’s more expensive to do it this way, but they are massively higher performing, and the carbon footprint is less because of the efficiency of how it’s fuelled and heated.”

Along with getting an inventory of Whistler’s pools, Jewett suggested the RMOW require newly built pools to not utilize natural gas as a heating source, along with having homeowners install a water meter to ensure “potable water gets used for potable things,” she said.

“The permitting system is, I think, the only way we have leverage. You don’t get a building permit if you’re going to put in a driveway that’s heated with natural gas or a pool that is using potable water from our purification systems and heated with natural gas,” Jewett added.

“I just see these bigger and bigger parttime residences built with these amenities that put a stress on our resources.”

Heated driveways are far more likely to be the bigger contributor to energy use; Cote said the amperage alone to heat them would require exponentially higher energy than what it would take to heat the average outdoor pool. n

TO

BEYOND A Stonebridge mansion that sold for a record-setting $32-million last month features an 82-foot cantilevered pool that utilizes geothermal heat and includes a cistern to collect rainwater.

PHOTO BY NICK LEHOUX / COURTESY OF JOHN RYAN

BY MEGAN LALONDE

LONG BEFORE Skier’s Plaza became the community’s go-to spot to congregate after a day on the slopes, the area now home to Whistler Village was a garbage dump—literally.

But you know what they say about one man’s trash.

The other man, in this case, was Richard “Dick” Gibbons, one of the visionaries credited with helping Whistler realize its potential as a world-class resort destination. The lawyer and businessman was among the earliest investors in the resort’s fledgling pedestrian village, building the first commercial structure in Village Square in the late ’70s and founding iconic venues that formed a base for the powerhouse Gibbons Hospitality Group his eldest son, Joey, now leads as CEO.

“Right from a garbage dump, he just thought it was the best place on Earth, and understood why everybody would want to come there,” Joey said.

Whistler is now mourning the loss of one of its most passionate, enduring champions, whose ability to see opportunity in a landfill was emblematic of his tendency to see the best in people and places. Dick died last Tuesday, Aug. 8 at the age of 80, surrounded by his family, five years after he was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Dick achieved remarkable success over the course of his lifetime, but overcame his fair share of hurdles to do so. Raised alongside his brother David near the railway tracks in Burnaby, “he grew up in really tough circumstances,” Joey said. “It was athletics that sort of got him out of that.” Those talents brought Dick to the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he became a star football player while attending law school.

Dick’s law career in West Vancouver went on to span 30 years, but even as he and his wife, Colleen, continued to put down

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roots on the North Shore, Whistler called. The couple bought property in Alpine in 1967, one year after Whistler Mountain’s lifts opened in Creekside.

“He wasn’t really even a skier, but [during] the long, grey Vancouver winters, he would come to Whistler and it felt like it was this other world that he could go into and feel rejuvenated every time he went up there,” Joey said. “He really believed in that feeling that he had, and felt other people would want that, too.”

So, as rumblings about developing the garbage dump gained traction, Dick sold off business assets in the city to fund Phase 1 of Whistler Village: the Fitzsimmons building, which opened in 1979 and currently houses The Amsterdam, La Bocca, La Brasserie and Hot Buns Bakery.

The resort’s first dance bar, Club 10, and a restaurant, Stoney’s, were planned for the building’s ground floor, but Dick made sure to finish his family’s condo first, just in time for the holidays that year, when Joey was only three. “The three of us stayed there by ourselves that first Christmas,” he remembered. “We were the only ones in the village.”

Operating the pub wasn’t initially in the cards, until sky-high interest rates in the early ’80s made selling off solely the commercial space nearly impossible.

Though Dick managed to sell the entire Fitzsimmons building within a year, after a provincial agency approached him and a couple of friends to take over construction of the Carleton Lodge at the base of Whistler Mountain, the economic situation hadn’t exactly improved. “Once again, he was trying to sell the commercial space, and they all were going to end up with units upstairs,” Joey explained.

Once again, Dick found himself going into the bar business instead. The Longhorn Pub opened in the Carleton Lodge in December 1981, with a name inspired by a stock

‘He gave us so much to aspire to’

WHISTLER MOURNING DICK GIBBONS AFTER VISIONARY BUSINESSMAN DIED AT AGE 80

REMEMBERING RICHARD Dick Gibbons (left) and designer Gilbert Konqui lend a hand getting The Longhorn ready for action in Carleton Lodge in the village in December 1981, the same month the iconic Whister watering hole opened its doors.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHISTLER MUSEUM / WHISTLER QUESTION COLLECTION

Man found dead on Whistler mountain bike trail identified as longtime local

POLICE SAY THE MOUNTAIN BIKER FOUND ON THURSDAY, AUG. 10 ‘APPEARS TO HAVE DIED FROM A TRAGIC ACCIDENT’

BY MEGAN LALONDE

FAMILY HAS IDENTIFIED the man found dead on a local mountain bike trail last week as longtime Whistler resident Brannen Maloney.

In a release, Sea to Sky RCMP said police initially responded to a call reporting the sudden death of an adult male on a local trail at approximately 11:20 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 10.

Whistler RCMP issued a tweet at 12:25 p.m. Thursday asking the public to avoid “Kill Me, Thrill Me,” a black diamond route on the west side of Highway 99, northeast of Green Lake, while emergency services worked in the area.

“Our hearts go out to the family of the male who appears to have died from a tragic accident while mountain biking on one of the more challenging trails in the area,” said Insp. Robert Dykstra, Officer-in-Charge with the Sea to Sky RCMP, in a statement.

Irene Ryan Maloney told Pique her son spent 11 years in the Sea to Sky after moving north over the border from his hometown of Libertyville, Ill.

He was working on building a trail in the

area where he crashed and was later found, she said in a Facebook post.

Maloney reportedly spent summers working as a whitewater rafting guide in Whistler, doubling as operations manager

DICK GIBBONS FROM PAGE 15

certificate Dick kept framed on his desk. Years earlier, he’d been convinced to invest in a company with the same name, only to watch its value tumble down to zero. He kept the certificate as a reminder “you’ve always got to look up before you look down when making investments,” Joey recalled.

Dick always tried to “make the best out of every situation,” Joey added. At the Longhorn of pre-bike park years, that meant keeping the pub open throughout the summer off-season to keep staff employed, setting up volleyball courts and organizing concerts to draw in business, allowing bike races to run right through the restaurant, partnering with the municipality to set up Whistler’s first softball backstop and organize tournaments, and even walking into a FIS meeting—in France—to ask what it would take to add a Whistler race to

with Hokkaido, Japan-based backcountry tour operator Rising Sun Guides.

Police said the deceased mountain biker was not reported missing, but reportedly failed to return home after heading out for a ride on

Tuesday, Aug. 8. Foul play is not suspected. Victim services are available to assist anyone affected by the incident, Dykstra added. Reach Whistler’s RCMP detachment by phone at (604) 932-3044. n

the World Cup calendar. This, all while simultaneously practising law; balancing his penchant for debate with a passion for entertaining and hosting, and setting an ever-positive example for those in his orbit.

“He just cared about this town so much— God, just so much,” Joey said. “It’s been an inspiration for me to see how much someone can care for a community and the people inside it, and he always did it quietly.”

His devotion to community service continued after moving to Whistler full-time around 1989, only growing stronger as the resort flourished into a globally-acclaimed destination.

Alongside Colleen, Dick donated $500,000 to his alma mater in 2020 to establish an annual scholarship program for UBC students who might not otherwise be able to attend university.

A man who always tried to do his best for his community, his colleagues, employees and loved ones is how Dick’s family imagines he’d like to be remembered, Joey explained. Always quick to offer a valuable piece of advice and reticent to accept any credit, “He gave us so much to aspire to,” he said.

“He was a guy that gave people the benefit of the doubt,” Joey added. “The underdog was his friend. And he was always at home with people that worked hard.”

Dick leaves behind his wife of more than 50 years, children Joey, Erika, Matthew, Britt and their spouses, plus 10 grandchildren, sistersin-law Deedee and Janice, and a long list of extended family, close friends and colleagues. All are welcome to celebrate Dick’s life at the Whistler Conference Centre on Saturday, Aug. 26 at 1 p.m. n

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Whistler grizzly conflicts doubled in recent years

COS HAS RECEIVED 30 GRIZZLY REPORTS THIS YEAR ALONE, FOI REVEALS

BY BRADEN DUPUIS

REPORTS OF GRIZZLY bear conflicts in Whistler have effectively doubled in recent years, according to stats uncovered through a provincial Freedom of Information request.

The stats show a clear upward trajectory in grizzly bear reports to the Conservation Officer Service in Whistler.

In 2016, just six grizzly bear conflicts were reported in Whistler. That number jumped to 13 in 2017, before levelling off at 12 conflict reports in both 2018 and 2019.

In 2020, 18 grizzly conflicts were reported, followed by 13 in 2021.

In 2022, however, the number of reported grizzly conflicts jumped to 28, and from Jan. 1 to July 5, 2023, the COS received 30 reports of grizzly conflicts (20 of which came in June, and nine in May).

It’s an encouraging sign for a grizzly population that was once considered threatened, and there are two key policy changes that may account for the rise in grizzly reports in recent years.

In 2017, B.C.’s provincial government banned grizzly hunting in an effort to protect the iconic species.

That same year, the Resort Municipality of Whistler opened its Alpine Trail Network—

consisting of backcountry hiking and mountain-biking trails on Mount Sproatt and Rainbow Mountain—to the public.

The trails proved immediately popular; between Aug. 4 and Oct. 12, 2017, the municipality counted approximately 6,200 visits into the area, including one day in August when 455 ascents were recorded.

to Whistler council in April 2020.

“We made a commitment as a municipal council a number of years ago to support the restoration of grizzly bears in the area, and so we have to do the best we can now.”

At that same meeting, the RMOW endorsed a new human-grizzly bear conflict mitigation strategy developed by grizzly

MacHutchon came back with some key recommendations: that the RMOW not build trails to Gin and Tonic lakes, or Beverley Lake; reconsider the routing for the Flank Trail south, as well as reroutes for the Skywalk and Pot of Gold trails; install additional signs, information and monitoring, and; continue to ban e-bikes and dogs on alpine trails.

While grizzly sightings in the Whistler Valley were considered a rarity until recently, the public can expect them to continue, according to Johnny Mikes, field coordinator for the Coast to Cascades Grizzly Bear Initiative.

“A grizzly coming down in springtime to find food, we’re seeing evidence of that, and we can probably expect that to continue,” he told Pique this spring. “I think we should be viewing this as a not-very-uncommon occurrence going into the future. People need to plan for that and get their heads around it.”

But by the summer of 2018, parts of the network were closed after two separate groups had run-ins with grizzly bears.

The conflict prompted the RMOW to work backwards to solve the problem.

“We built trails up there without really understanding the use of the area by bears. I think if we could do it now, we would do things differently,” said environmental stewardship manager Heather Beresford in a presentation

expert Grant MacHutchon, who was tapped to complete a habitat-mapping project with implications for trail management in the fall of 2019.

MacHutchon spent about a week in Whistler walking the trails, analyzing different areas and the vegetation—and how the bears were using it—and incorporating collared grizzly-bear data collected by the province as well.

The increased sightings are a positive sign of the ongoing recovery of the SquamishLillooet grizzly bear population to the west of Whistler, Mikes said.

“The population there, from all indications, is coming back; it is growing. There is no longer a hunt in B.C.; grizzly bears aren’t being persecuted by people, so the numbers are coming back,” he said. “There is also good habitat immediately to the west of us, so those bears are coming back.” n

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Woman suing RMOW, Vail Resorts, Arts Whistler, others after tripping over chairlift

CHERYL ANN PICOT ALLEGES SHE BROKE HER FOOT IN A 2021 FALL BY WHISTLER

BY BRANDON BARRETT

A WOMAN is suing multiple Whistler organizations, Vail Resorts, the B.C. government, and others after she allegedly tripped and fell over a retired, decorative Catskinner chair displayed in the Upper Village nearly two years ago, fracturing her foot, according to a notice of civil claim filed Aug. 2 in B.C.’s Supreme Court.

According to the notice, Cheryl Ann Picot allegedly tripped over the chair at 4553 Blackcomb Way—which houses the Whistler Blackcomb Day Lodge, Merlin’s Bar, and more—on Aug. 28, 2021. The chair was part of Arts Whistler’s LIFTing The Community project, a pandemic-era initiative in which 15 retired Catskinner chairs were decorated by local artists and displayed around the community.

As a result of the fall, Picot alleged she suffered a fracture to her right foot, lower back pain, sleep disturbance, and other injuries. She claims the injury was caused by the defendants’—of which there are many— negligence and breach of their statutory duty of care.

The filing goes on to say the defendants failed to take reasonable care to ensure people on the premises would be “reasonably safe” by not clearly marking the potential hazards; failing to set up a barrier around where the fall occurred; failure to provide proper or adequate warning, or any warning at all, of the site’s dangerous conditions; and failing

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past loss of income, employment benefits, business income, business opportunities and gratuities; cost of transportation to and from medical treatments; cost of medication and rehabilitation expenses; wages lost and expenses incurred by third parties on her behalf; and further particulars to be determined.

In the claim, Picot also alleged she has

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Company; The Vail Corporation; Whistler Blackcomb Holdings Inc.; the province of B.C.; ABC Company; and John Doe or Jane Doe are all listed as defendants. The notice of civil claim does not list what purported role ABC nor John or Jane Doe played in the alleged fall.

None of the above claims have been proven in court.

Ex-Whistler Mayor Nancy WilhelmMorden, also a former trial lawyer primarily specializing in injury law, said injury suits are fairly common in the resort.

to enforce the applicable bylaws, along with several other factors.

The plaintiff is seeking general damages as a result of her alleged injuries for: experiencing pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life; loss of opportunity to earn income; loss of past and future housekeeping capacity; costs of future care, and further particulars to be determined.

She is seeking special damages for:

received and continues to receive care and services from her family, and will be “more susceptible to future injury and degenerative changes because of her injuries.”

Picot listed her address of delivery as the same one listed for her lawyer, based in Surrey.

Arts Whistler; the Whistler Arts Council; the Resort Municipality of Whistler; Vail Resorts Inc.; Vail Resorts Management

“It’s not uncommon, and certainly trips and falls are a very common type of litigation in the personal injury field,” she said. “The municipality is out there on a regular basis trying to remove hazards, because a lawsuit won’t be successful unless there’s some negligence involved.”

Wilhelm-Morden surmised the rate of injury claims is “a function of how many people come through our town in the summer and winter. It just means that the standard of care applicable to the municipality is higher than it might be otherwise, because many people not familiar with Whistler who come here to enjoy Whistler can get injured in a slip-and-fall.” n

“It’s not uncommon, and certainly trips and falls are a very common type of litigation in the personal injury field.”

- NANCY WILHELM-MORDEN

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RMOW puts an end to Whistler rock-jump skills challenge

MUNICIPALITY CONFIRMS DECORATIVE ROCK REMOVED FROM VILLAGE STREAM

BY MEGAN LALONDE

Whistler’s Anita Naidu working to expand anti-racism mountain bike clinics

WITH NEW SPONSORS ON BOARD, THE PRO ATHLETE AND HUMANITARIAN IS RETURNING TO VANCOUVER ISLAND THIS MONTH, BUT HOPES WHISTLER COULD BE HER NEXT STOP

IF YOU’VE BEEN SLOWLY building up the courage or waiting for the right night to tackle Whistler Village’s infamous rock jump, you’re out of luck.

BY MEGAN LALONDE

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) confirmed its resort operations team removed a certain rectangular-shaped boulder from a particular icy-blue stream in Whistler Village earlier this month, on Thursday, Aug. 3.

WHEN ANITA NAIDU started working as a mountain bike coach nearly a decade and a half ago, you could say she led somewhat of a double life.

The Whistlerite known to her Instagram followers as @abrownpanther is the first-ever pro freerider of East Indian descent. She’s often found whipping down trails while repping brands like Cannondale, Shimano, and MEC.

According to a member of the RMOW’s communications team, the decision to remove the rock was not in response to a specific injury or an especially gnarly failed attempt after a busy last weekend of Crankworx. Rather, “We had been planning this removal for a while because of safety concerns about people trying to jump onto the rock,” the RMOW staffer explained.

that foster an anti-racist space. Once the crowd of 50 participants arrive, they’re grouped by experience to kick off the clinic with a skills session. Dinner follows an afternoon trail ride, before the night ends with an in-depth discussion. “We’re giving people tangible, concrete things they can do in their everyday life, to fight racism,” Naidu explained. “And then we do it all again the next day.”

Naidu has coached both in Canada and far-flung locations around the globe, but her clinics took arguably their biggest step yet when she brought them across the American border this year.

Officially listed as the “Village Park East” stream on the RMOW’s Village Stroll map, the communications official estimated the small, man-made waterway that lies under a pedestrian bridge was constructed near Whistler Olympic Plaza around 1999 or 2000.

But off her bike, the humanitarian, electrical and environmental engineer has also earned a long list of accolades for her work combatting the global refugee crisis and human slavery, as well as developing environmental impact strategies. These days, she dedicates much of her time to the anti-racism work she started in 2017, helping brands address diversity, equity and inclusion within their organizations. (She’s also an aspiring astronaut, for the record.)

“I just always found such a disconnect between my life in Whistler and my life overseas and the work I was doing, and I always thought, ‘If people understood better the problems that we’re facing, I’m certain that they would want to do something. And if they understood how they could be impactful, I’m sure they would act on that,’” she explained.

Naidu decided to combine her areas of expertise, launching her own anti-racism mountain biking clinics, dubbed the Bike Fest Series, a few years ago. The goal? Teach bikers to be not only better riders, but better humans.

Today, individuals registering for Naidu’s clinics (or adding their names to the waitlist for the perpetually sold-out events) can expect to learn more than just new skills. “They walk away completely different riders, but we teach them how to combat institutional racism, and what decolonization is all about, and climate justice,” Naidu explained.

After all, when it comes to the outdoors industry in general, “being a dark-skinned person in white spaces feels like an extreme sport in itself,” Naidu said.

The two-day events are designed for all levels of riders, from beginner to expert. A robust scholarship program is also available, offering subsidies to anyone who needs one and free registration for participants like single moms, people of colour and riders over 60.

Naidu works with mountain bike coaches before clinics officially get underway to make sure everyone’s on the same page when it comes to the language, practices and structures

It took a little more than two decades (and, let’s be real, more than a few drinks) for Whistler locals to realize the unique opportunity right under their noses all that time: climb over the bridge railing, spot the landing, and launch a couple metres over to the small-but-pretty-much-flat-topped

In partnership with the International Mountain Bike Association and her sponsors, Naidu visited Omaha, Nebraska earlier this year. She’s returning to Cumberland on Vancouver Island for a pair of clinics from Aug. 18 to 20, before packing up and heading to Bentonville, Arkansas in September. That coaching gig in the Ozarks coincides with The Women of OZ Sunset Summit, where Naidu will speak to all 500 participants about antiracism in the mountain bike industry.

One market Naidu’s clinics haven’t necessarily been able to crack just yet? Her own hometown’s.

Naidu served as head coach at the Liv Women’s Only A-Line Session at Crankworx Whistler last month, leading hundreds of women through the Whistler Mountain Bike Park’s iconic jump line. Despite the good vibes, Naidu felt something was missing.

“Particularly as a woman of colour, I’m always thinking, ‘OK we get all these women out, it’s a great sport, freeride, but we really don’t teach them how to be more inclusive— we’re really not teaching people what steps [to take]. We’re sort of using diversity as optics, rather than truly teaching people how they can create diverse communities.

“I’ve definitely realized it’s now time to pitch to Crankworx they need to have diversity and inclusion equity as a priority, because it’s the world’s biggest mountain biking festival, it’s 10 days long, and it’s glaringly obvious that despite it being super fun, it’s very monolithic,” she added.

So what can mountain bikers do in the meantime, if they’re not able to land a spot in one of Naidu’s clinics? “People think [antiracism work] is really complicated, but all it is is a commitment to fighting it whenever it shows up, especially in yourself,” she said. “So I always tell people, start with yourself. Where does bias and racism pop up in your life? Because everyone has it … When are you ever witnessing a situation where you can see that there’s bias? Those are the times you need to act and do something.” n

decorative A high-consequence but that’s Stick the with cheers are gathered Brewhouse,

ROCK ON Whistler’s Village Park East stream pictured this August, after municipality to remove a decorative boulder from the man-made stream jumps from the bridge.

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RMOW puts an end to Whistler Village’s late-night, rock-jump skills challenge

MUNICIPALITY CONFIRMS DECORATIVE ROCK REMOVED FROM VILLAGE STREAM AUG. 3

BY MEGAN LALONDE

IF YOU’VE BEEN SLOWLY building up the courage or waiting for the right night to tackle Whistler Village’s infamous rock jump, you’re out of luck.

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) confirmed its resort operations team removed a certain rectangular-shaped boulder from a particular icy-blue stream in Whistler Village earlier this month, on Thursday, Aug. 3.

According to a member of the RMOW’s communications team, the decision to remove the rock was not in response to a specific injury or an especially gnarly failed attempt after a busy last weekend of Crankworx. Rather, “We had been planning this removal for a while because of safety concerns about people trying to jump onto the rock,” the RMOW staffer explained.

Officially listed as the “Village Park East” stream on the RMOW’s Village Stroll map, the communications official estimated the small, man-made waterway that lies under a pedestrian bridge was constructed near Whistler Olympic Plaza around 1999 or 2000.

It took a little more than two decades (and, let’s be real, more than a few drinks) for Whistler locals to realize the unique opportunity right under their noses all that time: climb over the bridge railing, spot the landing, and launch a couple metres over to the small-but-pretty-much-flat-topped

decorative rock below.

A high-consequence cliff jump it is not, but that’s not to say there weren’t stakes. Stick the landing and you’ll be rewarded with cheers from however many spectators are gathered on the bridge next to the Brewhouse, but substandard balance or

buckled knees earns you a humbling spill into the shallow water or sharp surrounding rocks, plus a soggy commute home.

Turns out, there are a lot of locals who’ll have to answer “yes” the next time their mom asks if they’d jump off a bridge just because their friends were doing it.

The trend caught on quickly, fuelled by footage of mostly unsuccessful, more often than not late-night attempts by everyone from pro athletes to village dwellers to ambitious weekenders making the rounds through Instagram stories, TikTok and local meme accounts.

Chalk it up to a mild case of cabin fever brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps?

The village’s main rock jump line might be gone, forever relegated to local lore, but as Whistlerites have proven time and time again, Sea to Sky-ers are always down for a challenge—especially if it involves airtime.

Already, Whistler’s corner of the internet has been graced by attempts from locals looking to “level up,” jumping onto even further and substantially smaller rocks.

Or, as @whistler.blower put it, “Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.” (Not that we’re advising it.) n

Sea of Sunshine

ROCK ON Whistler’s Village Park East stream pictured this August, after safety concerns prompted the municipality to remove a decorative boulder from the man-made stream after years of locals attempting late-night jumps from the bridge.

PHOTO BY MEGAN LALONDE

Photo: Brenda Bakker

$10M filtration project at Whistler Wastewater Treatment Plant will likely lead to tax hike

WORK IS REQUIRED TO MEET POPULATION GROWTH AND REGULATORY COMPLIANCE AFTER PLANT WAS NOT PERFORMING AS INTENDED

BY BRANDON BARRETT

A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR upgrade to the Whistler Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) will likely lead to higher taxes and user fees for residents.

The Cheakamus Crossing facility treats Whistler’s domestic wastewater through a process that, in part, uses microbes instead of chemicals to remove harmful nutrients, which in turn reduces the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous, minimizing the impact on the Cheakamus River, where the community’s wastewater is eventually discharged.

According to the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), the biological nutrient removal facility was “not performing as it was intended to operate” in 2019, 2020, and 2021. As a result, meeting the plant’s operational permit requirements and discharge criteria was “often difficult,” with a report to council earlier this month noting phosphorous removal is “an ongoing issue without chemical intervention.”

Last year, engineering consultant Tetra Tech was tapped to conduct a review of

several major processes at the aging WWTP that looked at both current and anticipated future operating conditions. Tetra Tech eventually developed a multi-level plan to ensure the plant can meet population growth and ongoing regulatory compliance, and

officials greenlit staff’s recommendation to award a design contract for tertiary filtration in the amount of $926,168 to infrastructure consulting firm, AECOM, beating out fellow firm Stantec, which came in with a bid $976,495.

it will be located between the WWTP’s existing administration and treatment buildings, at 1135 Cheakamus Lake Road.

The total budget for the entire multiyear project is $10,150,000, with $150,000 earmarked for this year, and $5 million each in 2024 and 2025. AECOM will administer the entire project.

Funds will come from the RMOW’s sewer reserve, which will dwindle in future years, between this project and others, said Chelsey Roberts, manager of infrastructure projects.

“This project and other major sewer projects will stress the sewer reserve over the next few years,” she said. “It is likely that the sewer parcel tax and user fees will need to increase, and grant funding will need to increase. Grant funding will be pursued for the tertiary filtration and for other projects funded from the sewer reserve.”

determined the addition of tertiary filtration is required to provide a “more reliable and robust process” for phosphorous removal. The filtration upgrades will also help reduce operational costs at the facility in the long run, municipal staff said.

At the Aug. 1 council meeting, elected

“I know we used to get a lot of comments from our neighbours downstream about the water quality and I don’t know if there’s been any comments because of the higher phosphorous, but I’m happy to see we’re tackling this,” said Councillor Cathy Jewett.

The new equipment and building housing

The RMOW communications team was unable to tell Pique how much is currently in the sewer reserve fund by press time.

Pilot trials of the new equipment are slated for June 2024, with construction estimated to begin in the spring of 2025.

Learn more at whistler.ca/services/waterand-wastewater. n

“I know we used to get a lot of comments from our neighbours downstream about the water quality and I don’t know if there’s been any comments because of the higher phosphorous, but I’m happy to see we’re tackling this.”

- CATHY JEWETT

Heat wave doing no favours for Casper Creek, Downton Lake wildfires

PAIR OF FIRES LOCATED IN SQUAMISH-LILLOOET REGIONAL DISTRICT BURNING A COMBINED 7,253 HECTARES

BY BRANDON BARRETT

AFTER A BRIEF reprieve of rain last week, the recent heat wave spiking temperatures across B.C. is doing no favours for a pair of wildfires burning out of control in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD).

“It’s certainly a concern with no rain in the forecast. This persistent heat is not good by all accounts that we’re hearing from BC Wildfire and all the authorities on that,” said SLRD board chair Jen Ford.

At press time, the Casper Creek wildfire that ignited last month near Anderson Lake, west of Lillooet, was at an estimated 4,650 hectares, according to the BC Wildfire Service. With temperatures climbing into the mid-30s C this week, the provincial agency said an increase to fire activity—behind established fire guards—and visible smoke was likely. Water-bucketing helicopters will also be assigned to the site to assist as required.

Last week’s favourable conditions were enough to allow the SLRD to rescind its evacation order on Aug. 9; however, the recent hot weather led to the order coming back on Aug. 15, for properties in the Mission Mountain Road area.

An evacuation alert, meanwhile, was re-issued on Aug. 15 for all properties from north of Connel Creek to Seton Portage, along with all properties in Seton Portage itself.

In regards to the Downton Lake wildfire burning across 2,603 ha. in the vicinity of Mount Penrose, an evacuation order issued Aug. 1 remains in place for properties in the area of Gun Lake and Lajoie Lake.

now directly access the fire’s edge and complete mop-up efforts to “consolidate this containment,” which the service said was “an important step” in being able to rescind or modify evacuation orders and alerts in the future. Smoke from the planned ignition may remain visible from surrounding areas as remaining pockets of forest burn out.

Due to the deep-seated nature of the

“We’re always aware of the fire risk because we are in the middle of the forest, and this summer being so, so dry, it’s really scary,” said former Whistler Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, whose family has a cottage in McGillivray, about 10 kilometres from the Casper Creek wildfire. “We do a lot of management of our property. The families here are always making sure trees directly adjacent to our properties are trim and we keep the tall grasses clear … to mitigate the risk as best we can. It’s a worry, and I fear it’s only going to get worse in the future.”

On Aug. 2, the district expanded its evacuation alert for all properties from Gold Bridge to Brexton, south towards Gwyneth Lake Resource Road, as well as properties north of Tyaughton Lake. The alert also applies to all properties not already on evacuation order north of Downton Lake, north of Carpenter Lake, and west of Tyaughton Creek.

According to the BC Wildfire Service, firefighters have now successfully implemented a planned ignition along the northeastern extent of the fire, bringing it down to established guards. Crews can

remaining hotspots, the service said guard consolidation and mop-up work would continue for a number of days, likely long enough for the thunderstorms, dry lightning, and gusty winds in the forecast for Aug. 17 and 18 to add to the challenge of fire suppression.

On Aug. 11, the SLRD released an FAQ answering common questions about the Downton Lake fire and evacuation procedures, which can be found at slrd.bc.ca.

Combined, the Casper Creek and Downton Lake fires make up 7,253 ha.—the rough equivalent of 148 West Edmonton Malls.

Even as swaths of B.C. burn during the province’s worst fire season on record, Whistler and the rest of the Sea to Sky have been fortunate enough to avoid a major wildfire. Wilhelm-Morden, who emailed the Mayor of Lahaina, Hawaii following the devastating fire that claimed dozens of lives last week, believes there are key takeaways Whistler and the corridor can take from that emergency, like “what happens when the electricity goes down and there’s a lack of communication?” she relayed. “How do we make people aware of the risk and get them out in a timely fashion? The combination of wind and drought is something Whistler has got to be aware of.”

The SLRD launched its new emergency notification system, SLRD Alert, last year, replacing a previous system with improved access, speed, and delivery of notifications via app, telephone, text or email. Sign up at slrd. bc.ca/slrdalert. ■

BATTLING THE BLAZE Fire crews on the site of the Downton Lake wildfire, west of Gold Bridge.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BC WILDFIRE SERVICE

“How do we make people aware of the risk and get them out in a timely fashion? The combination of wind and drought is something Whistler has got to be aware of.”

- NANCY WILHELM-MORDEN

2023 VENDOR LIST

REGISTRATION AREA: Before you head out on the route, treat yourself to some pancake breakfast from the Pemberton Lions Club, have a last check of your bike by visiting Bike Co’s tools tent, learn to be FireSmart and be a part of the OCP conversation!

Cold Creek Acres Small, organic and family operated. Enjoy stunning views, cold beer tasty eats and amazing music! Welcome to the Pemberton Brewing Farm Stand serving up some of their nest brews for your enjoyment. Good vibes only with local legend reggae music entertainment Kostaman BaconEh will keep you well-fed with their juicy and delicious smoked meat and pulled pork sandwiches.

Pemberton Meat Co Enjoy ethically raised pork, beef, and poultry products from their family owned and operated farm. Pepperoni, beef jerky, sausages, bacon and much more! Discover a next level hot sauce selections with To The Next Journey an adventure for your tastebuds! Chef Frederic Royer of Home Bistronomy will have you come twice to the tting location for you to return to. With a decadent menu including beef steak with potatoes and salsa verde, chilled prawns with salsa and cocktail sauce, chicken skewers with zucchini and onion and fresh burrata with heirloom tomatoes.

What’s for dessert?

Roll 400 meters more down Pemberton Farm Road to be be greeted with fresh owers and veggies at High Noon Flowers and Veggies

Plenty Wild Farms Kick start your ride with plant-based nourishment from local award winner The HWY. Cafe Cool down at Frostbites with shaved ice, topped with their very own, seasonally inspired fresh fruits cordials. And don’t forget the veggies - certi ed organic garlic, tomatoes and other goodies from Plenty Wild Farms. Belly full? Fill your panniers with handmade goat’s milk soap from Lone Goat Soap Co artisan jams, jellies and pickled products from Copper Pot Preserves and unique summer designs by Sewful Creations

HappiLife Farm Flowers the cutting eld of owers in full bloom. Pick up an organically grown bike bouquet to make your pictures pop. Serving delicious locally made BBQ Bratwurst on a bun and hot dogs for the kids while they last. Let Forbidden Spirits delight you with bespoke ower inspired cocktails. Pemberton Brewing Company will be pouring your favourite brews to fuel you to your next stop.

Ride something di erent. Come on in and see our working horse ranch. The horses may be hiding in the trees, but some will be out and about. Kids can take a break on a pony ride around the ranch ($15) and they don’t have to pedal, just pure horse power

Laughing Crow We’ve grown 100 thousand sun ower and created one epic maze. We invite you to take part in the visual harvest adventure. Stroll the pathway, take in the beauty and test your wits trying to nd your way out amidst dead ends, wild goose chases and circle backs. Be delighted with poetry, interpretive signs, and plenty of fridge-worthy family photo-ops for a memorable day on the farm! Sun ower bouquets and fresh veggies also available from the Farm Stand

Across the Creek Organics / The Beer Farmers Welcome to our 4th generation organic, family farm and brewery. Enjoy local lagers and ales and Miller’s Fries Food Truck - featuring fresh cut fries grown right on the farm as well as burgers, hot dogs and vegan soft serve. Purchase organic produce from Laughing Crow Organics Willowcraft Farm and Across the Creek Organics. Buy authentic Pemberton logowear and accessories, branded hats and shirts from Pemberton Brand (with some give aways on site!) Treat yourself to some decadent dessert bars and squares, pretzels and other homemade Blissful Bites. Relax in the shaded grass lawns and enjoy the bluegrass music of the Courageous Mountain Rangers and more!

Helmers Organic Farm Join us on the founding farm of Slow Food Cycle Sunday and taste gourmet Helmer potatoes prepared for you by our chefs- Quang Dang and Richard Stewart.  Enjoy more fabulous food from Four Beat Farm, Starseed Farms gelato and sorbets from Lucia Gelato sweet and savoury deliciousness from The British Baker with vegan and gluten free options, make sure to try the sage and apple sausage rolls, the Helmer potato cheese and onion pu s, the Four Beat carrot cake, and more! All that may cost money but the shade is free, you can bring a picnic, and we don't charge for elding your farming questions. Have a great ride!

Grizzly Farm Want to pick your own blueberries? Come visit a 60-acre permaculture farm growing fruits, berries, veggies, nuts and much more. Explore and pick delicious ripe blueberries and veggies to sample and take home. Learn more about the farm and permaculture during farm tours hosted throughout the day.

Pemberton Valley Farms/Goat Mountain Produce Farm Stand

The return of the legendary Farm Stand! A small-scale third generation family farm specializing in root vegetables, new potatoes, carrots and beets. Committed to taking care of the vegetables in their eld and the nature that surround us. Sweet corn available and amazing views of Goat Mountain, Mount Meager and Mount Currie. Make your way to the end of the route and be richly rewarded feasting at our celebratory corn roast

Be prepared for limited quantities of food/beverages along the route. There will be long lines and some vendors may run out during the day. Bring your own snacks and water!

There will also be long stretches of road with no open farms / venue stops. These stretches provide opportunities to enjoy the beautiful scenery and engage your other senses.

SlowFoodCycleSunday.com

slowfoodcycle@tourismpembertonbc.com

Pedal by HappiLife Farm and see

Life-filled and life-giving, soil is too precious to waste

AS YOU WALK OUTSIDE, watching birds take flight or a squirrel run up a tree, take a moment to consider the activity beneath your feet. A new study shows more than half the world’s life is in soil—including 90 per cent of fungi, 85 per cent of plants and more than 50 per cent of bacteria. Just a teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to a billion bacteria and more than a kilometre of fungi, Nature reports.

That makes soil “the singular most biodiverse habitat on Earth,” according to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We often take soil, and the biodiversity it supports, for granted, but it’s critical to understand it.

BY DAVID SUZUKI

“Organisms in soil play an outweighed impact on the balance of our planet. Their biodiversity matters because soil life affects climate change feedbacks, global food security, and even human health,” lead researcher Mark Anthony, an ecologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told the Guardian

Soil, which makes up the top layer of Earth’s crust, is where we grow almost all our food and it’s second only to the ocean for carbon storage. We should dig deeper into understanding it—especially because topsoil degradation and loss are a growing ecological problem. The United Nations says one-third of global soil has already been affected, mainly by intensive agricultural practices that cause and speed up erosion and runoff, nutrient and organic matter depletion and disruption

nutrients, control weeds and pests, slow evaporation and reduce ground-level temperatures.

Because ploughing up topsoil to plant seeds for monoculture crops has contributed to soil loss and depletion, no-till farming—gaining widespread acceptance worldwide—also helps, especially combined with cover crops.

The Biggest Little Farm documentary film illustrates (on a relatively small scale) how working with nature can keep soils in place and healthy while producing nutrientrich, flavourful food, even under increasingly volatile California weather conditions.

As the farm’s website says, “healthy soil is built from the top down, which means every decision we make above it matters. In short this is why ecologically regenerative farming methods that restore biodiversity above and within the soil (cover cropping, compost application, managed grazing, etc.) create some of the most nutrient-dense and flavorful food that only nature can provide.”

Other methods such as agroforestry (integrating trees and shrubs with agriculture), urban and vertical agriculture, a shift toward plant-based diets and more can help maintain and enrich soils while safeguarding the climate, food systems, waterways, lands and ocean.

We must also protect and restore natural lands and the soils within them. We can’t keep paving or planting over forest and wetland soils through which mycelial networks and root systems connect with nutrients, chemical processes, plants, animals and each other, providing services our health and lives depend on—oxygen production, flood control, food, carbon sequestration, animal habitat, recreational opportunities and more.

The study on soil life also reminds us that, although we’ve been developing large-

of natural processes and cycles.

Soil can also be susceptible to drought and floods, especially where sustainable agricultural practices aren’t employed. Dry soils don’t support life well and can be too baked to absorb water, making them prone to erosion and nutrient loss during sudden rains, with potential flooding below from runoff.

To address the global heating that’s causing weather to become more extreme and unpredictable, making farming challenging, we must shift to renewable energy, used efficiently and wisely. But there are immediate, proven ways to protect and make better use of the soils we need to grow food—and they come with climate benefits.

Quick-growing cover plants like clover, alfalfa, barley, oats, wheat and legumes can prevent erosion, fix nitrogen, replenish

scale agriculture as if we had a complete understanding of natural systems, our knowledge has been and is still lacking. The researchers note that their study’s margin of error is large and that there’s much still to learn. And yet, we’ve been treating this essential, life-filled, life-giving layer of Earth like we treat the rest of the planet: as if it’s there to exploit without fear of consequences.

But we’re now seeing devastating consequences. Adopting better conservation, restoration and agricultural practices would help soil, food security, climate and health.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington. ■

Remembering Ripple Rock

THE CLOSEST I’VE EVER BEEN to an explosion was a mining engineering field trip at university. My class piled into a bus bound for a rural Queensland coal mine and spent the day observing the mine’s operations, mostly watching big equipment rolling around from a safe distance. But our professor

BY VINCE SHULEY

knew what would give us all a story to take home, so he timed our visit with the day’s blast. We watched from about a kilometre away, and saw the smoke and debris cloud as the ground shock wave reached us. We heard the blast moments later.

My career could have steered towards blowing up the ground in Australian mines, but I ended up in B.C. instead. And it was while visiting its picturesque coast I learned about one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in Seymour Narrows 65 years ago; the destruction of the underwater mountain known as Ripple Rock.

Before I get to the very big blast, a bit of history and geographic context is needed. Seymour Narrows is a 5.1-kilometre stretch

of Discovery Passage which connects the Strait of Georgia with Johnstone Strait and the northern coast of Vancouver Island. The two peaks of Ripple Rock were just 2.74 metres and 6.4 metres below the surface, respectively (at low tide), allowing strong tidal currents to create large and very dangerous eddies. Captain George Vancouver himself described the Seymour Narrows as “one of the vilest stretches of water in the world,” and he was right.

Ripple Rock claimed its first victim in 1875, sinking the sidewheel steamer USS Saranac. Over the next 80 years or so, Ripple

Island to the mainland. Making passage safer for ships was given a higher priority.

The initial attempts to remove the rock in the 1940s were unsuccessful. A drilling barge was floated over the rock with 3.8-centimetrediameter steel cables attached to six concrete anchors totalling 998 tonnes. The plan was to drill into the rock from above and use explosives to smash away at it, bit by bit. Ripple Rock wasn’t having it. The violent waters broke a steel cable an average of once every 48 hours.

A second attempt with the drill barge was to suspend overhead steel cables over Seymour Narrows to hold the barge in place.

metres per day to complete the 174-metredeep shaft. They then slowly and meticulously tunnelled 762 metres under the narrows to reach Ripple Rock from below. Two 91-metrehigh tunnels were then dug vertically into the heart of the rock, with a series of “coyote” tunnels shooting out horizontally.

More than a thousand tonnes of Nitramex 2H (the most advanced TNT explosive at the time) were packed into those tunnels. Rumours had circulated that nearby Campbell River would be flattened in the blast, and the shock wave would cause a tsunami that would damage the Japanese coast. Millions of fish and whales would die, they said. Local residents were instructed by authorities to open all their windows to avoid the shock wave shattering them.

Rock would claim at least 114 lives by sinking more than 20 large vessels and at least 100 small vessels. The same stretch now will see several cruise ships a day bound for Alaska without issue. At high tide, of course.

Recommendations by marine commissions called for the rock’s removal as early as 1931, but it wasn’t until 1942 that authorization was finally given to blow the thing up. The removal had its opponents, but not for preservation or cultural reasons. People wanted Ripple Rock to serve as support for a railway bridge to connect Vancouver

The turbulent waters once again sent the drilling barge on its way with only 149 holes drilled (of the 1,500 or so needed) and the contract was terminated.

A few years later, Canada’s National Research Council gauged the feasibility of tunnelling into Ripple Rock from underneath. This is when the consulting engineers got crafty. They enlisted hard rock miners to dig a vertical shaft on nearby Maude Island (off the western edge of Quadra Island) and about 75 men worked three shifts a day around the clock, the miners advancing an average of 1.8

When the big red button was finally pushed, on April 5, 1958, the blast hurled 635,040 tonnes of water and rock more than 304 metres into the air, causing a 7.6-metre tsunami that quickly dissipated. The Fisheries Department confirmed that five orcas, a school of porpoises, two sea lions and one fur seal spotted in the area before the explosion were all seen again after the dust had settled.

The largest non-nuclear blast in the world at the time was one of the first national live coverage events by the CBC. Even a handful of British atomic weapons researchers were sent to observe the explosion. The destruction of Ripple Rock is remembered as one of Canada’s modern engineering marvels.

Vince Shuley is fascinated by large, nonviolent explosions. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider email vince.shuley@ gmail.com or Instagram @whis_vince. ■

Ripple

Rock claimed its first victim in 1875, sinking the sidewheel steamer USS Saranac.

WE WILL ROCK YOU The stretch of water near Campbell River, B.C., was home to the troublesome underwater mountain Ripple Rock, which was blown up in 1958.

PHOTO BY PAUL SOUDER / GETTY IMAGES

Mama Makers

Meet the Sea to Sky moms with young children who turned to making–and found a side hustle

BY BRIGITTE MAH

STACKING THE ODDS

Brigitte Mah’s wooden bears took off during the pandemic, but her surprise side hustle was short-lived after she learned other makers had been aping her designs and selling their lower-quality products for cheap.

I DREW the profile of a black bear on paper and asked my husband, a carpenter, to cut it out of wood. He did, and then, because the bear that came into our yard was a yearling, I asked him to cut out a family of bears. That night, a few friends came by, and the five little bears were lying on our coffee table. While I was putting the baby and toddler to bed, one of our friends picked up the bears. I came back downstairs to find them stacked in various positions, and my teacher brain saw more than wooden bears trying to be a cheerleader pyramid; I saw a dozen learning opportunities.

Most importantly, though, I saw an opportunity for us. We live in bear country, and what could be cuter than a handcrafted wooden bear game? Little kids could stack the bears on their sides, try to pile them high in a tower, pivot them in different directions for spatial practice, and challenge each other to copy their stacks.

“Open-ended learning” and “play to learn” were the buzz phrases in early childhood education back then, and these bears definitely fit that category. I quickly did some calculations, and thought how much fun it would be to make bear sets and sell them at local markets. I’d heard of mothers who had made more as makers than they had in their professional jobs, and at the very least, it could be a side hustle.

And because my creative brain can’t ever stop at one idea, I thought, “Hey, why not add more?” I mean, why stop at bears? Why not create wooden triangles, painted in mountain colours, that offer the chance for young children to learn the different types of triangles?

Before I knew it, ideas were tumbling out of my brain, my garage was constantly

buzzing to the sound of saws, and my house smelled of paint and wax. I started thinking about early development, ages and stages, and I created more toys offering growth and development through play. In between nursing a baby, playing with a toddler, taking the dogs for a walk, cooking, cleaning, and freelance writing, I was sanding, waxing, and researching the difference between cardboard box sizes and logo design prices.

We took our wooden toys to local markets—and they were a hit. By then, I’d created a line of toys that all secretly developed skills for kids—whether it was strengthening their pinch abilities for holding a pencil by using our bow and arrow, or furthering their coordination and vestibular systems by using our wooden climber, or learning their colours through a matching ball and bowl set. Every item enticed children to do what they do best: play.

And then the pandemic hit. Freelance writing came to a grinding halt, and my husband was laid off from work. Our sales went from side-hustle-so-we-can-buy-the-expensive-cheesethis-week to a non-stop battery of pings on my phone from every order. Families all over the continent stuck at home in lockdown were beside themselves trying to figure out how to entertain their kids, poring through the internet in search of ideas.

For three glorious weeks, we were it. We were the one-stop shop for all your wooden homelearning needs, and the sales kept coming and coming. Free from his job, my husband had time, so he spent his entire day in the garage cutting out wood. In between scrambling eggs in the morning and printing shipping labels, I was handing wooden bears and balls to my toddler to wax, while my preschooler was assembling boxes and wrestling with bubble wrapping the wooden climbers. I went from little sleep to no sleep, and one or two trips to the post office each week to daily trips with dozens of boxes.

But all good things must come to an end, and even though we hired extra help, the success of our hustle-turned-business came to a crashing halt the day I received a text from a friend telling me that a popular store in Ontario had copied my designs. On my behalf, she’d messaged the maker (also a mother) and told them their designs were copied, but the response she received was a curt message along the lines of, “We all have to survive right now.”

I’d been so busy making that I hadn’t even noticed what anyone else was doing, and a quick search online led me to several other brand-new makers who had taken “inspiration” from my designs. It seemed everyone with a table saw and some sandpaper had decided to jump into making wooden toys, and overnight my sales dropped by 30 per cent. It didn’t matter their products were smaller or made from lower-quality wood, because they sold their items for cheaper prices, and with large numbers of people suddenly out of work, cheap was what everyone needed.

The final nail in my mama-making business came a year later when I received an email from a popular online marketplace informing me they were removing some of my listings because another person had filed patent rights to my design. It didn’t matter I had already been selling the item for two full years before the patent was filed. It didn’t matter the seller wasn’t even in the same country, nay, continent. It didn’t matter what I said to fight; my listing was removed, and with it, most of my income disappeared overnight.

In 2018, I had a brilliant idea. A bear had just wandered into our yard, and while I was consoling my terrified, sobbing toddler, I thought I should work out her fear through play. I looked at a few of her stuffed toy bears and our one over-smiling, plastic bath teddy, and realized not a single one of them looked like the bear in our yard.

But not all mother makers share the same experience as mine. Some turned to making as a creative outlet. Some found unexpected success, with their small business continuing to thrive, while others, weighed down by the pressures of juggling parenthood, a full-time job and a side hustle, made the tough call to give up their passion project.

The Laid-off Maker

In 2018, Lotte Bond was working at Squamish’s Quest University as the associate director of admissions and finishing up her third maternity leave. A molecular biologist by education, she never would have imagined trading her 13-year career in education for a home business in weaving.

It started out innocently, as making generally does, but instead of a wooden bear, it was a macrame plant hanger.

“It was just a fun little hobby. I wanted to make my own macrame plant hanger and looked up some instructions on Google,” says Bond.

That concept opened up a creative outlet for Bond that had sat dormant for several years. Growing up in Finland, her grandmother taught her crochet and some basic weaving techniques. Bond recalls going to her mother’s friends’ houses, where large looms were the focal piece, and only last year, on a return trip to Finland, did she notice all the large wall hangings her grandmother had made.

“I think fibres have always surrounded me my whole entire life, but I never noticed it or appreciated it until now as an adult,” she says.

That moment of appreciation struck after Bond made her own macrame plant hanger. She researched different weavings on Pinterest and Instagram and realized she had the skills to make them. She remembered her childhood loom that was still buried in her parents’ basement, and asked her mother to dig it out.

What began as a fun hobby in between shuttling her three young, energetic boys to school and activities, and managing her full-time professional career, gradually grew as Bond discovered the therapeutic and creative benefits she got from weaving.

“It’s all about the process,” she says. “It’s a very slow process and very meditative. I needed a creative outlet. I needed to do something for myself.”

In 2020, Quest University was suffering financial hardship, and Bond and 10 other employees lost their positions (the school suspended classes indefinitely in April of this year). Her husband had just started a new business and Bond leaned into her urge to weave and create. She named her business Minttu, after the Finnish childhood book series by Maikki Harjanne that her grandmother used to read to her, and she started selling her pieces online and at farmers’ markets. Buyers loved her work, and Bond progressed to bigger wall pieces. She experimented with different fibres, colours and techniques, and sold her pieces to local flower shops and a retail store in Vancouver.

All of Bond’s sons are now in school, so she has more time during the day to weave. She has three looms, and primarily works on custom pieces, along with workshops at the local bookstore and yarn shop.

The Surprise Storeowner

Kim Hulme has always been crafty and enjoys working with her hands, whether it is making friendship bracelets, crocheting, or sewing clothes. In 2017, she was sewing children’s clothing and adult hoodies while working at a golf course in Pemberton when she heard about macrame and decided to give it a try. She watched a few YouTube videos, made a few pieces and realized she liked doing it. One plant hanger led to another and before she knew it, Hulme had a house full of macrame pieces.

“I started making [many] things and I kept making things because I love making things, but then I realized, ‘I have so many things in the house. Where am I going to put these?’”

Hulme shared her work on her personal social media channels; friends noticed and asked if she could make pieces for them. From there, Hulme juggled her side hustle and her day job.

Then, Hulme became pregnant. “I realized when I have the baby, I can’t work, so I thought maybe this can be a side income,” she says.

Hulme began offering private macrame classes in Pemberton, but within a year, she noticed several of her students selling pieces online with the same patterns she’d taught them.

“It’s really hard when that happens,” she says. “It’s frustrating because people don’t mean to steal from you. They don’t think it’s going to take away from your business, but we live in a tiny corridor, so it does.”

Not one to be daunted by a challenge, Hulme shifted gears. She’d noticed a trending baby nest from Europe, but the steep price turned her away from purchasing one.

“I thought, ‘I can’t afford that—but I can sew,’” Hulme says.

And that’s exactly what she did. Like her macrame pieces, what began as a single item for herself soon blossomed into steady demand from her community.

“It just blew up,” says Hulme.

Then, 2020 hit and all markets closed. Hulme and several other creative makers came together to run their own pop-up market for three weeks, under the direction of local metal worker Paul Nicholas. The market was successful, but Nicholas didn’t want to continue with it—though he suggested Hulme take it on.

“I thought, ‘I have no daycare, my daughter just turned two. I have no time. How am I supposed to open a store? How am I supposed to run a store?’ It was never something in my mind to own and run a store. It was just organically thrown at me,” says Hulme.

She eventually found a space and 20 fellow makers to co-sign a monthly rental lease.

“It all lined up, and within two weeks of me thinking, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do that, but maybe,’ it went from not even a thought to taking possession and getting the key on Feb. 1, and then Feb. 4, we were open, with everyone filling the shelves.”

Hulme named the store The Pemberton Collective, and two and a half years later, it now carries more than 60 local vendors, the vast majority of whom are local small businesswomen makers from around the Sea to Sky.

The Maker Turned Worker

When Zoe Linford had her first child in 2016, she was working as an early childhood educator in Vancouver, and as a part of her class’ circle time, she made felt stories, essentially, cut-and-sewn pieces of fabric put on a felted board to accompany a song, story or nursery rhyme as a visual representation. After Linford’s child was born, she found herself at the Vancouver children’s store, Chorus and Clouds, for the shop’s weekly music and story times.

One day, Linford asked the store’s owner why she wasn’t selling the felt stories she sang and shared in her weekly classes. “She said, ‘I don’t like making them’, and I said, ‘Well, I would do that’—and I did,” recalls Linford.

WEAVING A NEW

PATH

Minttu founder Lotte Bond made her first macrame plant hanger during the pandemic, and soon discovered the therapeutic and creative benefits she got from weaving.

From there, she created Northwest Felts, and chose to use real wool felt instead of the cheaper plastic felt often sold in craft or dollar stores. Linford’s husband, an animator, drew the designs and then she hand-cut and sewed each animal individually. After moving to Squamish, she continued making felt stories that were a popular sell at Chorus and Clouds. In between raising a toddler and working at a local daycare, Linford cut and sewed, often at night after the kids were in bed.

But she struggled with the challenge many makers encounter: the grinding, repetitive nature of producing large amounts of items by hand.

“I have ADHD so making the same things over and over is really challenging for me,” says Linford. “Making the same five felt stories was really tedious work. I would really have to force myself to do it.”

When Linford was on maternity leave with her second child, she expanded to make birthday crowns, hair clips and themed playsets that weren’t connected to a particular story. In 2022, she began making felted

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COLLECTIVE PASSION

After craft markets across the Sea to Sky shut down in 2020, Kim Hulme decided to start her own. Today, The Pemberton Collective store carries more than 60 local vendors, the majority of whom are local women makers like herself.

flowers and sold many of her creations to Little Bookshop in Squamish.

For a while, Linford enjoyed making as a business, but, in the end, it wasn’t financially sustainable.

“I don’t really have that pocket of savings that you would need to start taking it to the next level,” she says. “I have what I have. I don’t have that pocket of money where I could put my child in daycare, so I can actually get work done, or hire an employee to do this piece of work.”

Last fall, Linford accepted a position with the Early Childhood Pedagogy Network as a community pedagogist for the Sea to Sky.

Linford still makes her felted creations, and has plans to offer her felt stories at Little Bookshop, but making takes time, and with a full-time job, two young children, volunteer community work, and a personal life, time is a highly sought-after commodity.

The Unexpected Market Maker

The phrase “go big or go home” is one that Carly Fox has embraced for years. A knitter by night, she is an event organizer for Crankworx, an education assistant at Spring Creek Community School, a supervisor for the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program, and a mother of two young children. Clearly, Fox is no stranger to wearing multiple hats. She started her maker business, Fox and Ivy Creations, in honour of her first daughter, Violet, who passed away in December 2013 at just one month old. (Her second daughter is named Ivy, and a third, Indigo, was named in honour of Violet.) Though she had been knitting and crocheting for many years, it wasn’t until Violet passed that Fox decided to launch the company. As an Australian who moved to Whistler in 2005 to chase the skiing and fresh powder days, Fox quickly learned the value of a well-made toque. Since Violet was born a week before Christmas, a toque-making business seemed fitting.

“I’m always looking for ways to honour my firstborn,” she says, adding that she sews a violet into the inside of each toque. “Keeping my hands moving really helped after she passed, and it helped when I was pregnant [later on].”

Fox had been juggling all her jobs, raising her second child, and making toques when the pandemic hit, shutting down most in-person markets. Sales were going well before then, and Fox had been selling her toques to a shop in Vancouver.

“The biggest kicker for me in 2020 was the lack of the Arts Whistler Holiday Market,” she says. “The lack of that market for so many people was just soul-crushing.”

The decades-old market always brought in thousands of dollars in sales for local makers. “It’s also a huge draw for the community and the entire Sea to Sky corridor,” Fox says.

When Arts Whistler announced in early 2022 that it could not find an affordable venue for the market, Fox decided to “go shopping” for a venue on her own.

“I made some phone calls, asked for quotes, and kept getting shut down. I’m a go-big-or-gohome person, so I asked the Fairmont for a screaming deal, and they said sure,” she says. While Fox was working out the details, she accepted the job at Whistler Adaptive, working at Whistler Blackcomb’s Snow School, which happened to open on the same dates as her planned winter market.

“So, I was supposed to be running a ski-school program while running a market, so that was fun,” she says.

Once Fox had the venue secured, she started promoting the market and accepting applications. While Arts Whistler had a team of employees to help manage the market, Fox

just had herself. But because she has lived in Whistler for so long, and doing it on her own, organizations gave her deals.

“I’m basically running this market so I can sell toques,” she says. “Me and 50 of my closest friends [want to sell what we have made].”

Fox ran the applications and payment through her Fox and Ivy Creations website, which she accessed at the library while taking care of her toddler, and hoped their payments would come quickly so she could pay off the venue deposit she had put on her credit card.

“I had to borrow on my credit card and hope for the best,” she says.

Among the many challenges facing Fox was the logistics of managing a market of creatives, while finding time to create herself—not to mention finding the time to advertise, create a floor plan, and be a mother to two children.

But Fox pulled it off, and 49 makers joined her for the Artisan Holiday Market on Nov. 26 and 27, 2022, at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. The market was a success, and even though Fox’s children were exhausted after their 13-hour days, Fox knew she’d done the right thing by making it all happen.

“I’m really glad I did it,” she says, “and I don’t want to do it again.”

At least, not by herself.

That seems to be the crux of being a maker and a mother of young children: While we thrive on creativity and use making as a way to find time to be present, or still, after a busy day of working a full-time job, or running our kids to activities, or stopping the fits and tears, we struggle to find the balance of all that comes after that first piece is made.

One thing is for certain, though: if making comes from an authentic place of love, it will grow.

How it grows—as with our children—is up to us. n

HEART-FELT

In between raising children and working at a local daycare, Zoe Linford would often cut and sew her “felt stories” at night, after the kids were in bed. But she struggled with the challenge many craft makers encounter: the grinding, repetitive nature of producing large amounts of items by hand.

HONOURING VIOLET

Carly Fox was inspired to create her toque business, Fox and Ivy, in honour of her firstborn daughter, who passed away at just one month old.

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Whistler man to rollerblade around the Earth—for bees

ZACH CHOBOTER TAKES AIM AT A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD WITH HIS ENVIRONMENTAL NON-PROFIT, BLADING FOR BEES

BY DAVID SONG

AT FIRST GLANCE, Zachariah Choboter is just your average, everyday guy. He stands roughly five feet, nine inches tall, with a sturdy but not exceptionally athletic build. His longish brown hair is often contained beneath a helmet or a baseball cap. Choboter (who often goes by Zach) is familiar with physical work, like many in the Sea to Sky, and is employed by the Whistler Sliding Centre (WSC) as a track medic during winter months.

Oh, and by the way: he’s a Guinness World Record holder who plans to one-up himself next spring.

In 2021, Choboter rollerbladed across Canada in 91 days. Aided by his younger sister Rachel, who drove the support van, he purposefully took a series of detours to cover a record-breaking distance of 10,093 kilometres. (For reference, Canada’s land border with the United States is only 8,890 kilometres long).

And the 27-year-old isn’t done. Next April, he will try to become the first human being ever to circumnavigate planet Earth on rollerblades. He’s not just doing it for personal glory, either—instead, Choboter is leveraging both of his unprecedented journeys to raise

FOR

ecological awareness via his non-profit group, Blading for Bees.

TO BOLDLY GO…

What, you may ask, could possess Choboter to attempt such an unusual and monumental undertaking? The answer might be surprising in its simplicity: he loves rollerblading, he loves the environment, and he loves a healthy challenge.

Choboter grew up in Aldergrove, a town of roughly 13,000 people located an hour east of Vancouver. Upon moving to Squamish in the late 2010s, he met a lively group of friends who opened his eyes to all kinds of outdoor activities. Choboter’s diverse interests run the gamut from mountain biking to adventure racing, but ultimately his rollerblades have his heart.

“Especially in the Sea to Sky, people get these crazy endorphins and dopamine hits from skiing or hiking, and I totally get that from rollerblading,” Choboter explained. “It’s weird and I don’t think everyone in the universe gets that feeling. But for some reason, there’s a weird thing inside me that says: ‘You need to skate.’”

A naturally adventurous soul, Choboter has always yearned to do something unique. Biking across Canada was his first idea, but he quickly dismissed it as being “far too mainstream.” That’s why he chose instead to rollerblade across the country, something that no one had done before.

Around the same time, Choboter brought

Blading for Bees to life. The organization’s vision statement describes “people from all walks of life living in a sustainable future … attainable with uncomplicated changes that will benefit not only the bees and the environment, but society in a healthy and economic way.” Thus he elected to use his cross-Canada journey to advocate for bees.

Choboter’s friends and family members thought he was crazy at first, and understandably so. Rachel signed on anyway, and in time, others did too when they witnessed him accomplish his unprecedented feat.

Nowadays, the Blading for Bees team includes Choboter’s father and chief financial officer Jonathan, longtime friend and chief operating officer Mike Hamm—who he used to rollerblade around Aldergrove with—and, of course, executive director Rachel. They even have someone from London, Ont.: Bridgette Crowley, who handles their social media accounts.

“There’s no way you can do something of this nature alone,” Choboter said. “It’s impossible—I don’t care what anyone says. So I’m just so grateful and so thankful for all the people in my life.”

…WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE

For most people, a rollerblading trip across Canada would produce enough mileage to last a lifetime. Not so with Choboter. In fact, an injury only fuelled his desire to make an

impact in the world.

The Aldergrove native broke his leg playing rugby soon after returning from his first excursion. Spending more than eight months laid up to recover from multiple surgeries made him miss the open road even more. Instead of resting on his laurels, Choboter decided to pursue his once-in-a-generation chance to break another world record.

“There’s not very many ‘world’s firsts’ anymore,” he acknowledged. “Nowadays, everyone’s been everywhere, everyone has done everything, and they’re pushing the limits. So there’s this really rare opportunity to do something really crazy and really cool … and if I can help the biodiversity and the environment and the bees and the people on the planet in a positive way, I want to connect the two.”

Choboter’s passion for bees grew dramatically as he informed himself about them, whether individually or through meeting with beekeepers and other experts. In addition to being vital members of healthy ecosystems around the world, bees can—in Choboter’s experience, at least—open the door to discussions of environmental stewardship in a way that cuts across political divides.

“Bees are adorable,” he said. “There’ll be literally people from completely different sides of the government being like: ‘Yeah, bees!’ It’s sweet.”

Those wishing to support Choboter or follow his journey can do so at bladingforbees. com. n

BLADING

BEES Whistler man Zach Choboter owns the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous journey on rollerblades.

FIELD HOCKEY KIDS SESSIONS!

In Loving Memory of Richard Patrick Gibbons

March 16th, 1943 - August 8th, 2023

Richard Patrick Gibbons, known to all as Dick, passed away from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis surrounded by family on August 8th, 2023 Dick’s loving wife Colleen, his children Joey, Erika, Matthew, and Britt, their spouses Krysta, David and Kate, 10 grandchildren: JJ, Dreas, Maia, Cecily, Sasha, Thomas, Gwen, Mathew, Richie and Elsie, sister-in-law’s Deedee and Janice, extended family, nieces and nephews, close friends and colleagues will all deeply miss Dick whose presence enhanced all those he encountered He truly led a remarkable life

Dick's journey began from humble beginnings in Burnaby, where he learned the value of hard work, determination, and perseverance His mother Mary worked tirelessly to support Dick and his beloved brother David W. Gibbons, QC (Big Dave for those who knew him best), while his father David was often on the road working Dick learned to be independent, industrious, affable and tough These qualities provided the foundation for his athletic, professional and personal successes

Athletically, Dick was gifted He excelled in multiple sports but chose to focus on football while at the University of British Columbia (UBC) He was a star on and off the field He attended law school while playing football and in his final year met the love of his life, Colleen, which began a 56-year partnership of adoration and bliss Following university, Dick established a successful private law practice before venturing out into real estate investment and business Dick’s professional pursuits were nothing short of extraordinary He used any setbacks as motivation to achieve greater success, with the world class Longhorn Saloon in Whistler being an example of his mark Outside of work, Dick enjoyed spending time with his brother-in-law Jim and his good friends Lance, Romano and Craig – we bet he is catching up with all of them now Dick thoroughly enjoyed his “gentleman having coffee” zoom sessions arranged by his good friend Brian over the past few years, while his childhood friend Wayne supplied him with many laughs over a 75+ year span In addition, Dick shared a close relationship with his cousin George where each would tell the other about how proud they were of their respective families

Dick always looked for ways to give back by supporting people and causes that he believed in He made numerous donations to the Vancouver General Hospital Foundation and to UBC, where he had an endowed fund set up in his mother Mary’s name to help students from the Sea-to-Sky corridor, Nelson and Burnaby attend university

Those closest to him will dearly miss hearing him recount stories from the past, getting advice and singing Jim Croce songs Dick’s memory will forever be a source of inspiration and strength Family meant everything to Dick We know he will continue to watch over us and find ways to help guide us through our own journey

We love you so much Dick

Dick and Colleen called Whistler home for over 30 years, with a more recent move to Vancouver to be close to health care. Dick, Colleen and family thank all the health care providers for their support A special thanks to Dave Thompson as well, who provided unending friendship and advice for which Dick and family are eternally grateful

Dick will be laid to rest in Whistler, BC in peace, knowing that his legacy lives on A celebration of Dick’s life will be held at 1 pm on August 26th, 2023 at the Whistler Convention Center. All are welcome.

Ants rule—in our kitchens and kingdoms beyond

IF WE TURN OUR ATTENTION TO THE TINIEST THINGS IN NATURE, THE BETTER OFF WE’LL ALL BE

EDWARD

O. WILSON is my hero, and not just because he thought both BioBlitzes and ants were cool.

I like to think of him as “E.O.” for short (the “O” is for “Osborne”), the way he’s usually cited, albeit normally with “Wilson.” I bet he wouldn’t mind were he still alive. (He died in 2021 at the age of 92.)

This amazingly sensitive, shy, unpretentious, persistent, observant, astute scientist—who was born in the American

BY GLENDA BARTOSH

South and was a perfect embodiment of that endearing “Southern gentleman” politesse— was actually an evolutionary biologist and expert on human nature, insects and social systems. He was also the author of dozens of books, going back to 1974; the winner of so many scientific prizes, you can barely count them all; a Harvard professor for ages; and an outspoken, ardent defender of some of the tiniest, commonest and most taken-forgranted lifeforms on Earth, which was all the more remarkable since such things were dismissed as, well, quaint or unnecessary— maybe like “women’s work” in his time.

Did I say he was amazing? E.O.’s entire life was devoted to exploring and protecting

all the staggering forms of biodiversity on the planet. So no wonder he was a major advocate of BioBlitzes, like the one Whistler Naturalists held in July for the 17th time. Once again, experts volunteered their time and knowledge in a race against the clock to document as many plant and animal species as possible in 24 hours.

Whistler’s is the longest running BioBlitz in Canada. It will still take a while to tabulate this year’s efforts, but organizers hope 2023 will push Whistler over the top for 5,000 species—impressive, especially since only 435 species were known when local biologist Bob Brett first started tabulating the area’s biodiversity more than two decades ago.

I’ll get back to why all this BioBlitzing is so critical, but first let me gush on about E.O. a bit more.

Edward O. Wilson stood outside of time—and convention. The controversies he sometimes stirred up endeared him to me all the more. I’m guessing he’s probably rolling over in his grave right now, because highly flammable non-native grasses—an invasive species monoculture—were instrumental in Maui’s disastrous blazes.

I shudder to think of all the neverdocumented, never-understood species destroyed in all the unprecedented wildfires we’re seeing, not just in Maui. And that’s just the start. Our warming oceans, disappearing wetlands, clearcut forests, polluted air— there’s a terrible irony at play here. Just as we humans are finally grasping the wonder of our natural world more and more, we’re simultaneously destroying it more and more.

In 2008, in another case of his prescience, E.O. told this to The New York Times: “Future generations will forgive us our horrible, genocidal wars, because it’ll pass too far in

history. They will forgive us all of the earlier generations’ follies and the harm. But they will not forgive us for having so carelessly thrown away a large part of the rest of life on our watch.”

One of his finest books—one of two that earned him a Pulitzer Prize, one he co-authored with his longtime collaborator Bert Hölldobler, is The Ants. At 700-plus pages, it’s intense, and it’s all about one of the smallest things in that larger part of life we’re so careless about.

Ants were a big deal to E.O. from the time he was a boy and was half-blinded in one eye by the spine of a pinfish he was reeling in. It was then he turned his gaze downward.

If you want to saddle up to his ideas in a gentler, more poetic way, try his 2020 masterpiece, Tales From the Ant World, published the year before he died. I just dusted off the copy on my messy desk...

“Ants Rule” is the name of the introduction. It goes from there. “Ants, it is said, are among the little creatures that run the world, perhaps for our benefit, perhaps not,” he writes. E.O. also reckons that if humans hadn’t arisen as an “accidental primate species,” visitors from other star systems (oh yes, he assures us, they will eventually come) would call Earth “planet of the ants.”

Beyond ants, he cautions, more than a million species of insects, spiders, and other arthropods await our full attention.

“The more that this part of the biosphere is studied by future experts, the better off will be the world, our selves included.” To wit, Whistler’s BioBlitz.

It’s natural: Paying attention to the very small means we’re also paying attention to the very large—our food-producing lands, our

oceans, our forests, us. To that end, I love E.O.’s answer to the most common question he ever received: What do I do about the ants in my kitchen?

His reply: Watch your step. Be careful of “little lives” and consider becoming an amateur myrmecologist—someone who studies ants. “They carry no disease, and may help eliminate other insects that do carry disease. You are a million times larger than each one. You could hold an entire colony in your cupped hands. You inspire fear in them; they should not in you.”

E.O. then goes on to recommend that we make use of the ants in our kitchens by feeding them and reflecting on what we observe. “Place a few pieces of food the size of a thumbnail on the floor or sink. They’re especially fond of honey, sugar water, chopped nuts, and canned tuna,” he writes.

If you think all this sounds intriguing, the Whistler Public Library has some great Edward O. Wilson books to get you started. Try The Diversity of Life of Earth, still considered to be the best book about biodiversity. Or Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life , which won him his other Pulitzer Prize. In it he urges that the only solution to the Sixth Extinction is to set aside half the Earth’s surface in natural bioreserves. Get it? Half-Earth.

Personally, I’d love to see us set aside even more. In the meantime, consider joining the Whistler Naturalists, or sending them a donation. The more money they have, the more experts they can add to next year’s BioBlitz.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who watches the ants—and spiders—in her kitchen. n

SMALL WORLD Paying attention to the very small means we’re also paying attention to the very large.

PHOTO BY PAUL MANSFIELD PHOTOGRAPHY / GETTY IMAGES

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Cody Caetano named Writer in Residence for 2023 Whistler Writers’ Festival

THE WRITER IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM RUNS FROM SEPT. 17 TO NOV. 17 AT ALTA LAKE ARTISTS’ CABIN

BY DAVID SONG

IN 2022 , Whistler Writers Festival (WWF) attendees became acquainted with Cody Caetano and his book Half-Bads in White Regalia: a memoir of his own childhood in the highway village of Happyland, Ont. Many came away impressed and inspired, and they are no doubt looking forward to Caetano’s return this fall as the WWF’s newly-named Writer in Residence.

As such, Caetano will act as a primary mentor in an intensive workshop for up to 12 aspiring authors interested in taking their skills to the next level.

“Cody writes with great humour, sensitivity, insight and conviction, and he has so much to impart to this year’s cohort,” says WWF artistic director Rebecca Wood Barrett in a release.

Half-Bads in White Regalia is a national bestseller decorated with accolades such as the 2023 Indigenous Voices Award for Best Published Prose. It was named one of the year’s best books by The Globe and Mail and CBC Books, in addition to being long-listed for Canada Reads and the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

Penning a memoir is different from composing an academic essay or even a journalistic article like the one you’re reading right now: it can truly be approached from any and every direction. Caetano’s debut work assumed many forms before its release, not

unlike a chameleon.

“I was quite over-stimulated throughout the drafting of the book, because it’s really hard to even orient yourself around the process of writing a memoir,” he explains. “But I really wanted to focus on a chronological approach and a child’s perspective, and to really try and enshrine that child’s perspective, because so many of my favourite memoirs that I read growing up did that.”

CREATIVITY IN COHORT

Last year’s WWF marked Caetano’s first visit to Whistler. He doesn’t snowboard or ski, nor does he have family in the Sea to Sky corridor— yet he’s raring to return.

“I feel very, very lucky and grateful to get the chance to work with writers there, and to be in a cohort again,” Caetano says. “That was one of my favourite times as a writer— working alongside and with other writers.”

As a literary agent employed by CookeMcDermid, Caetano is well-positioned to engage with fellow authors at varying stages of their creative processes. He enjoys exploring the world another writer has made, sharing with them his experience, resources, and the mistakes he made along the way. In fact, Caetano has always been captivated by writing and its manifold facets: drafting, revision, detail, voice, structure, word choice, etc.

Others might find the minutiae to be tedious, or merely a necessary part of creation, but he finds it all to be stimulating— life-giving, even.

Caetano’s eclectic background gives him plenty of life experience to draw from. He moved all around southern Ontario as a boy, and the aftershocks of his parents’

divorce are chronicled in his memoir. He has Anishinaabe First Nations blood courtesy of his mom Mindimooye, who hails from the Interlake Region of Manitoba, while his dad O Touro moved to Canada from the Azores in Portugal.

Yet, Caetano is careful not to misrepresent his relationship with the cultures in his family.

“While I do come from these specific backgrounds, ways of telling stories and seeing the world in many practical, literal ways, I haven’t really had access to those backgrounds,” he reveals. “My family didn’t speak Anishinaabe or Portuguese in the home, and so much of your worldview is tied up with language, right?”

Nonetheless, Caetano embraces the challenge of learning more about his heritage. He believes doing so helps him become a better-rounded person instead of defaulting to an individualistic Western worldview that can strait-jacket its adherents into a narrow focus on one’s immediate surroundings, career and family. Caetano’s own parents no longer have a healthy connection with their nations and cultures of origin, and that’s a fate he wishes to avoid.

“It’s important to learn the stories you can of your family, if you have access—to learn the things that make your specific community and the language related to it,” he says. “It’s important not only to you, but to future generations.”

LIFE AS A STORYTELLER

Caetano wasn’t necessarily what one might call a bookworm growing up. Sure, he took to reading quickly and proficiently, but he also had plenty of more mainstream interests such as music, video games and films. Over

time, he discovered a passion for storytelling in all its myriad forms—writing was simply the medium that came most intuitively to him.

The 28-year-old can’t pinpoint one specific moment or experience that pushed him to become an author. From his perspective, it simply happened.

Today, Caetano owns two degrees, and has served as editor-in-chief of UTM Mindwaves and co-editor of Echolocation Magazine, while contributing to publications such as The Globe and Mail, PRISM International, Grain, Esse and The Ex-Puritan.

While not everyone is meant to walk his particular path, Caetano believes that writing is a worthy exercise for all.

“There’s a lot of research that’s gone into the benefits of writing for people who are imprisoned or immigrants, ESL communities, and people who come from parents with addiction issues,” he says. “A lot of people don’t have a great relationship with language—in particular, their own language that they speak. If you have a negative relationship to communication in general, it really can inadvertently burden your interior space and have a negative effect on your way of seeing the world, which, to me, is foundational.

“I think writing or storytelling can impact people’s lives, because that is what our lives are. A lot of times, when we speak to each other, we’re constantly communicating and trying to relay information, which is, in a lot of ways, what a story really is.”

Visit whistlerwritersfest.com for more information about the WWF Writer in Residence program. A scholarship for those who are Indigenous, Black or a person of colour is also available. n

IN RESIDENCE Cody Caetano will be the Whistler Writers Festival’s Writer in Residence for 2023.

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Globetrotting artist eager to discover Whistler

WHISTLER CONTEMPORARY GALLERY TO WELCOME ARTIST IN RESIDENCE BILL CLAPS FROM AUG. 21 TO 23

BY DAN FALLOON

BILL CLAPS has taken inspiration from China, Japan, and Cuba, and he’ll soon add Whistler to the list.

The New York City-based multimedia master is coming to the resort this month as the Whistler Contemporary Gallery’s Artist in Residence.

Claps utilizes a number of mediums to express himself, including photography, painting, video, poetry, filmmaking and performance, and he will demonstrate live painting Aug. 21 through 23 at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler.

Claps has just returned from six weeks in Europe, where he exhibited at Switzerland’s Photo Basel, had a residency where he produced homages to classical European landscape paintings, and travelled through Italy’s mountainous region.

Back on this side of the pond, Claps is eager to get to Whistler to see what the resort has to offer. One of his series, Natural Abstractions, prominently features trees from all around the globe, so inspiration won’t be in short supply if that’s the route he opts for.

“I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do. I always have a general idea, but I never want to get boxed into it,” he says. “Typically, I’ll do a little research. I used to do a lot of research, and now I do some research and I try not to over-research. I want to have that feeling of discovering a place with an open mind, and from there, I decide what I want to shoot and what I’m feeling in a place, and then I produce the works.”

Holding space for an open mind proved especially beneficial for Claps during a residency on the Japanese island of Kyushu. The island is home to Mount Aso, which erupted in 2016 and 2021. During Claps’ residency, the region was seeking UNESCO World Heritage Status and required a level of cultural activity, which led to his invitation along with others.

“Everyone thought I was going to do a project about the mountains and, in doing the research, that’s what I thought would happen,” he recalls. “When I got there, I was far more intrigued by the rice harvest.”

Because of the Aso caldera, “a large depression formed when a volcano erupts and collapses” according to National Geographic Society, there is fertile land for agriculture. Claps was particularly drawn to near-daily textural changes in the rice stalks, which he strove to capture in his work.

Claps has studied painting, drawing and history at prestigious institutions, including earning a bachelor of arts from Harvard University and studying at the Art Students League in both New York and Florence. This particular project initially grew out of an interest in martial arts that found its way back to visual arts.

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“I started by doing the feeling of Asian landscape painting, but doing it in places outside of Asia, so over the last 10 years, I’ve done a number of different series and geographical locations all around the world,” he says. “I’m documenting the place, but it has an Asian aesthetic to it.”

If you notice the use of foil in Claps’ work, that’s something that grew out of the series and is meant to recreate natural light in the piece itself.

“In the work, I developed a process—it’s a combination of photography, painting and then this gold and silver foil process that I have invented that I perfected over the last 12 years,” he explains. “I apply foils to surfaces of the artwork. It allows the work to take in light and it allows the work to evolve and change as the day’s light changes.

“What I’m trying to do is recreate the feeling of natural light in nature, how it’s changing all day long. When you look at an object, it looks different in the morning than at noon than at night. My artworks do the same thing. I’m playing with light and I’m playing with this feeling of this movement that you have in nature, which is very hard to achieve in a static artwork.”

Claps will paint live at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler on Aug. 21 from 7 to 10 p.m. and on Aug. 22 and 23, both from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. From there, he’ll head to the Four Seasons Resort for a meet-and-greet on Aug. 23 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Lower Gallery. RSVP by emailing info@whistlerart.com.

“I’m actually more interested in what people don’t like than what they do,” Claps says.

“It’s a point of information, a data point. It doesn’t mean that I specifically agree with them or that I’m going to change what I’m doing, but I might. Or it might just give me an idea or a window on how things are perceived.” n

New Board Directors must be able to attend a monthly Board meeting (can attend virtually), participate in at least one committee, and possess willingness and time flexibility to take on additional hours as necessary to support the work of the Board

To apply, please submit:

- Board Director application for m available at: mywcss.org/about-wcss/employment/

- Current resume and references (optional)

Application Deadline: August 25, 2023

Terms for Directors are two years and typically begin after the AGM at the end of June Board meetings are held on the last Wednesday of each month

All applicants will be contacted.

If you would like assistance with the application process, interview readiness or tips for resume and cover letter writing, send your question via email to gov chair@mywcss.org and we will make a WCSS Board Director available to you as an advisor

WCSS is dedicated to diversity, inclusion and antiracism Our commitment is reflected in our programming, the clients we engage with and the team members we employ. We encourage a workplace in which individual differences are recognized, appreciated and respected

We welcome applications from all qualified candidates.

PLEASE CLAP Art fans will have multiple chances to connect with multimedia master Bill Claps in Whistler this week.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

1

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PIQUE’S GUIDE TO LOCAL EVENTS & NIGHTLIFE

Here’s a quick look at some events happening in Whistler this week and beyond. FIND MORE LOCAL EVENT LISTINGS (and submit your own for free!) at piquenewsmagazine.com/local-events

MOVIES IN THE PLAZA

AUG

18-15

STEPH STRINGS AT WHISTLER OLYMPIC PLAZA

Coming to the resort as part of the Whistler Summer Concert Series, Steph Strings is an Australian guitarist, singer-songwriter and storyteller whose musical style entails bursts of percussion alongside Celtic, blues, coastal folk and indie-rock. Look forward to groovy acoustic guitar riffs and an enchanting sense of melody.

The free Whistler Summer Concert Series continues on Thursday, Aug. 24 with local favourites SkiiTour.

> Aug. 18 and 24, opening acts at 6:30 p.m.

> Whistler Olympic Plaza

> Free

HEAR AND NOW: IN THE PARK

Join us for a live and local music series every Sunday until Sept. 3 in Rebagliati Park. Immerse yourself in diverse genres, connect with fellow music lovers, and let the melodies transport you to a world of sonic delight. Don’t miss this vibrant community experience where live music meets the beauty of nature. These concerts are free and everyone is welcome. Catch Cold Smoke on Aug. 20.

> Every Sunday until Sept. 3, 1 to 3 p.m.

> Rebagliati Park

> Free

MOVIES IN THE PLAZA –ZOOLANDER AND MEAN GIRLS

Make Movies in the Plaza your new summer tradition and get cosy on the Great Lawn for a cinematic experience under the stars. Movies are scheduled on select Wednesday and Saturday evenings this summer and are free to watch. There is a free bike valet available on site. On Aug. 19, see the 2001 Ben Stiller hit Zoolander, and on Aug. 23, catch Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey’s Mean Girls

> Aug. 19 and 23, 8 p.m.

> Whistler Olympic Plaza

> Free

MAKING CONNECTIONS DEMENTIA-FRIENDLY SOCIAL CLUB

MAC’s Making Connections is a weekly program for people with early-stage dementia and their caregivers on Wednesday mornings.

More like a social club, this program starts with 45 minutes of gentle fitness, followed by games and brain-stimulating activities, and socializing over a light lunch.

The goal is to slow cognitive decline in the afflicted and allow caregivers to bond, share experiences and develop their own support network. Register at whistlermac.org under the events tab, Making Connections Program.

Prepay by e-transfer to treasurer@whistlermac.org.

> Aug. 23, 10:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

> Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church

> $5

The first Fun Fitness Swim

BY ALLYN PRINGLE

AFTER ARRIVING in Whistler in August, 1974, on a year’s leave from teaching that became multiple seasons, B.J. Godson filled various different roles in the growing community, from bartender at establishments such as the Highland Lodge to the creator of a Ski Friends program on Whistler Mountain. During her time in Whistler, she also founded Whistler’s annual Fun Fitness Swim.

According to Godson’s mother, she began to swim at the age of one, even before she started walking. She continued to swim and, in 1979, her boyfriend at the time suggested she organize a swim in the area because she was “such a good swimmer,” and “loved to organize things.” This led to the first Fun Fitness Swim, a fun distance race of about a mile and a half (about 2.4 kilometres) in Alta Lake on August 19, 1979.

Godson’s time working at the Highland Lodge introduced her to Roy Adams, a representative of Molson, and he agreed to have the company sponsor the event. Thanks to this sponsorship, every participant in the race was guaranteed a T-shirt, a banana, and some chocolate. Local resident Chico made trophies for the first-place winners, and local businesses donated prizes for a draw.

Rather than focusing on the competition of a race, the event was described by the Whistler Question as “a community event to encourage fitness,” and was open to everyone over the age of 19. Thirty-seven swimmers left Wayside Park in one-minute intervals, led by Godson and heading for the docks at Adventures West. Volunteers in rowboats and canoes were recruited to help any struggling swimmers, and spectators were encouraged to come cheer. The race was followed by an afterparty at the Christiana Inn, with refreshments provided by Molson and members of the Alta Lake Community Club.

The first two winners were Rick McFadden at 41:25 and Meg Fellowes at 44:00, both of whom were reportedly so cold after the race that they didn’t make it to the afterparty.

The first Fun Fitness Swim was such a success that the second year went ahead with almost full registration even though the weather was wet, cold and windy. The course changed a few times over the first years until the Fun Fitness Swim moved to Lost Lake in the mid-1980s. According to Godson, one of the main reasons for moving to Lost Lake was the danger of windsurfers on Alta Lake.

Though the windsurfing club and local windsurfers were asked to stay out of the swim course for a couple of hours during the race, there was little they or organizers could do about visiting windsurfers or those who didn’t get the notice. One swimmer in the 1982 event even recalled colliding with a windsurfer. “I hit one. He was a beginner,” he told the Question. “He fell and couldn’t get out of the way. I didn’t see him and—bang—I ran into him.”

Though the event continued to focus on encouraging participation rather than competition, swimmers still swam to the best of their abilities, and Godson remembered one participant in particular demonstrating their athletic ability. According to Godson, she was swimming around Lost Lake when “all of a sudden, there’s somebody passing me at a high clip, swimming so fast they made a little wake.” She soon realized that she had been passed by Dawn Titus, which was particularly annoying as Titus had had a cast on her leg until just a couple of weeks before the swim.

The Fun Fitness Swim continued to take place at Lost Lake without windsurfers and under Godson’s leadership until 1989, when her friend Cindy took over the organization. Molson’s continued to sponsor the event until the last Fun Fitness Swim was held in the early 1990s. n

FIT AND FUN Swimmer Shelley Warne heads from Wayside Park to the Alta Lake Inn and back under the watchful eye of Marilyn Moore, who dusted off her bathtub derby craft for the occasion.

WHISTLER QUESTION COLLECTION, 1984

Free Will Astrology

WEEK OF AUGUST 17

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Lincoln Calibration Sphere 1 is a hollow globe of aluminum launched into Earth’s orbit in 1965. Fifty-eight years later, it continues to circle the planet—and is still doing the job it was designed to do. It enables ground-based radar devices to perform necessary calibrations. I propose we celebrate and honour the faithfulness of this magic sphere. May it serve as an inspiring symbol for you in the coming months. More than ever before, you have the potential to do what you were made to do—and with exceptional steadiness and potency. I hope you will be a pillar of inspiring stability for those you care about.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Live as though you’re living a second time and as though the first time you lived, you did it wrong, and now you’re trying to do things right.” Holocaust survivor and author Viktor Frankl offered this advice. I wouldn’t want to adhere to such a demanding practice every day of my life. But I think it can be an especially worthwhile exercise for you in the coming weeks. You will have a substantial capacity to learn from your past; to prevent mediocre histories from repeating themselves; to escape the ruts of your habit mind and instigate fresh trends.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Jamie Zafron wrote an article titled “To Anyone Who Thinks They’re Falling Behind in Life.” She says, “Sometimes you need two more years of life experience before you can make your masterpiece into something that will feel real and true and raw. Sometimes you’re not falling in love because whatever you need to know about yourself is only knowable through solitude. Sometimes you haven’t met your next collaborator. Sometimes your sadness encircles you because, one day, it will be the opus upon which you build your life.” This is excellent advice for you in the coming months, dear Gemini. You’ll be in a phase of incubation, preparing the way for your Next Big Thing. Honour the gritty, unspectacular work you have ahead! It will pay off.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You’re entering a phase when you will generate maximum luck if you favour what’s short and sweet instead of what’s long and complicated. You will attract the resources you need if you identify what they are with crisp precision and do not indulge in fuzzy indecision. The world will conspire in your favour to the degree that you avoid equivocating. So please say precisely what you mean! Be a beacon of clear, relaxed focus!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Unless you are French, chances are you have never heard of Saint-John Perse (1887–1975). He was a renowned diplomat for the French government and a poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now he’s virtually unknown outside of his home country. Can we draw useful lessons for your use, Leo? Well, I suspect that in the coming months, you may very well come into greater prominence and wield more clout. But it’s crucial for the long-term health of your soul that during this building time, you are in service to nurturing your soul as much as your ego. The worldly power and pride you achieve will ultimately fade like Perse’s. But the spiritual growth you accomplish will endure forever.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.” Virgo author Christopher Isherwood said that. I’m offering his thought because I believe life will be spectacularly not bad for you in the coming weeks— whether or not you have a good physique. In fact, I’m guessing life will be downright enjoyable, creative, and fruitful. In part, that’s because you will be the beneficiary of a stream of luck. And in part, your gentle triumphs and graceful productiveness will unfold because you will be exceptionally imaginative.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “You know how crazy love can make you,” write Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Vélez in their book Love Poems for Real Life. “On any given day, you’re insanely happy, maniacally miserable, kooky with

BY ROB BREZSNY

contentment, or bonkers with boredom—and that’s in a good relationship.” They add, “You have to be a little nuts to commit yourself, body and soul, to one other person— one wonderful, goofy, fallible person—in the hope that happily-ever-after really does exist.” The authors make good points, but their view of togetherness will be less than fully applicable to you in the coming months. I suspect life will bring you boons as you focus your intelligence on creating well-grounded, nourishing, non-melodramatic bonds with trustworthy allies.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “I don’t adopt anyone’s ideas—I have my own.” So proclaimed Scorpio author Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883). Really, Ivan? Were you never influenced by someone else’s concepts, principles, art, or opinions? The fact is that all of us live in a world created and shaped by the ideas of others. We should celebrate that wondrous privilege! We should be pleased we don’t have to produce everything from scratch under our own power. As for you Scorpios reading this oracle, I urge you to be the anti-Turgenev in the coming weeks. Rejoice at how interconnected you are—and take full advantage of it. Treasure the teachings that have made you who you are. Sing your gratitude for those who have forged the world you love to live in. You now have the power to be an extraordinary networker.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Tibetan term lenchak is often translated as “karmic debt.” It refers to the unconscious conditioning and bad old habits that attract us to people we would be better off not engaging. I will be bold and declare that sometime soon, you will have fully paid off a lenchak that has caused you relationship problems. Congrats! You are almost free of a long-running delusion. You don’t actually need an influence you thought you needed.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): If you’re like many of us, you have a set bathing routine. In the shower or bath, you start your cleansing process with one particular action, like washing your face, and go on to other tasks in the same sequence every time. Some people live most of their lives this way: following well-established patterns in all they do. I’m not criticizing that approach, though it doesn’t work for me. I need more unpredictability and variety. Anyway, Capricorn, I suspect that in the coming weeks, you will benefit from trying my practice. Have fun creating variations on your standard patterns. Enjoy being a novelty freak with the daily details.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In July 1812, composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a 10-page love letter to a woman he called “My Angel” and “Immortal Beloved.” He never sent it, and scholars are still unsure of the addressee’s identity. The message included lines like “you—my everything, my happiness … my solace—my everything,” and “forever thine, forever mine, forever us.” I hope you will soon have sound reasons for composing your own version of an “Immortal Beloved” letter. According to my astrological analysis, it’s time for your tender passion to fully bloom. If there’s not a specific person who warrants such a message, write it to an imaginary lover.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): At age 32, artist Peter Milton realized the colours he thought he used in his paintings were different from what his viewers saw. He got his eyes tested and discovered he had colour blindness. For example, what he regarded as gray with a hint of yellow, others perceived as green. Shocked, he launched an unexpected adjustment. For the next 40 years, all his paintings were black and white only. They made him famous and have been exhibited in major museums. I love how he capitalized on an apparent disability and made it his strength. I invite you to consider a comparable move in the coming months.

Homework: Make up a story about a time in the future when you will be excitedly content. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.

In addition to this column, Rob Brezsny creates

In-depth

RENT SELL HIRE

Fairmont Chateau Whistler Resort is growing its Housing portfolio and sourcing additional Chalet and Condo Rental contracts for our Hotel Team Members. Our leaders are mature, career driven drivers that know the word respect. Contract terms for property Owners are stress free with no commissions and includes representation from our 4 person fulltime Housing Department working with you 24/7; maintaining all aspects of the tenancy including quarterly inspections. A great next move for Whistler property Owners that have tired with the Airbnb game or Property Fees. Let’s see if we can make a match and develop a long-term relationship here. General inquiries please email mark.munn@fairmont.com

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Love living in Whistler but ready for a professional career?

Look no further. Guru Communications is seeking a bright and enthusiastic individual to join our team as a Media Coordinator.

What You'll Do

You will be integral to the team by orchestrating seamless campaign execution. You will: Conduct research and analysis to identify target audiences, trends, and industry best practices. Assist in planning and executing media strategies across various platforms. Monitor campaign performance and generate insightful reports.

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Qualifications

Post-secondary degree

What You'll Do

Qualifications

Post-secondary degree

We foster a collaborative and supportive environment where you can thrive. You will: Gain hands-on experience in the fastpaced media industry.

Strong organizational skills and attention to detail Excellent communication and interpersonal abilities

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Collaborate with a diverse and talented group of professionals. Receive mentorship and growth opportunities to fuel your career.

You will be integral to the team by orchestrating seamless campaign execution. You will: Conduct research and analysis to identify target audiences, trends, and industry best practices. Assist in planning and executing media strategies across various platforms. Monitor campaign performance and generate insightful reports.

Strong organizational skills and attention to detail Excellent communication and interpersonal abilities

Proficiency in digital media tools and platforms is a plus.

careers@gurucom.ca

www.gurucom.ca

JOIN OUR TEAM

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Career Opportunities with the SLRD

Looking to contribute to your local community?

Consider a career in local government. Join the SLRD’s team of dedicated staff who work together to make a difference in the region.

Headquartered in Pemberton, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) delivers a wide range of regional, sub- regional and local services to its residents. The SLRD is a BC Regional District consisting of four member municipalities (Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, Lillooet) and four electoral areas. 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 region contains some of the most spectacular forests, waterways, and mountains in the province and affords an endless range of opportunities for outdoor adventure, making it an exceptional place to live, work and play.

The SLRD is currently accepting applications for the following positions:

• Legislative Assistant (Regular, Full-time)

• IT Manager (Regular, Full-time)

The SLRD offers a competitive compensation and extended benefits package, participation in the Municipal Pension Plan, a compressed work week (nine-day fortnight), hybrid remote work opportunities, and learning and career development opportunities.

For more information on these career opportunities, please visit www.slrd.bc.ca/ employment. To apply, please submit a cover letter and resume (preferably in pdf format) by email to careers@slrd.bc.ca

We sincerely thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those shortlisted will be contacted.

The District of Squamish is seeking casual on-call Custodians to join our dynamic team! The ability to work independently and a strong safety mindset is essential. We offer a competitive wage of $24.57 per hour, flexible schedule and opportunities for development. This role is perfect for all ages especially if you have availability.

This position is casual on-call but can be busy, cleaning in a variety of District buildings.

Apply today by quoting competition number 22-05 and emailing jobs@squamish.ca

squamish.ca/careers

•

Journalist

Pique Newsmagazine has a rare opportunity for an experienced and committed journalist to cover local news and politics while working with a team based in North America’s premier mountain resort.

The successful candidate will be tasked with covering Whistler’s municipal hall, as well as writing news stories for Pique’s sister paper, The Squamish Chief.

The candidate will pitch, write, edit and post news stories daily, as well as write at least four cover features annually. The role includes some evening and weekend coverage, and the successful candidate will be required to be in both Whistler and Squamish regularly.

You have a degree in journalism, 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 self-motivated, 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.

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We’re known for our unique artsy design, weekly longform features and comprehensive news coverage, but of course our reach is global, with loyal readers from 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, by 4 p.m. on Aug 31st, to: Braden Dupuis at bdupuis@piquenewsmagazine.com

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HIRING WE ARE

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Pique Newsmagazine is seeking a Sales Coordinator.

Pique Newsmagazine is looking to fill a focal role of sales coordinator in our advertising sales department. The chosen candidate will possess uncompromising customer service and work well under pressure while thriving in a fast-paced deadline driven news media environment. The ideal applicant will have previous experience working with a print/digital media sales team. Strong administrative and communication skills are essential in this role, and attention to detail is a must. You will be highly organized and able to act as a liaison between departments, as well as possess a high level of professionalism when dealing with clients. We offer an excellent remuneration package as well as a benefits plan.

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LAST WEEKS’ ANSWERS

ANSWERS ON PAGE 53

Facing the facts of the free market

AS AN IMMIGRANT to Canada, I wound up in Montreal in 1979. The happening event in la belle province was the upcoming first referendum on Quebec sovereignty, scheduled for the spring of the following year. It was all anyone talked about. Since I had what could generously be called a nascent understanding of French, most of what I heard came from freaked-out English speakers.

Where I tended to hear the other side, in a rapid patois I couldn’t follow and a gracious, if halting, Frenglish by those kind enough to put up with me—it helped I was American and helped even more if I slipped into a southern accent—was in taverns and restaurants around town.

BY G.D. MAXWELL

One of the restaurants was a place called Quebec Smoked Meat in Point-Saint-Charles, a working-class neighbourhood. I was pretty convinced smoked meat was Quebec’s culinary gift to the world. Not pastrami, not corned beef, but a unique treatment of the fickle brisket.

Alas, Quebec Smoked Meat is no more. It closed the end of June after 73 years of serving up massive sandwiches. It was the second blow to my gastronomic memories of Montreal, the first coming only this spring when The Main closed its doors after 50 years.

And Bens, where I hung out as a student at McGill, closed in 2006 after 98 years serving heart attack on a bun.

While not the only reason I’m unlikely to head back to Montreal, not knowing where to get a good smoked meat sandwich is certainly a consideration.

But hey, businesses come and businesses go. C’est la vie.

Unless it’s your business. And then you’ll fight like hell to keep it going. You’ll abandon your go-it-alone, independent, entrepreneurial philosophy and look for the nearest bail-out or faint-hope scheme before you’ll reluctantly give up and head for the exit.

It’s something I witnessed too many times working at a bank. A business owner couldn’t face the reality of his/her business failing, and, having lost the ability to see financial reality, they moved forward on hope alone. They ignored the offer to help wind down the business and salvage whatever it was still worth rather than drive it into bankruptcy and come out far worse off.

But those business owners were dealing with a bank.

Small business owners dealing with the government want a bail-out. Forgiveness. Forbearance.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Restaurants Canada, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, and a mindboggling coalition of 256 groups are asking the federal government to extend the repayment deadline for Canada Emergency Business

Account (CEBA) loans by two years—to the end of December 2025.

Recognizing the devastating effects of pandemic closures, the government made interest-free loans of $40,000 or $60,000 to businesses under CEBA. They were a lifeline for many shuttered businesses. The terms were great: no interest payments, and for businesses repaying their loans by Dec. 31 of this year, a forgiveness of $10,000 or $20,000 depending on the amount borrowed.

Can’t pay by the end of the year? The loan starts racking up interest at five per cent, which might have sounded dear when the program came into effect and looks like

the loan.

Why? The reasons range from lingering malaise in what they hoped would be a pick-up in business; decisions to use their cashflow to reinvest in the business; inflation; continuing supply-chain issues; lack of staff; systemic discrimination against small businesses owned by women, racialized minorities, and others. Rarely noted as reasons are bad management; a changed consumer demand; overly optimistic expansion efforts; and the underlying belief that they just shouldn’t have to repay—entitlement.

Heck, it’s just government money, after all. You know, that stuff that exists because

government and banks forgive their student loans, having discovered a $28,000 debt—the average Canadian student loan debt—and a degree in Romance Languages should have included a seminar where they learned to say, “Do you want fries with that?”

But fear not. Canadian financial institutions—some, not all—have an answer to your prayers. They’re offering new loans to repay your CEBA loan. They’ll lend you the money to pay off your loan so you can take advantage of the forgiveness available by year’s end.

Of course, your new loan, for a smaller amount because of what’s been forgiven, will bear an interest rate higher than the five per cent the government is offering—indicative rates being based off prime lending rateplus—but it’ll be on a smaller amount. What could go wrong?

Cue the receiver.

a gift now given commercial borrowing rates run much higher. Final repayment is due when businesses would like to see it due, Dec. 31, 2025.

Good deal? It was the only thing that kept many businesses going as they adjusted to the pandemic possibilities of operating or not.

Successful? Nearly 900,000 businesses received about $49 billion dollars through the program.

Problem is, only about 20 per cent of them had managed to repay their loans by this spring. And now they’re asking for more time and, in many cases, complete forgiveness of

everyone pays taxes.

This is probably a good place to note they’re not alone in their efforts to extract more time and forgiveness for the flood of money Ottawa released to keep people and businesses afloat during Covid. The abuses of the federal wage subsidy to large businesses have been well documented. There was outrage from many individuals who happily took funds from one or more programs only to “discover” those funds were deemed income on which they had to pay tax.

And they’re marching alongside many former students who would love to see the

The interest rate won’t be fixed. Recent experience might suggest rates still have a way to go before they peak. Financial institutions aren’t big fans of forgiveness. Can’t pay? Bye-bye, business. Oh, and you might have pledged other assets to collateralize your loan. Poof! Vanished.

Probably better off taking your chances with the government. They have a lot of other things going on that tend to distract them. And they don’t have a good record when it comes to chasing debtors.

Or you could just face facts. If your business hasn’t regained its footing by now, what are the chances it will? Businesses come, businesses go, maybe better businesses replace them.

I seem to remember it’s called the free market. ■

Heck, it’s just government money, after all. You know, that stuff that exists because everyone pays taxes.

GETTY IMAGES/PETER DAZELEY

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