Pique Newsmagazine 3037

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Taking care of what takes care of you

Lil’wat perspectives on soil, the land and farming. - By

Kailey Morin

14 ICE AGE As Whistler’s annual Wedgemount Glacier survey marks 50 years, “force of nature” Karl Ricker is passing the torch to a new generation.

16 CONFERENCE CALL Officials are gearing up for another Union of BC Municipalities Convention, with topics like wildfire and emergency preparedness front and centre.

18 READY

TO ENGAGE

In a divided, distracted world, the Resort Municipality of Whistler is looking to develop a more “human-centred” approach to community engagement.

22 ON PAUSE

The Village of Pemberton is pausing its Official Community Plan review so it can develop a deeper relationship with the Lil’wat Nation.

40 JOIN THE CLUB

With its new women’s program, the Axemen Rugby Club aims to create a space for both newcomers and competitive veterans alike.

44 RAGE APPROPRIATE

On his fourth solo album, Quietly Raging, Brother Twang’s George Skoupas delivers an ode to nature and an expression of musical minimalism.

COVER If you look into it, community and gardening are key ingredients to a long and fruitful life. - By

Jon Parris // @jon.parris.art

Founding Publishers KATHY & BOB BARNETT

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Contributors G.D. MAXWELL, GLENDA BARTOSH, LESLIE ANTHONY, ANDREW MITCHELL, ALISON TAYLOR, VINCE SHULEY

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Opinion & Columns

08 OPENING REMARKS Will there be free beer at this year’s budget open house in Whistler? Probably not, writes editor Braden Dupuis—but you’d better attend just in case.

10 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR This week’s letter writers share thoughts on Whistler’s housing woes, fuel-thinning in local forests, and banning gas-powered lawncare equipment.

13 PIQUE’N YER INTEREST As the worst wildfire season in B.C.’s history blazes on, what lessons can we pull from the ashes?

62 MAXED OUT Max explores the old question of evolution versus erosion, though he’s not entirely sure which path our culture is following.

Environment & Adventure

28 THE OUTSIDER Sourcing your own firewood for a winter’s worth of heating is hard work, but can save money in the long run, writes Vince Shuley.

Lifestyle & Arts

42 FORK IN THE ROAD Small is beautiful, in more ways than one, writes columnist Glenda Bartosh.

48 MUSEUM MUSINGS The origins of Whistler’s Valley Trail go back to 1976, just one year after the Resort Municipality of Whistler was formed.

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Free beer at Whistler’s next budget open house!(?)

LIKE MOST communities, Whistler has a long and robust history of complaining.

We like to complain about the weather, and the lack of snow. We whinge about traffic, and housing, and the noise from nearby construction.

We complain about projects big and small launched by the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), and how they impact our lives in (mostly) minor ways.

We look around at all of our various

BY BRADEN DUPUIS

inconveniences, and wonder softly and smugly why everyone is so stupid and lacking in simple common sense but us.

As a prolific complainer myself, I don’t state these things as a means of judgment. Complaining about things is a normal part of existing in any society—unless you’re somehow living in one of those fancy utopias I’ve heard so much about—and it’s often the only way to get some grease on your squeaky wheel of choice.

But if you’re the type to fire off your complaints from a place of uninformed ignorance, without bothering to do any research or get involved in any way, well after it could possibly make any difference, I’m sorry—your complaints are just wasting everyone’s time.

Having paid close attention to nearly a decade’s worth of RMOW budget cycles, we can identify patterns in the process that seem to play out in some form or fashion nearly every year.

It goes like this: The RMOW seeks input from the community on its annual budget beginning in the late summer/early fall. A draft budget is presented at an open house in October or November, complete with a full list of planned projects for this year and the years ahead, where attendees (of which there are always very few) can discuss specific projects

at length with council and staff. The budget guidelines are then drawn up based on all this feedback, and presented to council in the new year. The budget bylaws are passed in the early spring.

Then, long after the budget is approved, some random community member(s) will raise a giant stink about one or more projects they feel they weren’t properly consulted on.

“You’re going to do what to Rainbow Park?! You’re going to build a bathroom where?! You’re spending how much on an upgrade to municipal hall?!” they say (probably).

“But this simply cannot be… for Mayor Jack Crompton did not come knock on my door and tell me this was the plan. Shenanigans!”

In almost every single instance of this happening, the fault cannot be laid squarely at the feet of the RMOW.

The simple fact is if you’re engaged, informed, and paying even moderate attention, there should be no real surprises in municipal policy or projects (mostly… plans do change throughout the year, and new opportunities arise. But the broad strokes

“Each fall, the RMOW prepares its annual and five-year budgets to manage dayto-day services, operations, projects, and infrastructure investments,” the RMOW said on its website.

“Public input is an important component to developing the budget, as it helps the RMOW to understand community priorities, needs and aspirations.”

Here’s how you can be a part of the 2024 Budget process, according to the RMOW: know the Budget 2024 key dates; browse through the RMOW’s related documents and plans; help shape the early stages of the budget by taking the survey; attend the Budget Open House later this fall; and watch for updates as the process rolls out.

The RMOW’s budget survey only takes about 10 minutes to complete, but it gives residents a sense of all the competing interests at play—respondents are asked to prioritize everything from road clearing and infrastructure to active transportation, festivals, climate action and more.

You can also provide reasoning for your

This isn’t to say the end result will include your entire wishlist, or come off as a perfect reflection of your priorities and desires. You are not the only resident filling out the survey, after all.

But nearly everything the RMOW does as an organization originates from the budget process—if you read nothing, and say nothing, it’s a bit rich to get mad months down the line when you realize your voice isn’t reflected in municipal planning.

So, what’s it going to take to get you in the door for this fall’s open house? Free beer? A one-time cash payout? A chance to throw rotten fruit at our elected officials? (If you’re in need of one more consultant, RMOW—and evidence suggests you always are—there are plenty more great engagement ideas where those came from).

Last year, the RMOW implemented an 8.4-per-cent increase to property taxes, along with increases of three per cent for water, four per cent for solid waste, and five per cent for sewer fees and taxes.

We won’t see this year’s proposed tax

are always painted in September through November).

Sadly, the percentage of the local populace who are actively engaged in municipal comings and goings could generously be estimated at about 10 per cent (but likely much less—see also, “The Loneliest Job in Whistler,” Pique, Sept. 29, 2022).

But here’s the good news: with the RMOW’s pre-budget survey now live at whistler.ca/ budget until Sept. 25 at midnight, we are right at the beginning of a new decision cycle.

In other words, put the coffee on, ‘ma—we got some complainin’ to do.

priorities, and share thoughts on Whistler’s biggest challenges and opportunities.

The RMOW’s pre-budget survey is a bit like a waiter asking you for your dietary restrictions. It’s not helpful to inform them you’re vegan/celiac/lactose intolerant/a picky eater as they’re serving you the dish. Nobody appreciates the dinner guest who sits down at the lavishly prepared spread only to complain that the chef didn’t incorporate their preferred brand of soy sauce.

So if you really want to influence your municipal government, this is the time to do it.

changes until the open house in the fall, but odds are we’re in for another increase in that eight-per-cent range—or higher.

Let’s be real: One survey respondent or open-house attendee isn’t going to change the entire philosophy of the budget. But if you really want to do some next-level complaining, delivered in a timely fashion and backed up with hard-hitting facts and figures, you really should take the time to inform yourself.

Will there be free beer at this year’s budget open house? Probably not. But maybe!

You won’t know for sure unless you go see for yourself. ■

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Untangling the Sea to Sky housing knot

I couldn’t resist your call for letters on why all levels of government are so ineffective on housing (Pique, Sept. 8, “The long and short(term) of renting in Whistler”). It comes down to a few key points.

First, in 1983, the B.C. government ended rent control. Had they not bowed to demands from landlords and kept monthly rents under control, we would not be seeing the stratospheric rents today. Ending rent control was the single biggest policy mistake made on housing.

Second, all levels of government gleefully collect every tax, levy, fee, and development permit cost they can think of. This cash cow has been milked for so long governments simply cannot afford to streamline, reduce, or remove these costs. It would affect the bottom line of every branch of government in our province. They do not want to change the process, as it is too lucrative for them.

Third, the federal government stopped funding non-profit housing in the 1990’s. The effects of this are starkly obvious to anyone renting in our country today. For-profit housing has become a monster of the government’s making. With no investment and little federal

oversight over three decades, Ottawa is now scratching its head and wondering what went wrong.

Lastly, short-term rentals have had a disastrous effect on rental availability in every market worldwide. Governments are starting to realize that perhaps they should not have commodified rental housing. If there’s a politician at any level of government in our province prepared to seriously restrict shortterm rentals, you have my vote.

Tania Chiasson // Pemberton

Crickets deserve a voice

If I was a cricket, toad, bear, deer or any of the rest of the flora and fauna in the Whistler corridor, I would object to seeing more of my habitat destroyed by fuel-reduction management (logging).

It’s audacious to say these areas of fuelmanagement will protect us (see Pique, Sept. 1, “Critics or crickets!”). The area around Kelowna is semi-desert (which is a naturally thinned forest), wasn’t protected by the force of nature, and lakes the size of the Okanagan and

Shuswap didn’t act as fire breaks either. The forest manages itself, as it has for millions of years, and is dictated by its environment, not by humans, who tend to make things worse.

Take a walk or ride up along the Cheakamus or White Gold Zappa Trails and see the destruction the logging did to the habitat.

My experience (24 years) is these trails open and dry up a lot earlier than before they’re logged. Take a look at all the forest around us in the corridor—how logical is it to thin (log) all this terrain?

Early detection, suppression and education are our best tools to preventing a massive firestorm.

As more logging is planned for 2025 up the Cheakamus, I wonder what is the main industry for Whistler.

Beware a plague of crickets.

Al Chrumka // Whistler

Banning gas-powered lawn equipment will help Whistler’s climate goals

To date, California, Washington, D.C., the city of Burlington, Vt., and perhaps other jurisdictions, have banned the sale of under25-horsepower, gas-powered lawnmowers, leaf blowers and chainsaws.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates one hour of lawn mowing is equivalent to driving a 2016 Toyota Camry about 500 kilometres, and one hour of leaf blowing is equivalent to driving the same car about 1,700 km.

Short description of property listing - no more than 30 words. Git, tem am ea sant omnis alitio de sa es quis maios eate dolupti quid quatumendus, ut excerferiae ommostori cum quaecep tatibus.

Short description of property listing - no more than 30 words. Git, tem am ea sant omnis alitio de sa es quis maios eate dolupti quid quatumendus, ut excerferiae ommostori cum quaecep tatibus.

Short description of property listing - no more than 30 words. Git, tem am ea sant omnis alitio de sa es quis maios eate dolupti quid quatumendus, ut excerferiae ommostori cum quaecep tatibus.

Short description of property listing - no more than 30 words. Git, tem am ea sant omnis alitio de sa es quis maios eate dolupti quid quatumendus, ut excerferiae ommostori cum quaecep tatibus.

2 BED I 2 BATH I 859 SQFT Whistler Creekside

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One mower annually emits about 40 kilograms of CO2 and about 25 kg of other pollutants. Leaf blowers emit high levels of formaldehyde, benzene, fine particulate matter and smog-forming chemicals, which are known to cause dizziness, headaches, asthma

pollutants (as well as noise pollution) every summer.

I have read Whistler’s climate action report and saw no mention of any initiative to curtail these noxious greenhouse gas emitters. Did I miss it?

Add up the numbers; banning the use of these machines will help in our goal of reducing GHG emissions.

Daniel Jonckheere // Whistler

What role do property taxes play in Whistler’s housing woes?

attacks, heart and lung disease, cancer and/ or dementia.

The EPA estimates non-road engines, such as those used in lawn equipment, are responsible for four to five per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

There is a constant parade of these, so called, landscape companies up and down my street emitting large quantities of these

After reading the article about how nothing has changed in the housing crisis for the last 25 years, I’m surprised no one has mentioned property taxes. It’s in the municipality’s best interest to keep the status quo. Why would they want to give themselves a pay cut? There’s no benefit having townhouses and duplexes built when you can make more in taxes with one $20-million property.

Once the Resort Municipality of Whistler budget doesn’t rely on property taxes almost exclusively, things will change—until then, good luck to newcomers.

Thomas Jirasek // Whistler n

Write to us! Letters to the editor must contain the writer’s name, address and a daytime telephone number. Maximum length is 450 words. Pique Newsmagazine reserves the right to edit, condense or refrain from publishing any contribution. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer and not that of Pique Newsmagazine. Send them to edit@ piquenewsmagazine.com before 11 a.m. on Tuesday for consideration in that week’s paper.

“[B]anning the use of these machines will help in our goal of reducing GHG emissions.”

- DANIEL JONCKHEERE

We l co m e to P i p e r s Pe a k ! a n exq u i s i te l y re n ovate d m a ste r p i e ce i n t h e p re m i e r g ate d co m m u n i t y o f B l a c k Tu s k Vi 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

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CALL FOR FUNDING APPLICATIONS

Applications are now being accepted for our October 1st, 2023 Spring Funding Deadline

The Whistler Blackcomb Foundation is dedicated to providing financial support to community groups and charities whose activities provide benefit to residents of the Sea to Sky Corridor in the areas of health, human services, education recreation arts & culture and the environment Special emphasis is placed on children, youth and family programs. For more information, eligibility requirements and to complete an application, please visit our website at whistlerblackcombfoundation.com. Or contact Mei Madden, Executive Director at mmadden@whistlerblackcombfoundation.com

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It’s not over yet

TWO WEEKS AGO, I woke up to the sound of thunder and lightning striking the hills around Whistler. It was five in the morning, an hour I’m more likely to see at the end of a long night than wake up for on purpose. And while I usually love a good thunderstorm, it really wasn’t a good time for anyone.

I had an escape bag packed and ready,

BY ANDREW MITCHELL

because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you live in a forest interface during wildfire season, and the car was gassed up and ready to. It hasn’t been much less than three-quarters full since this long, dry summer started way back in April (actually July of 2022 if you go by precipitation), but as I looked out the window I started wondering what else I could be doing in that moment to prepare for what I assumed would end in our evacuation.

Incredibly, nothing in Whistler caught, and only a few small fires were reported to the north of Pemberton. The storm started dozens of fires when it made landfall on Vancouver Island the previous day, but somehow we made it through. We got

lucky—there’s really no other way to look at it. Whether we continue to be lucky is the real billion-dollar question.

Because it’s not over yet, even though the temperatures are cooling down and days getting shorter. The BC Wildfire Service has been quite clear that this fire season won’t be over until we start getting a substantial amount of rain or there’s a layer of snow sitting on top of everything. And I’m even not sure snow will be enough—Colorado had one of the most destructive wildfires in its history in late December 2021, with more than 1,000 homes destroyed and tens of thousands left without power as they rang in the New Year. Snow made almost no difference in that situation.

While it’s hard not to enjoy the warm weather we’ve had at some level, it’s also impossible to understate the amount of danger we’re in. As someone pointed out recently in this paper’s letter section, we need to stop pretending the province is going to swoop in and save us from a destructive wildfire because of tourism and expensive real estate. It’s not like West Kelowna is known for its poverty, or was unprepared, or had no previous experience with fires. When it’s this dry, fires can move faster than fire crews could ever hope to match.

This is now officially the worst fire season on record for British Columbia by a

huge margin. As of last week, some 22,000 square kilometres have burned—about 4,000 more than the previous record set in 2018. That’s an area about four times the size of Prince Edward Island.

And we’re still on fire. Although numbers change daily, as of the first week of September there were still more than 400 active wildfires around the province, most of them out of control. It could be months before we’re out of the woods, so to speak.

And then what?

What did we learn from West Kelowna? Shuswap? Gun Lake?

Come to think of it, what did we learn from Lytton in 2021? Or Fort McMurray in 2016?

We’ve done quite a bit of thinning of our forests and FireSmart goes full tilt from April to October, but there are lots of Whistler neighbourhoods that are clearly overgrown and where you still need a permit to cut down trees. The provincial FireSmart guidelines recommend a 10-metre buffer between homes and coniferous trees and no vegetation within 1.5 metres—and there really aren’t many homes in this town that can say they’re compliant. We need to do a lot more, and we need to do it soon. Climate change is real—we’re all experiencing it in some way—and all signs are pointing to the situation getting progressively worse.

One thing I would like to see happen is for Whistler to have a volunteer crew on standby. I used to do a day of wildfire training every year when I planted trees for tuition and beer money, and we always had to haul around a huge stash of fire-fighting equipment to every cutblock, just in case— water packs, Pulaski picks/axes, shovels, helmets, a chainsaw, hoses, a gas-powered water pump, etc. It was made very clear to us that we could be deputized at any time to fight a fire.

Now, I’m not saying we should send a bunch of locals with a day of training into the woods to fight active wildfires, but there are things that a local volunteer crew can do that would be relatively safe and could help out the provincial crews while they tackle the main fire. We could help create fire breaks, go to burned areas to ensure the fires are completely extinguished, hike out to areas hit by lightning strikes to see if anything is smouldering, patrol campsites, help with evacuations, and check on sprinklers, generators and other gear placed in key areas.

The worst part about standing at my window and watching lightning flash around the valley was feeling powerless over what might happen next. It felt even worse than being awake at five in the morning. n

‘Force of nature’: As annual Wedgemount Glacier survey marks 50 years, Karl Ricker is passing the torch

THIS YEAR’S WEDGEMOUNT AND OVERLORD GLACIER MONITORING DOCUMENTED CONTINUED RECESSION

BY MEGAN LALONDE

WHEN ROB TUPPER crested the ridge above Wedgemount Lake in Garibaldi Provincial Park on Saturday, Sept. 2, he and the rest of his six-person crew were greeted by a noticeably smaller glacier than they were last Labour Day weekend.

Specifically, Tupper and his group found a two-and-a-half-metre thinner Wedgemount Glacier that has receded 20 m in the 12 months since volunteers last made the steep trek up Wedge Mountain for an annual glacier survey. That’s more than double the eight-m recession recorded last year, but not quite as drastic as the 30 m of ice lost between 2019 and 2020.

“You know you’re going to see a change … but it’s still shocking when you’re there,” Tupper said.

Half a century ago, the same glacier extended 700 m further down the mountain, stretching across the surface of Wedgemount Lake. That was in 1973, the year Whistler geologist Karl Ricker convinced his mountaineering buddy, the late Bill Tupper— Rob’s dad, a photogrammetrist who taught in BCIT’s survey department—to head uphill

and measure Wedgemount Glacier for the first time. It sparked a yearly tradition.

“We stuck it out year by year by year for 50 years,” Ricker said. “In other parts of the province and Alberta, they’ve been looking at some glaciers for longer periods of time, but erratically.”

As Whistler’s grassroots glacier

trail up Wedge Mountain every year until he turned 80, and joining the annual volunteer effort via helicopter each year since. Ricker wasn’t able to make it to Wedgemount Glacier earlier this month, but joined a crew flying to Overlord Glacier to continue the monitoring efforts the following day, on Sept. 3.

Now, at 87, “I’m in my last decade of my

Ricker leaves the program in capable hands. Rob works as a land surveyor based in Vernon, armed with a geomatics engineering degree from the University of Calgary, while his eldest daughter is in her fourth year of studying earth sciences at the University of Victoria. This year, glaciohydrologist and Simon Fraser University professor Gwenn Flowers and one of her graduate students also joined the volunteers.

The crew celebrated the 50th anniversary with a party at Ricker’s on Sept. 2. “We had a grand time on Saturday night, discussing what happened over 50 years, cutting the cake and passing out the T-shirts for the event and drinking the beer that was in my fridge,” Ricker said with a laugh.

It all began in 1965, when Ricker summited Wedge Mountain for the first time. “I noticed this glacier floating in a lake. I was totally unaware that there was even a lake there,” he recalled, “so that’s what triggered it.”

monitoring program celebrates the milestone anniversary, Ricker is stepping down from its helm. He wrote up one final annual report this September before officially passing the torch to the next generation of surveyors.

Ricker is “a force of nature,” Rob said. “Few people know more about the Coast Mountains.”

Ricker served as lead Wedgemount Glacier monitor since his friend Bill retired in the 1980s, hiking the rugged, challenging

life, so it’s time to shut things down,” he said.

The monitoring program spearheaded by Ricker and Bill Tupper, alongside friend Don Lyon, involved its fair share of students over the years, but eventually grew to include a second generation. Alongside Don’s son Dave, Rob now leads the charge with the help of a third cohort—Dave’s son Graeme, and Rob’s daughters Brooklyn and Rebecca, plus Kristina Swerhun of the Whistler Naturalists “to crack the whip and organize,” said Ricker.

The fact the glacier was floating made it obvious the ice was receding, but at the time, did the group expect ice loss to continue?

“Probably,” said Ricker, even though “there were some minor oscillations in glaciers throughout Western Canada, where they would advance a little, maybe for one or two years, and then start receding again.”

Still, Wedgemount Glacier never did advance. Over the last five decades, volunteers charted an average recession of 14 m per year. The trend was interrupted only slightly in 1983 to 1984, when the glacier “stalled,” said Ricker.

EXPERT EYE Whistler geologist Karl Ricker measuring Overlord Glacier on Sunday, Sept. 3.

PHOTO BY DOUG WILEY

“I noticed this glacier floating in a lake. I was totally unaware that there was even a lake there, so that’s what triggered it.”

- KARL RICKER

Ricker said the biggest surprise he encountered in his half-century of surveying Wedgemount was the emergence of a new lake basin the melting glacier revealed just over a decade ago, named Tupper Lake. More recently, as Ricker explained in the report he co-wrote this month with Swerhun, a 57-m collapse above that new lake between 2020 and 2021 accelerated recession.

Beyond those sobering measurements, Wedgemount Glacier’s steady ice loss is illustrated in the “continuous photographic record” compiled over 50 years of monitoring, said Rob.

The landscape on Wedge Mountain is “becoming more and more stark, so I think that’s why it resonates with people,” he said. “Just the change over the last three years is dramatic, and then when you [compare it] from the 1970s, through to the late ’90s, the mid 2000s, to 2020 and then 2023, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is real. This is happening.’

“That’s what makes it unique, that this was started in 1973 for no other reason than ‘[The glacier] is there, so let’s photograph it and measure it and see what comes of it.’”

OVER TO OVERLORD

Eventually, in 1986, Ricker and co. expanded the scope of their monitoring to include Overlord Glacier, accessible via the Singing Pass trail on the opposite side of Fitzsimmons Creek.

They determined Overlord wasn’t experiencing the same relentless recession as Wedgemount: aerial photos captured between 1951 and 1983 showed Overlord Glacier instead advanced 174 m, or an average of 5.4 m per year.

But that trend didn’t last. Ricker eventually noted the appearance of a small pond at the edge of the glacier, revealed as the glacier began melting. The new “Investigator Lake” was especially obvious during volunteers’ last visit to Overlord in 2017. According to Ricker, satellite photos captured over the last six years display “a rapidly enlarging” basin. With Overlord serving as the watershed to Fitzsimmons Creek, which runs through Whistler Village, another visit was deemed necessary to assess any potential flooding risk.

Ricker joined Flowers, Rob, Brooklyn, and Doug Wiley, a former head engineer at the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) and current Whistler Museum and Archives Society board member, in an RMOW-funded helicopter flight headed for Overlord Glacier on a rainy Sunday, Sept. 3. Dave and Graeme Lyon hiked into the site alongside RMOW staffers James Hallisey and Andrew Tucker.

Within the short 45-minute weather window the helicopter crew had to conduct measurements at the toe of Overlord Glacier, Rob determined the glacier has receded approximately 118 m since 2017, or an average of 19.6 m per year. Based on Ricker’s research, Overlord Glacier receded 385 m, or an average of 10.4 m per year since 1986.

“I was surprised at how confined it was when we got there,” said Ricker. “I always remembered a very broad, expansive floodplain outwash. Then we landed in the chopper, and everything was narrow and deep. That was a six-year change.”

The experts did not identify any hazards associated with the lake basin, but will continue to assess the site’s stability. In a statement, the RMOW confirmed the

helicopter flight was “part of a larger project to investigate flood protection options in the upper Fitzsimmons watershed,” and said consultants will review information gathered during the Sept. 3 trip.

‘APPRECIATE WHAT WE HAVE’

How long will Wedgemount and Overlord glaciers continue to hang on? There are two possible scenarios, according to Ricker: “One is that within 50 years, glaciers will start advancing again, and start filling in the holes they left in the recession,” he said. “The other scenario is they’re going to disappear altogether. And that happened between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago— all of our glaciers around here disappeared.”

Some local glaciers, like Blackcomb Mountain’s Horstman, are already close to disappearing, said Ricker.

Pro skier and filmmaker Mike Douglas recently posted a pair of side-by-side photos illustrating the ice loss that have since earned the internet’s attention. One shows a summer ski camp on Blackcomb’s expansive, snowcovered Horstman Glacier in July 2006. A second image, shot from the same vantage point in August 2023, depicts the rocky, exposed terrain and razor-thin, grey-streaked remnants of a glacier now in its place.

Rob, a former ski racer, recalled his own summers spent training on Blackcomb’s glacier. “From 2007 until now, it’s gone,” he said. “You can do some summer training until the snow melts, but you’re not skiing on a glacier. That ship’s sailed. It’s unfortunate.”

Maybe fond memories associated with Whistler’s glaciers are partly why photos or statistics chronicling the substantial and seemingly irrevocable ice loss elicit such an emotional response from so many.

Ricker doesn’t share their sentimentality.

“I’m a hard-nosed scientist. Glaciers come and glaciers go—that’s what’s been going on for millions of years,” he said. “If people have attachment to a glacier, well, they can have it, and that’s their prerogative, I’m not going to interfere. But as far as I’m concerned, glaciers have been fluctuating back and forth for millennia and it’s not about to stop.”

It’s clear Ricker’s attachment lies more with the monitoring project and people involved in it.

Ricker, Lyons and Tupper “were pioneers in the mountaineering community in the late ’50s and early ’60s. They were doing stuff that hadn’t been done before,” Rob explained. “Karl’s our connection. He’s of pure scientific mind, he wants to know about our environment and our world, and wants to write it down and wants to share it with people.

“There’s no ulterior motive with Karl, it’s just about documenting and sharing,” he said.

There are a few lessons Rob is taking away from the last half-century of glacier monitoring on Wedge Mountain. First, “you don’t know what little insignificant project you may be taking on your life now that may be of interest to someone 50 years from now,” he said, “so don’t lose sight of what might seem like a kind of a geeky sort of trivial weekend expedition once a year.”

But as glaciers continue to melt at an accelerating rate, the project is just as much an annual reminder to, “appreciate what we have,” Rob added, “because you don’t know what we may not have in the future.” n

Local officials ready to advocate for Sea to Sky issues at next week’s UBCM conference

FARM TAXES, POLICING COSTS AND SUPPORT FOR A NEW FIRE HALL ARE AMONG PEMBERTON MAYOR’S PRIORITIES

BY MEGAN LALONDE

WILDFIRES, HOUSING, and even artificial intelligence will all be up for discussion when municipal officials from across the province meet in Vancouver next week for the 2023 Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Convention.

Whistler Councillor Jen Ford will be at the helm—or at least seated on the panel—for most of those conversations.

“It’s a really broad agenda,” said Ford, who doubles as chair of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) board of directors. She was acclaimed as UBCM president at last September’s convention in Whistler, after steadily rising through the ranks since she was first voted to the union’s board in 2018. “We have the biggest early registration ever, so it’s going to be big and exciting,” she said. “There’s lots to talk about.”

UBCM presidents typically only hold the post for a single one-year term, meaning this year’s event, set to take place at the Vancouver Convention Centre from Sept. 18 to 22, is likely Ford’s sole UBCM convention as president.

The convention’s schedule is usually decided months ahead of time, after speakers or organizations pitch possible workshop or panel topics to the union. “We got over 140

submissions this year, which is huge,” said Ford. A committee is tasked with deciding which topics to lock in, based on the conference theme—this year’s is “Balancing Act”—and emerging topics impacting B.C. municipalities.

Some pre-planned topics were shifted this summer to make room for more discussions related to fire management and emergency preparedness, as the province battles its worst wildfire season on record, Ford said.

Though Pemberton Mayor Mike Richman is looking forward to attending those events as an audience member, he and other Village of Pemberton (VOP) officials plan to raise a few issues of their own during the five-day conference.

In particular, he’s asked for time during a community forum to speak about RCMP costs for small communities. “It’s something I try to find every opportunity to bring attention to and to try to change … so it’s a more transitional approach to the funding model,” said Richman.

The province pays the bulk of policing costs for communities of under 5,000, but once a population exceeds that limit, its share of policing costs spike. B.C.’s Police Act requires municipalities with 5,000 to 14,999 people to cover 70 per cent of policing contract costs, while the federal government pays the remaining 30 per cent.

For a community like Pemberton, that significant increase could represent a massive strain on the municipality’s budget, Richman said.

“When you look at the fact that this increase in cost could increase our taxes by more than double digits, and the fact that so many of our resources get sucked out onto a provincial highway, it to me points further to the fact that the system doesn’t work,” he said.

Pemberton will put forth one official resolution to be voted on by delegates at next week’s conference, asking the union to call on the province to extend the same tax exemptions and assessed value methodology offered to rural-area farms to farmers located within municipal boundaries.

The issue was brought to Richman’s attention a few years ago, when the VOP was considering a boundary extension, he said.

“We found out that farms within municipal boundaries aren’t eligible for the same tax exemptions as farms in electoral areas,” he explained. “So, when we were looking at a boundary expansion and bringing some of the farms into our boundaries, that was a real issue, because obviously folks don’t want to lose their exemption, and it’s pretty important for farming, which is tough enough business as it is.”

With no current plans to extend

Pemberton’s boundaries, “It’s not something that’s really directly impacting us right now, but considering that we are an agricultural community, in terms of food security and respect for agriculture, we feel that it’s an important item to be addressed,” Richman continued.

Though the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) won’t be putting forth any of its own resolutions at this year’s convention, resort officials have requested meetings with nine provincial ministers to chat local priorities: Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovations; Finance Minister Katrine Conroy; Emergency Management and Climate Readiness Minister Bowinn Ma; Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon; Minister of Education and Childcare Rachna Singh; Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests; B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma; Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Lana Popham; and B.C. Premier David Eby.

There’s no guarantee all those meetings will be granted.

Though the VOP’s request for a meeting with provincial officials to advocate for clinic expansion was denied, Richman’s request to meet with B.C.’s Municipal Affairs Minister Anne Kang about support for a new fire hall was successful.

Pemberton outgrew its existing fire hall “years ago,” Richman said. n

‘This is about starting to knit together our community’ IN A DIVIDED, DISTRACTED WORLD, THE RMOW LOOKS TO A MORE ‘HUMAN-CENTRED’ APPROACH TO COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

BY BRANDON BARRETT

AS THE RESORT Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) works to improve its engagement with the wider community, municipal staff and elected officials are looking at new and novel ways to reach a broader cross-section of residents.

“It’s not just about planning the next park or getting community input on our next housing strategy,” said Karen Elliott, the RMOW’s new GM of community engagement and cultural services, at a Sept. 12 Committee of the Whole meeting updating council on the department’s work so far.

“This is about starting to knit together our community, and spreading community knowledge and connection so that when we’re really taxed with a disaster, an economic downturn—the pandemic would be a great example—there are those relationships and that social capital we can draw on … to find solutions to work together. That, to me, is the bigger goal of engagement.”

With community engagement identified as one of council’s four core priorities for its term, the RMOW announced in February it would form an entire new division dedicated to enhancing engagement and strengthening Whistler’s social fabric.

For Elliott, the former Squamish mayor who dealt with her fair share of social division while in office, the renewed commitment to engagement at municipal hall has to come from a “more human-centred approach” that puts government staff and officials squarely in the public’s shoes.

“It’s easy for us because we work in local government every day. It feels intuitive to pick up our staff reports or attend a meeting and understand how that’s going to flow and where to look for the information,” Elliott said to council. “When citizens get activated on an issue, none of that’s intuitive to them. So, I think we really have to start walking in their shoes when they do have to approach the RMOW, when they do want to provide input. What are those pathways, those intuitive ways we know they can reach not only staff, but council?”

The RMOW is recommending a multipronged approach to engagement, including expanding its communication channels; developing content aimed at underserved segments of the community; improving real-time information sharing; and removing barriers for input into council processes and procedures.

“We want to build on that and maybe shift our practices. We’re not talking about breaking anything and starting again. We’re talking about evolution,” Elliott said.

The report presented to council this week

sets a guiding definition and principles for future engagement, but at its core, Elliott sees the desired shift as philosophical as much as procedural, with the RMOW viewing itself as a host and connector of people and ideas.

“If we can move in this direction of hosting and connecting, then we have an opportunity to innovate a bit and support these new ways of reaching people—but now we do it with a real intent of connecting with [the public] as well,” she said.

Some of this work is already underway. Staff views the Whistler Sessions, a visioning exercise completed last year that lays out four possible future scenarios for the resort if current trends persist, as an example of the kind of “bold and innovative” engagement it wants to continue doing.

The report noted how the RMOW’s communication team, through analytics and “a more engaging and relatable tone,” has increased its social media following, with its Facebook following up 30 per cent compared to the same period last year and its Instagram following up 120 per cent.

“I think there are ways to soften the edges of our government to be more inviting and make it easier to show up and engage,” Elliott noted. “How do we greet people? When people sign up to speak [at a council meeting], are we making them feel more at ease? What does the mayor’s script sound like to open the public hearing?”

Staff sees Committee of the Whole meetings as one area for improvement, by using the biweekly meetings “as a forum for early engagement with Council and the community on critical topics and rethinking our Council report structure to make it easier for citizens to read them and identify key pieces of information,” the report stated.

Elliott was quick to point out this revised approach doesn’t mean there will be deep community engagement on every item that comes across officials’ desks, which would effectively grind a municipality already known for its glacial pace to a crawl.

“If there’s an expectation that a project will be done within a year, then that absolutely influences the length of engagement that we do. But I guess why I want to give staff the freedom to innovate is that it doesn’t mean it has to be any less meaningful even if it’s on a shorter timeframe,” she said.

Part of the intent behind the strategy is for RMOW staff and officials to reach a wider range of residents where they’re at, instead of waiting for the public to come to them, particularly younger Whistlerites, a segment of the community that has historically been underrepresented at municipal events and open houses.

For more information, visit whistler. ca/municipal-gov/divisions/communityengagement-cultural-services. n

thoughtful is defining your legac y

K ATHERINE CURRALL - RENNIE’S NEWEST ADVISOR - WHISTLER

Claire Ruddy, tireless environmental champion, leaving AWARE after 15 years

UNDER RUDDY’S LEADERSHIP, THE WHISTLER NON-PROFIT HAS GREATLY EXPANDED ITS STAFF, ITS PROGRAMMING, AND ITS SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

BY BRANDON BARRETT

ANY WHISTLERITE who has kept up on local environmental issues over the past decade and a half is likely familiar with Claire Ruddy, the executive director of the Association for Whistler Area Residents for the Environment (AWARE).

Whether fighting to have an environmental voice around the table at municipal planning meetings, working on the ground with local events and groups to minimize their footprint, or simply being a vocal advocate for climate action and biodiversity protection, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more active champion for the environment locally.

That’s why it came as a surprise last week when Ruddy announced she will leave the non-profit after 15 years as director, a time that saw AWARE transform as an organization and affect real change on the ground.

“Once COVID hit, I was really committed to making sure AWARE survived the pandemic. We were having some very interesting conversations, not just in Whistler but as a global community about how do we build back better from COVID and I think that, at this stage, AWARE is on firmer footing and facing more normalized challenges,” she explained. “I think there’s never a good time to exit a small non-profit, but now that

AWARE has got its feet under it again, it’s a good time for new energy, new leadership.”

The legacy Ruddy leaves behind at Whistler’s environmental non-profits is a significant one. Formed in 1989 by a group of concerned residents fighting the construction of the Nicklaus North Golf Course on vital wetland habitat, in its early years, AWARE played more of an “agitator” role in the community.

“I think that agitator role is important in communities where the change isn’t happening at the scale or pace that’s needed. Thinking back 10, 15 years, there was a lot of change happening in the valley that wasn’t being put through an environment lens,” Ruddy reflected. “AWARE’s very strong advocacy voice in the early days was the result of the need.”

While advocacy still serves an important role at AWARE, it is but one way the nonprofit champions environmental causes today. Programming has expanded by leaps and bounds, from offering nature camps and managing community gardens to delivering climate action mentorship and hosting election panels.

Throughout Ruddy’s tenure, AWARE secured roughly $2 million to develop more than 40 ongoing and one-time projects for the community, as well as hundreds of events aimed at supporting Whistler’s conservation

and climate goals.

The non-profit also transitioned to a staffed model under Ruddy, with its budget increasing tenfold over the past five years, helping to create new jobs in the environmental sector that have provided permanent, seasonal and internship opportunities to nearly 100 people.

AWARE has also partnered with governments, including the Resort Municipality of Whistler, funders, businesses and other non-profits to support local and regional goals around waste management, active transportation, climate action, and more.

“What I’m most proud of is AWARE becoming recognized as a valuable ally on the environmental issues we’re tackling as a community. I think that shifting into a lot of program delivery has helped us connect with many different groups in the community in a way that wasn’t happening when I first joined,” Ruddy said. “I also have really enjoyed having the opportunity to influence policy and development early on, before ideas are fully formed.”

Ruddy credits an improved relationship with the municipality as one reason AWARE has been able to expand its influence. On a more personal level, Ruddy herself has also broadened her understanding of meaningful collaboration.

“It’s a small town, and we have a lot of

partners we work with on specific projects, a lot of community collaboration, and I think the reality of that is some places we’ll be aligned and on other issues we might be completely at odds with each other. So, that ability to have productive working relationships on some files and agreeing to disagree on others is a nuanced but really interesting space. It’s complex in the same way that communities are,” she said. “That’s what I’ve tried to bring to AWARE: a kind of culture, a mindset of leaning into that complexity and doing it with a curiosity.”

Ruddy plans to wrap up her work at AWARE at the end of October. Because of both time and financial constraints, Ruddy said AWARE is likely to hit pause on its municipal committee obligations, at least until the new year. AWARE currently has seats on the Forest and Wildland Advisory Committee, the Whistler Bear Advisory Committee, the Zero Waste Select Committee of Council, and the Trails Planning Working Group. Ruddy has asked that AWARE be allowed to maintain its seat on those committees.

Ruddy estimated the time and work required to fulfil its municipal committee obligations last year cost the non-profit about $15,000. “The reality is we have to be able to cover the costs of time to be sitting around those tables,” she added.

Donate to AWARE at awarewhistler.org/ donate. n

New Sea to Sky group supports those who have loved and lost in the mountains

MOUNTAIN MUSKOX OFFERS FREE MONTHLY MEETINGS HOSTED BY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS FOR PEOPLE IMPACTED BY LOSS OR TRAUMA

BY BRANDON BARRETT

WHEN A MUSKOX is injured, the herd will come together to surround the vulnerable member of the group, forming a tight circle around them, a phalanx of heads and horns facing outward, steeled against any approaching threat.

That’s why the hoofed mammal is the namesake of Mountain Muskox, a peer support group that first started in Bow Valley, Alta., that is getting set to launch a new chapter in the Sea to Sky this month.

“It’s not just about having themselves supported, but also knowing they can be there for other people, too. That’s why they used the name muskox,” explained Sydney Badger, one of two registered clinical counsellors helping lead the Sea to Sky chapter.

Co-founded several years ago by mountaineering guide and author Barry Blanchard as an informal monthly meet-up for those who have suffered loss and trauma in the mountains, Mountain Muskox has since evolved into a thriving non-profit that offers monthly sessions and immersive learning opportunities.

“It was initiated by some folks who had connected about their traumatic experiences in the mountains and it evolved somewhat

naturally with the support of a therapist and a facilitator,” Badger explained.

Now, the group is expanding into the corridor, a part of the world that, like many mountainous regions, is no stranger to tragedy and loss. Given there are few organizations like it specifically dedicated to processing grief in alpine environments, Badger said Mountain Muskox has garnered interest from across the globe.

“We have had inquiries from people all over the world and, absolutely, on the coast when they find out that Mountain Muskox exists,” she added. “Just knowing there was a demand sparked us to put together a team to actually start this thing.”

Circles meet once a month for threehour group sessions, with at least one trained clinician present to support participants.

“For the Sea to Sky meetings specifically, we’re actually going to have one to two therapists present as facilitators, so trained clinicians who are really creating space to connect and create a community to not be alone around these instances and to also offer tools for people to support them as they process their connection to the mountains,” Badger said.

Most people are likely to think of sudden, accidental death related to mountaineering and alpine sports when considering the notion of trauma in the mountains, but as

Badger noted, the group is open to those who have suffered any form of loss here.

“It’s not so much just trauma in mountain communities, but events that have happened in the mountains,” she said. “It could be loss of life, loss of innocence, a loss of connection to your special place, a loss of your community. It’s really the fact that someone has been impacted by loss in the mountains.”

That loss, however it takes shape, also

does not necessarily need to have impacted the individual directly.

“It doesn’t have to be an acute incident that someone was directly involved with; it could be someone impacted by the incident,” Badger said.

Despite the progress made, fuelled largely by the pandemic, to advance the conversation locally around mental health, there can still be a reluctance among some to open up about their struggles in mountain resorts that are marketed as a thrill-seeker’s paradise.

“I think generally in a fast-moving place like the Sea to Sky, it is very easy to operate under the drive of just keep going, just keep living. So, when something happens, it stops us in our tracks,” Badger said. “I think the more we’re able to speak about that as a community and to recognize that, through this interruption to what might be adventure coping, we might actually be able to recognize some deeper pieces going on.”

The first Sea to Sky meeting was held Sept. 13 in Squamish. The exact time and location will be revealed to participants after they register for the free sessions. Email mountainmuskox@gmail.com to sign up.

Mountain Muskox also hosts free two-day intensives open to anyone, no matter their place of residence. The next one is scheduled for Sept. 30 to Oct. 1 in the Bow Valley. Learn more at mountainmuskox.com. n

HELP FROM THE HERD Mountain Muskox was launched in Alberta’s Bow Valley to support those who have experienced loss in the mountains, and is getting set to launch its second chapter in the Sea to Sky this month. Pictured is one of the non-profit’s two-day intensives in Bow Valley from November 2022.

Pemberton pauses Official Community Plan process to build ‘deeper’ relationship with Lil’wat Nation

MAYOR MIKE RICHMAN SAID THE DECISION WAS NOT TAKEN LIGHTLY, AS THE PLAN IS OFTEN USED AS A ‘NORTH STAR’ FOR THE VILLAGE

BY RÓISÍN CULLEN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

THE VILLAGE OF PEMBERTON (VOP) is pausing its Official Community Plan (OCP) review process so officials can focus on building a “deeper and more meaningful” relationship with the Lil’wat Nation, the VOP announced at Pemberton’s Sept. 12 council meeting.

To achieve that, the VOP will use the extra time to renew its protocol agreement with the Lil’wat Nation, as well as gain a better understanding of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The pause will also be used to foster a more collaborative relationship between the two parties.

“The decision to pause the OCP was made after careful consideration of feedback we received regarding the existing protocol agreement and determined it to be the best course of action to demonstrate a genuine commitment towards establishing a trustbased relationship with the Líl’wat Nation,” said Mayor Mike Richman, in a release. “We recognize the importance of ensuring our OCP encompasses and speaks to the shared values, visions, and priorities of all community members. To do so, we need to update the existing protocol agreement along with deepening our understanding of UNDRIP and how it can be implemented to create a path forward that is rooted in respect, understanding, and shared goals.”

At the Sept. 12 council meeting, Richman said the importance of the OCP review process could not be stressed enough.

“We appreciate the input that we have received so far on this review. We recognize that the OCP is to be our north star and our guiding vision as to where the community would like to be in 10, 15, 20 years,” he said.

Pemberton’s OCP review was officially launched in January, with public engagement opportunities taking place until March. In April, the VOP released a summary of the engagement efforts to date.

At the time, Pembertonians voiced appreciation for their close-knit community,

natural splendour and recreational opportunities currently at hand, while expressing concern for recurring issues like growth management, affordable housing, climate change and a lack of public transportation.

Richman said no information will be lost during the pause.

“[The OCP update] requires deep and meaningful consultation with Lil’wat Nation and its leadership and its community,” Richman said on Sept. 12. “We recognize that this is not only because our lands are unceded, but also because our futures are tied together. We share values. We share goals … a water source, emergency preparedness, the overarching health of our communities, the love of the land.

“For all of those reasons, council took

the decision to put a pause on the OCP process to work with Lil’wat Nation on a renewed protocol. This is the first step in this meaningful consultation,” Richman added. “We are all really looking forward to this process. I’m looking forward to where this leads us. Nobody’s input will be lost. We will continue to seek input from the community.”

Chief Dean Nelson said the Lil’wat Nation is looking forward to building its relationship with the VOP and renewing the protocol agreement.

“This builds on the good work completed through our shared services such as water and fire, as well as Pemberton Valley Emergency Management Committee, Nukw7ántwal Intergovernmental Committee, Transit Committee and others,” Nelson said in the release.

The VOP will use UNDRIP, the international framework emphasizing self-determination, cultural preservation, and protection from discrimination and exploitation for Indigenous populations, as the foundation for the new protocol agreement.

“By taking this pause, our teams can devote time into fostering a more profound and collaborative relationship with the Líl’wat at Nation,” said Elizabeth Tracy, the VOP’s chief administrative officer, in the release. “This is an important step in moving away from past traditions and towards more meaningful processes that drive transformative change and help us work together in partnership to build a brighter future for everyone.”

Community members can still stay up to date and share feedback on the OCP project page at haveyoursay.pemberton.ca. n

ON HOLD Pemberton’s Official Community Plan review was launched in January, with engagement taking place until March.

Pemberton Health Centre receives life-saving AutoPulse device

PEMBERTON DISTRICT SEARCH AND RESCUE THANKS THE WHISTLER BLACKCOMB FOUNDATION FOR MAKING THE PURCHASE POSSIBLE

BY RÓISÍN CULLEN Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

EMERGENCY HEALTH-CARE in Pemberton is getting a boost thanks to a new AutoPulse device—an innovative machine that can perform chest compressions on a person in cardiac arrest.

The machine should allow doctors, paramedics and nurses to provide the best care possible to patients in Pemberton. It can also buy time for patients who need to be transported to Whistler or Vancouver.

Jamie Wakeling was determined to get an AutoPulse for the village, having seen firsthand just how effective the machine is. He told Pique he set up a working group to try and procure the device.

“A little while ago, we determined through our medical program that we were kind of lacking in capability to transport patients that were in cardiac arrest,” said the primary care paramedic and search-and-rescue volunteer. “The AutoPulse is a mechanical CPR device. There is a board and then there’s a big strap that goes across the person’s chest. The machine is very intelligent and it does compressions for you with a band.”

The purchase was made possible through a grant from the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation. In total, it cost about $23,000.

The AutoPulse will be an invaluable asset to both the Pemberton Health Centre and Pemberton District Search and Rescue, especially when time is of the essence.

“When you bring some patients in in the middle of the night, there’s often only a doctor and a nurse or two,” said Wakeling. “If you’re lucky there might be an ambulance crew there.

If a patient was to suffer a cardiac arrest, it manages to free up multiple people to provide the best care possible to that patient. I would imagine at some point in the future it will give us the ability to move patients from a terrible situation to areas where we can optimize their ability for a successful outcome.”

Wakeling explained the machine can perform compressions longer and more accurately than any human could.

“It’s providing us with the ability to provide the best care to folks. I had used the devices previously so I was pushing for us to get one. I had seen the benefits in using one of these devices,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s providing better compressions than a person will ever do. They can go from 45 minutes to an hour on a single battery. We can transport people a very long way.

“From the winter sports side of things, if someone suffers a hypothermic arrest in the backcountry, it allows us to keep moving until we get to Vancouver. Thank you to the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation for supporting Pemberton Search and Rescue. We truly appreciate the support we have received from them over the years.”

Dr. Nick Fisher, Pemberton’s emergency physician and local medical director, agrees the device is a total game-changer. “Its main benefit is that it’s far superior to anyone doing it themselves,” said Fisher. “Manual CPR can be effective but we are all human. It’s tiring. It wears you out, especially if you have to do it yourself for long periods of time. The machine does perfect compressions every time. The single biggest factor in improving survival in cardiac arrest patients is high-quality CPR

PULSE CHECK Pemberton Search and Rescue volunteers train on new AutoPulse equipment purchased with the help of a Whistler Blackcomb Foundation grant.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Parents rejoice after École La Valée gets funding

THE STUDENTS ARE CURRENTLY STUDYING IN PORTABLES WHERE THERE HAVE BEEN PROBLEMS WITH MICE

BY RÓISÍN CULLEN Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

PEMBERTON PARENTS are rejoicing after their years of campaigning may finally result in a new building for L’Ecole La Valée de Pemberton. A permanent home will be built for francophone families in the area, catering to K-12 students.

“Pemberton has a thriving francophone community that will benefit from a permanent new school closer to families who need it,” said Rachna Singh, B.C.’s Minister of Education, in a release on Sept. 5. “With funding now in place, we can start developing a modern school that francophone students and their families have been waiting for.”

The parents association (APÉ) was instrumental in getting funding for the new school building. Pemberton French Immersion students are currently studying in a variety of buildings in the community, including portables at Signal Hill Elementary. The new school will create 220 new student seats and may add as many as 150 new seats in the future.

The Province provided the Conseil scolaire francophone de la ColombieBritannique (CSF) with $3.2 million for the school, which will be located north of Highway 99 before entering the Village in the Tiyata development.

A representative for the CSF, the Frenchspeaking public school board, told Pique they were hoping to complete the build in just four years. Students could walk into the new school for the 2027-28 academic year if all goes to plan. “The target is to complete the project

impact on the kids. “They are seeing the efforts that we are putting in. It’s for the future of the community,” she said. “Everyone will benefit from a beautiful new school building. The portables look a bit scary.”

The temporary buildings previously had problems with mice, Tardif added. She also stressed that going from building to building can waste a lot of the school day. “In the winter, kids have to go from their classroom to the community centre to go the gym. They have to dress and undress. There is a lot of time wasted,” she said.

When asked if the school had experienced problems with mice, a representative for CSF said the current situation for Francophone students

was “not equivalent to Anglophone students.”

Former APÉ president, Kristi Thomas, believes the current deadline for the new build is optimistic. “Knowing the CSF and how slow the process can be, I’d say that could be a pretty aggressive goal,” she said.

Her kids are now attending Whistler Secondary, but Thomas said she wishes they had the opportunity to complete their full education in French. “Both of my kids are fluent, which is amazing,” she said. “They have been given that language they might not have otherwise had.”

The school will also have a daycare facility, a fantastic asset to young Pemberton families. n

by Spring/Summer 2027,” they said. “These are target dates only and subject to change as the project proceeds.”

APÉ president, Andrée-Anne Tardif, said parents have been pushing for the school for more than a decade. “Parents have campaigned in Vancouver and lobbied in front of the CSF offices,” she said. “We have constantly been in communication with the CSF to make ourselves seen. We have a very active French community in Pemberton and we don’t have a school building.”

Tardif believes just seeing the efforts the parents have gone through will have a positive

PEMBERTON HEALTH-CARE FROM PAGE 24

combined with early access to electricity in the form of a defibrillator.”

Dr. Fisher explained people who suffer cardiac arrest due to hypothermia tend to do really well with prolonged CPR.

“For search-and-rescue teams, the biggest benefit that it holds is the ability to provide CPR to patients who are hypothermic,” he said. “CPR is often the difference between life and death. That’s why having a device like this is so important.”

The family doctor stressed there are local

examples of this, such as when a woman defied medical odds after a miraculous rescue from a Garibaldi Park tree well. Christine Newman received four hours of continuous CPR.

“I would expect every facility to have these in the future,” said Fisher. “The devices are so effective at pumping blood around the body through external compressions that some people have maintained a level of consciousness, were making purposeful movements and were even talking. We are very grateful to have it.” n

“With funding now in place, we can start developing a modern school...”

- RACHNA SINGH

S

Resort Municipality of Whistler Notice | Tax Sale Properties

Pursuant to Section 645 of the Local Government Act, the properties listed below will be offered for sale by public auction on Monday, September 25, 2023 at 10:00 a m in the Flute Room of Municipal Hall at 4325 Blackcomb Way, Whistler, BC , unless delinquent taxes plus interest are paid Payment for either the settlement of outstanding taxes prior to tax sale, or purchase of property at tax sale must be CASH or CERTI FIED FUNDS

Those who wish to bid on properties must register between 9:30 a m and 9:50 a m on Monday, September 25, 2023 at Municipal Hall Photo ID is required for registration

Please note that under Section 648 of the Local Government Act a person authorized by council may bid for the municipality at the tax sale up to a maximum amount set by council Any person being declared the tax sale purchaser must pay the full amount of the purchase price by 1:00 p m the same day Fail ure to pay will result in the property being offered for sale again

Property purchased at tax sale is subject to redemption by the registered property owner within one year from the day the annual tax sale began Redemption price will be the upset price at the time of tax sale, plus required maintenance costs, plus any taxes paid by the purchaser, plus interest at rates established under section 11( 3) of the Taxation Act on the preceding and any surplus bid

Figuring out firewood season

A FEW WEEKS back, I voiced my support for phasing out summer campfires in Whistler, and potentially the province. The hotter and drier temperatures we’ve experienced summer after summer have made this relatively harmless tradition of sitting around a campfire into a proverbial dance with the Devil. The local governments know it, hence the more frequent

BY VINCE SHULEY

fire bans on municipal land, as well as in provincial parks and campgrounds. There will always be the folks who ignore the rules and will have their campfires in the backwoods, but hopefully, a slow and gentle culture shift will phase out those risky fires as well.

Winter heating with firewood, however, will likely remain a staple of Canadian homes for years to come. I wouldn’t try to estimate how many homes in Whistler have wood fireplaces in 2023, but I’m sure at some point in the past it was all of them. Burning wood to heat your home not only creates a cosy living-room atmosphere, it can help keep the hydro costs down, especially in homes like mine that still heat on inefficient baseboard heaters.

Wood burning is technically considered carbon neutral (since the CO2 emitted is

equivalent to the tree’s biomass breaking down over time), but that theory relies on sustainability of a new tree growing in its place. Carbon monoxide and sooty particulates are definitely harmful, but aren’t as much of a threat in rural areas. In any case, burning wood for heat is still very much standard practice during Canadian winters. According to surveys done by Statistics Canada, households outside of Canada’s large cities were four times as likely to report owning a heating stove than city folk.

So, how to keep feeding that fireplace for the six or more months of winter mountain

a few other safety and maintenance items. Having not grown up harvesting wood for winters in Ontario like some of my friends, I had some learning to do.

The first part is sourcing. While you can occasionally get lucky with people offloading felled trees around town, it’s not the kind of thing you can rely on to stack a winter’s worth of firewood (it’s great for topping up your stockpile, though).

The first step is to obtain a “free use permit to cut firewood for personal use” from the Sea to Sky Natural Resources District. It has a long list of rules and conditions, such as only

common causes of chainsaw accidents, and requires constant vigilance (especially when doing bigger cuts)—and it’s why I always wear my protective chainsaw chaps.

Once I have a pile of rounds, it’s time for the therapeutic part. Splitting rounds with a hefty piece of sharpened metal attached to the end of a stick is quite satisfying, especially when your wood has had some time to dry and splits with minimal effort. In my first afternoon of splitting, I started to get a feel for which types of wood splits better than others, and when a tangle of knots becomes more work than they’re worth.

Like any new activity or recreation, you use a lot more energy when you don’t have the right wood-splitting technique. Good thing there are YouTube personalities like Buckin’ Billy Ray Smith who can show me the ropes on everything from cutting large logs on the ground to efficiently splitting perfectly-sized pieces for my fireplace.

temperatures? It’s a chore many households deal with annually, provided they have adequate storage on their property. Buying wood from a supplier in the Sea to Sky and getting it delivered to your driveway was rarely ever cheap, and with the cost of transportation going up significantly alongside inflation, for the 2023-24 winter you need to save a small fortune for a cord of wood.

With my injured shoulders this year, I decided to give another method a go. I took the funds that would normally plonk a big pile of wood in my driveway and bought myself a chainsaw, a heavy-duty maul and splitter and

harvesting fallen trees a certain distance from forest service roads and an adequate distance from water sources. The map of areas where you are allowed to harvest isn’t the easiest to read, either, so be ready to do your homework before driving your truck into the forest.

A trailbuilder friend of mine gave me the initial rundown on the chainsaw: how to safely start, how to do simple cuts, and even managing the inevitable kickback. Kickback is when the nose of the chainsaw’s bar strikes an object or gets pinched, snagging momentarily and kicking the running chainsaw towards your body. It’s one of the

This firewood harvesting venture of mine hasn’t paid itself off just yet. I’m still learning more efficient ways to source, transport, and buck a winter’s worth of firewood to make it more worth my time and labour investment versus paying someone to deliver the wood to my house. But so far, it has proved a worthwhile learning experience, and it’s got me out of the house during a summer when I can’t mountain bike. Sourcing my own wood to heat my home does feel rewarding, even if it’s more work than I initially anticipated. Plus, it’s about the most Canadian thing I’ve ever done.

Vince Shuley is always looking for reasons to head into the woods. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider, email vince. shuley@gmail.com or Instagram @whis_vince. ■

Burning wood to heat your home not only creates a cosy living-room atmosphere, it can help keep the hydro costs down…

FIRED UP Sourcing your own firewood for a winter’s worth of heating is hard work, but can save money in the long run.

PHOTO BY ALEKSANDARNAKIC / E+ / GETTY

• Spacious floor plan with south facing balcony

$585,000

Whistler

FP3 1400 Al ta Lake Road

• 2 bed, 2 bath penthouse in Tamarisk with plenty of parking

• Full-time caretaker, private dock, canoe & kayak storage and bike rooms

• Zoned for full time usage and long term rentals

• Prime location on the shores of Alpha Lake

$949,000

Looking for mature adults to rent my home for the period of Dec1st to May1st

Located at 1721 Pinewood Drive in the Pember ton Plateau It consists of the main floor, which has an of fice, living room, kitchen eating area and pantr y The upstairs has a master bedroom and also a guest bedroom

The master bedroom has a king bed and the guest room has a queen bed. Both have full bathrooms The downstairs has a bedroom with 2 single beds and ensuite bathroom. There is a small exercise area as well as a hot tub on the covered patio The house also has a single car garage

Maximum of 4 adults or a family of 5 No smoking allowed

References will be required. Please contact Lance Lundy at lance@wrec.com.

Only qualified candidates will be contacted

Housekeeping Week APPRECIATION

International Housekeeping Week is an opportunity for us to highlight and celebrate the contributions of the ladies and gentlemen in housekeeping departments throughout Whistler. Despite these departments being among the largest at our properties, their work is often unseen and completed behind closed doors. This week is an opportunity to open those doors and shed light on the enormous amount of effort and dedication that it takes to keep our properties clean and safe. It is an opportunity to show our appreciation and recognize the skill required to get this job done. Our housekeeping team members are key contributors to the success of our properties, and our resort, and I am grateful for the work they do every single day. On behalf of the Hotel Association Whistler, I would like to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU to all those working to keep our resort clean and inviting. We appreciate you.

Melanie Hearn General Manager, Delta Hotel Hotel Association of Whistler

t h e h e a r t o f o u r h o t e l o p e r a t i o n a t H i l t o n W h i s t l e r R e s o r t & S p a

H o u s e k e e p i n g i s a n i n t e g r a l p a r t o f o u r h o t e l a n d t h e e x p e r i e n c e w e o f f e r W e c o u l d n ’ t d o t h i s w i t h o u t e a c h a n d o n e o f y o u

T e a m H o u s e k e e p i n g : t h i s w e e k w a s a l l f o r y o u a n d a l l a b o u t Y O U !

Thank you From Pemberton Valley Lodge

Pemberton Valley Lodge would like to thank our amazing housekeeping staff for their dedication and hard work.

We couldn’t have done it without you.

At Hilton Grand Vacations Club Whistler

we know our housekeeping team is at the heart of everything that we do. We appreciate the hard work and dedication that you put in to take care of our Members and Guests.

Thank you to the entire housekeeping team!

It's important to focus on the things we are grateful for. That's why we would like to say

THANK YOU to our HOUSEKEEPING TEAM for taking care of our hotel family and guests.

You are the heart of our hotel!

Story and photos by Kailey Morin

Taking care of what takes ofcareyou

Lil’wat perspectives on soil, the land and farming

A dedicated ground labourer with a passion for producing high-quality compost from organic materials for farms across the Sea to Sky, Peters has worked at the organic waste processing facility just south of Pemberton for more than 10 years.

With a keen eye, he picks out metal and plastic embedded in the organic materials that won’t break down. It’s a difficult, physical job—and “one of the most important ones” to the operation, says JayeJay Berggren, a founder and former director of Sea to Sky Soils.

“One of the biggest challenges we face is getting plastic in the compost,” Scott Kerr, the company’s GM adds. “People still have a disconnect from the composting process, and some can get lackadaisical about what goes where.”

Peters, along with the majority of the Sea to Sky Soils crew, are members of the Lil’wat Nation. The company sits on unceded, traditional Lil’wat land that was returned to the Nation during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Lil’wat Business Group leases it to Sea to Sky Soils through a formal agreement that includes employment opportunities for Nation members.

“I give the credit to the leadership at Lil’wat,” says Berggren, who first pitched the idea to the Nation, when speaking of the business’ success. “We worked with people who had the long-term vision and values and who were community-minded and caring. Without them, this would have been impossible.”

This mutual commitment has shaped Sea to Sky Soils from the beginning to put community first and to respect Lil’wat cultural values and priorities, such as seasonal traditions like fishing that affect staffing levels.

“Putting your money where your mouth is as a business is important,” says Kerr.

For Lil’wat Nation Political Chief Skalúlmecw Dean Nelson, this reciprocal partnership that centres on the land is an example of the community asserting its rights. “There’s a lot of industry that has interrupted our land and now we have the opportunity to look at it ourselves,” he says. “We’re finding the balance of not taking too much while looking out for the people.

Akin to the Nation’s forestry business, which is run directly by the Lil’wat Business Group, Nelson sees these land-based ventures as a way for Lil ’ wat7úl to “have a voice.”

“There’s so many different parts to [the loss of rights]. This is just one little piece of putting it back together,” he says.

Today, the majority of compost and soil amendments that so many farms in the region have come to rely on are being produced on Lil’wat land almost exclusively by Lil ’ wat7úl like Peters. After 10 years doing this work, there aren’t many farms in the Sea to Sky that haven’t received compost that has passed through his careful hands.

As Berggren explains, Peters’ diligence upholds a critical pillar of the circular, agricultural economy in the corridor—a pillar that wasn’t always present locally.

“Together, we’ve made that full circle happen,” Berggren says. “It starts at the farm where the food is growing, and then it goes through the chain to the consumer, then the recycler of organics, and then back to the farmer. Every pillar is equally important.”

This local, sustainable system complements a core Lil’wat belief, says Nelson: that the people and the land are one. “It means taking care of what takes care of you,” he shares. “Whether you’re looking after the salmon or looking after your crops. Looking after the water … and the soil, too.”

For Peters, who embodies this belief in his day-to-day work, it’s all about creating really good soil. “I’m out here all day and I do a lot of walking. I love it. They really miss me if I miss one or two days,” he shares, beaming, as a crow circles noisily overhead.

“The crows are always around. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don’t,” he adds, laughing.

‘It starts at the farm’

Some of the compost that leaves Sea to Sky Soils end up at Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten, with Ryan McMillan, a dedicated farm worker and Lil’wat member.

A market farm located on traditional Lil’wat Nation land, Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten employs Lil’wat members and aims to provide affordable, fresh food for the community.

McMillan first got involved after a friend asked if he was interested in taking on a job four years ago. With a background in landscaping, he decided to give it a shot.

I just love making soil,” says Leonard Peters

Jr., looking back at a daunting hill of organic material that had just been dropped off at Sea to Sky Soils, where he works.

Since then, McMillan has become an integral part of the Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten team. He’s gained a lot of knowledge about growing food and agriculture, which brought him closer to the work, he says.

“I am involved in taking care of the soil,” says McMillan. “I add amendments like phosphorus and nitrogen that really help grow everything. We practise organic measures, though it’s not certified.”

While McMillan is also responsible for harvesting or taking care of what is in the field by weeding or watering, his work with the soil is never done.

“We have Class 1 agricultural soil here, it’s top notch,” explains Shannon Didier, a Red River Métis woman who serves as the agricultural manager of Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten. “We supplement [our soil] with compost from Sea to Sky Soils and organic fertilizers because whenever you’re planting something, you’re taking nutrients out of the ground. We also have started playing with cover crops to try some regenerative practices,” she says.

Testing these regenerative practices for the soil is a constant subject of conversation not only among the Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten team but also amongst the strong network of vegetable farmers in the Lil’wat and Pemberton area.

Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’ cálten has built a particularly strong bond with Laughing Crow Organics, located on Pemberton Meadows Road.

“We aspire to reach Laughing Crow Organics’s level in the future,” says Didier about the relationship. “We’ve gone to see what they’re doing. They’ve helped us with working with weeds. They help inspire the staff. It’s all a good thing.”

Laughing Crow’s Andrew Budgell, better known as Budgie, says it was only natural to build a connection and share mutual learnings with each other. “We’re supporting each other. We’re having really similar experiences. It’s really back and forth,” he says, something common with vegetable farmers in the area.

Budgell and his team have helped introduce the concept of using a Tilmor weeder to Lil’wat’s farm operations, a task McMillan has taken up with gusto. Tilmor helps mechanically weed the earth without causing damage to the soil.

“Taking care of the weeds with your hands takes so long,” says McMillan. “With the Tilmor, it’s done in a couple of hours. It’s my favourite thing to do. I could go all day, but I run out of fields,” he jokes.

McMillan proudly keeps before-and-after photos of his pristine work in his phone.

“I’ve wandered through their farm and have been inspired by their setup,” Budgie says, explaining the reciprocal nature between the two farms.

But the biggest learning of all, for Budgie, is the First Nation’s approach to farming.

“Prior to learning about [Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten], I had never heard of a community that wants to set up a farm to feed themselves as the whole goal. That’s the unique thing I get out of it—what a cool and incredibly important goal this farm has. And what a bunch of hard workers.”

In loving memory of Peakabo

November 15, 2008 – August 17, 2023

Taking only what you need

“Growing food that the community can access is becoming more and more important with climate change,” says Didier, as the thick smell of smoke sits on the air and the sound of planes rumbles in the background. It’s a poignant setting—and frankly, distracting to both of us—as we speak about soil and farming on a hot, hazy day.

“This farm is growing conventional food to get into bellies,” she explains. “The community has lost access to their lands to collect food and wild medicines, and when traditional food does come in, it’s highly seasonal and takes time to process. So, the farm allows access to organic food at reasonable prices.”

Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten is a contemporary solution to myriad challenges, many of which are tied to the loss of unceded lands, the Indian Act, residential schools and the reserve system.

Prior to contact with European settlers, the Lil ’ wat7úl were migratory people, and their traditional territory encompasses close to 800,000 hectares that includes vastly different ecological zones. Food harvesting was dependent on the season. They moved throughout their territory to hunt, fish or to harvest mushrooms and berries. Food preservation was relied upon to get through the winter.

In time, British Columbia systematically stripped Lil ’ wat7úl of their lands, rights and resources. Eventually, people were restricted to 10 tiny reserves totalling 00.4 per cent of their original traditional territory.

“Farming was adopted once we became stationary,” Nelson says.

Unable to feed themselves as they had in the past, during the switch to agriculture, the community was led by the same Indigenous laws that had always guided them in their relationship to the land, he explains.

“We have laws that say, ‘Take only what you need,’” Nelson says. “You have a family and you only take enough salmon for them. So, for small farmers, that’s all they do. They grow food for their family. It’s preserved for the year. It’s the same mentality we’ve always had if you were drying meat or salmon

Peakabo was an ambassador of Lakeside Road and Lakeside Park for over a decade. She spent many hours every day waiting for all the locals to pass by so she could wiggle up to them and say hello. She worked tirelessly at keeping the geese at bay in the park and away from neighbours’ yards and she never turned down the opportunity to chase a frisbee. Peakabo led her best dog’s life, chasing sticks in the lake until the first sn owfall and then transitioning to catching snowballs all winter. Peakabo was a brilliant, kind, loving, and loyal member of our family.

DIRT DIARY “I just love making soil,” says Leonard Peters Jr., who has been producing high-quality compost at Sea to Sky Soils south of Pemberton for more than 10 years.

Loved by Jude and Pete, she will be forever in our hearts.

and putting things away for winter. It’s an adaptation of being here on the land.”

Over time, Lil ’ wat7úl became skilled ranchers and farmers, leading to many multi-generational agricultural families who became experts in soil, growing produce, and raising food to feed the community. It hasn’t been without its challenges, though. Between climate change, wildfire, a lack of effective dyking, and the flooding risk from the reserve being wedged into the bottom of the valley, there’s a lot to manage.

“For many people this type of farm might seem progressive,” says Didier, looking over at the Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten farm crew as they prepare their produce for the Whistler Farmers Market that Sunday.

“But in Indigenous communities, this is just infusing the traditional approach, which is taking care of your community, with agriculture. Indigenous communities in general have a better connection to their food sources and you observe that in people’s daily and seasonal practices. There is agricultural knowledge here, along with a really deep connection to the land.”

In addition to a focus on farming, the community is also reclaiming access to its traditional, wild foods. “We still have salmon, mushrooms and berries,” Nelson says. “But we don’t have access to them. Recreation has taken over cultural trails.”

This ongoing challenge has undoubtedly informed the recent closure of Joffre Lakes Provincial Park by Lil’wat and N’Quatqua

First Nations to harvest and gather resources from their unceded territories.

The future of Lil’wat farming

Nelson himself hails from an agricultural family. Today, he has fruit trees at home and loves to garden. Those roots are behind his passion for the farming work taking place at Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten, which, he says, has a two-pronged goal: “I want to grow pride and nutrition for the benefit of the Nation,” he says.

When you speak to McMillan, and his colleague Atom Nelson, also of Lil’wat Nation, it’s clear the Chief’s hope for Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten is coming true.

Not only is the farm producing highquality food for the community, humble pride radiates from the two young men when

speaking about where the passion for their work comes from.

For Atom, his interest in farming started in childhood. “When I was really small, my dad had a garden and we’d spend all day in it with him. We’d be pulling carrots and corn and everything. We’d come in for lunch and we’d already be full from eating vegetables from the garden,” he recalls.

Atom’s dad had learned gardening skills from his own parents, who once had a big farm on the reserve. “They grew food to feed themselves,” he shares, thinking back to his childhood. “They had a big orchard with cherry trees and berries. And they were always growing a lot of food that we grow here [at Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten], like carrots and potatoes.”

Coming from a multi-generation farming family, Atom is putting that legacy to work at Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten, where he is known

for having the most patience for tedious farm duties—and being able to withstand the scorching daytime heat.

For Atom, the reason for caring for the soil is simple. “I always think it’s important to take care of the land. It’s where we live. Why would you want to destroy the land that you live on?” he asks.

“I guess people do it for money. But money isn’t as important as your kids and the future generations that are still going to be living here.”

Atom knows the work he’s doing at Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten goes beyond just the healthy food they harvest each season. “It’s about food security,” he says, “by giving more people in the community more knowledge to grow food, once they see we can do it. I have cousins that are growing their own vegetables now. Hopefully we can inspire more people to do that as well.”

“What we hope for is succession,” says Nelson, of the future of Qwal ’ ímak Nlep’cálten and the team of workers. “Will the next generation accept that responsibility? We are strengthening our youth and children to look for their place in the Nation. If that’s what they want.”

Like any good farmer, Atom is thinking about future seasons, too. “If we ever have kids or grandkids, they will still be working this land and growing things,” he says. “This is for the whole community. Not just for my family, but for everyone.” n

AUDAINART MUSEUM

GARDEN OF SHADOWS

GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY: JANET & CHRIS BOWELL

Karin Bubaš,Woman with Hollowed Tree (detail), 2016 archival pigment print, 60 × 60 inches Collection of Ross & Melissa Bonetti

WHISTLER, BC

Axemen Rugby Club re-launches women’s program

NEW HEAD COACH LAUREN ARTHUR AIMS TO CREATE A SPACE FOR BOTH NEWCOMERS AND COMPETITIVE VETERANS

BY DAVID SONG

THERE ARE SOME who may still insist rugby, with its heavy physical contact and gruelling pace, is not for women. Such stereotypes have not prevented women’s rugby from experiencing dramatic growth.

According to World Rugby’s website, more than 2.7 million females now play the sport, representing a quarter of the global rugby population and a 28-per-cent increase in registered athletes since 2017. Rugby Canada notes year-over-year growth in domestic participation over the last two decades or so, with women and youth leading the charge.

The Axemen, coming off a banner season, wish to be part of the movement with their revamped women’s program.

AXES AND OARS

Now helmed by Abbotsford Rugby Football Club alum Lauren Arthur, the Axemen ladies joined forces with the Vancouver Rowers for their first BC Rugby Division 2 game on Sept.

9 against Simon Fraser University. Despite a 36-0 loss, Arthur has plenty of praise for her squad—many of whom are new to fullcontact play and to their Vancouver-based teammates.

“We’ve combined to become the Axes and Oars,” Arthur explained. “A lot of us were all just meeting for the first time, but I don’t think from the sidelines, you could tell that we had all just met.

“There were some little things that are going to come over time, like game fitness— that’s going to come just from playing more and more games. It was a very balanced game, I thought … and we really did make SFU work for those points.”

Arthur grew up in Abbotsford. As the only girl in a family of four kids, her mom tried to push her down the path of dance and ballet, which she never enjoyed. Rugby was a different story—she discovered it around the age of 12 and hit the pitch running.

“The thing I love most about the sport is it’s very inclusive. It’s a sport for everyone,” Arthur explained. “It doesn’t matter if you’re tall, short, fast or slow, there’s a spot for you on the field. That’s what I really, really liked about it, and I think that’s what has kept me playing for so long.

“The culture of rugby is so different from other sports, too. It really is like a family.”

Throughout high school, Arthur played in the Fraser Valley and for BC Rugby before

moving on to the Abbotsford Rugby Club. She also coached her former high school team, Abbotsford Senior Secondary, before work took her to Vancouver and away from her favourite sport for a time.

Nowadays, Arthur is a 28-year-old mother of two who leaped at an opportunity to join the Axemen, where she mentors a diverse team featuring beginners and veteran players alike. Practices are catered to a variety of skill levels.

“The Sea to Sky can be a little bit intimidating with the amount of activities we have, like mountain biking and skiing,” said Arthur. “That just might not be for some people, but rugby really is for everyone. I don’t know if you could even tell that there’s beginners on the team. The improvement has just been so, so incredible.”

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Blake Mahovic, a prominent player-coach for the men’s team, recognizes the Axemen haven’t always been intentional in fostering female participation. He and other club leaders were ecstatic at Arthur’s willingness to step up and take the lead.

“It’s been really awesome to find Lauren and give women a chance to recreate in that team sport environment, which I think is sometimes lacking here,” Mahovic commented. “We were always aware that

we wanted it to be women-led … and the [program] is Lauren’s baby. All I do is help them out when they need it.”

In return, Arthur thanked Mahovic and the other men of the club for their support.

“Pretty much all I have to do is tell [Mahovic] what we need, and it happens,” she said. “He’s made it very, very easy for me, which has been wonderful because I do have two young daughters and it’s a busy household here all the time.

“The whole men’s team is very, very welcoming. There’s been a few times where we’ve joined in with them at practice and it can be a little bit intimidating playing a new sport, especially one like rugby—and then now you’re playing against men. That can be intimidating for some women, but [the male club members] were nothing but gentlemen.”

With a loyal core group now in place, Arthur aims to gradually build them up to higher levels of competition. Even so, the club’s modus operandi has always prioritized community, and she has no interest in alienating the more recreational members of her squad.

“I want to create a space for everyone, whatever your comfort level is,” Arthur said. “That’s kind of the goal: to have a competitive women’s team in the Sea to Sky, but also keep it really fun and social.”

Find out more at axemenrugbyclub.com/ womans-rugby. n

AXE TO GRIND The Axemen ladies and Vancouver Rowers linked up in their red-and-white uniforms for a Division 2 game against SFU on Sept. 9.

PHOTO BY ELLIE WOODS

Whistler Triathlon Club’s Laura Douglas completes first Ironman race

DOUGLAS TOOK PART IN AN UNOFFICIAL EVENT AFTER IRONMAN CANADA WAS CANCELLED IN PENTICTON DUE TO WILDFIRES

BY DAVID SONG

LAURA DOUGLAS found herself among a bevy of disappointed athletes late last month when Ironman Canada’s Penticton event was cancelled due to safety concerns posed by ongoing wildfires. Douglas had been training for that race for months, diligently preparing her body and mind for the 226-kilometre ordeal. She was ready, but nature had other plans.

As a result, the Whistler Triathlon Club (WTC) member adjusted her plans as well. She reached out to some of her peers in the local triathlon community, asking if they would support her in an unofficial simulation of what she would have experienced in Penticton. Two veteran athletes, Angela Shoniker and Marla Zucht, committed to doing the entire race with her, but several others joined for parts of the day and others still helped by erecting aid stations and providing moral support.

On Aug. 26, Douglas set off from Whistler’s Blueberry Docks to make her 3.9-kilometre swim around Alta Lake at 6 a.m. with more than a dozen people in attendance. The subsequent 180-km bike ride took her south to the Callaghan Valley and north towards Pemberton before she ground through the marathon-length 42.2km run across the Valley Trail and around Lost Lake.

Douglas figures it took her in the ballpark of 14 hours and 14 minutes to complete all three stages. A flat tire on the highway consumed roughly an hour (she did not bring a repair kit in favour of packing more food) until two passing cyclists bailed her out. Ironically, the Brit also grappled with a stomach ache during the on-foot portion of her race—in an attempt to fuel her body sufficiently, she ended up eating too much food that proved hard on her digestive tract.

Despite all of that, Douglas made it through her inaugural Ironman and collected valuable experience along the way.

“It was pretty empowering,” she said.

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Whistler Women’s Hockey

Join us for fun hockey ever y Thursday night September to April. All abilities welcome but must have full gear and be able to play basic hockey

DR AFT NIGHT: O CT. 5TH

LO CATION: Meadow Park SI

SIGN UP: 7:45pm | ON ICE: 8:30pm

“Knowing that I’m actually able to do those distances, even though it was not technically official, definitely gives me mental strength and realization on how capable my body is.”

DIVING RIGHT IN

Unlike Shoniker and Zucht, Douglas is new to the world of triathlon. She grew up a runner in her native United Kingdom and moved to Whistler two years ago, as many do, for adventure and recreation. Not long after that, triathlon crossed her radar and she was intrigued.

“I already ran a bit before, and I just love cold-water swimming and I love lakes and things like that,” Douglas explained. “Then I thought it’d be good to start with a sporting club here, so I joined the triathlon club. I think this is the perfect place for it, with lots of beautiful lakes and valley trails and all the trails in the mountains.”

Evidently not one to simply dip her toe in, Douglas signed up for the Penticton Ironman last December almost immediately after becoming part of the WTC. She credits her coach, Karsten Madsen, with helping her get started on the right foot in terms of training and diet. The rest was up to her: 5 a.m. wakeups and consistent dedication to ready herself for one of the most difficult oneday sporting events in the world.

Madsen wasn’t the only one in her corner.

“The tri-club’s got some great people who I meet up with, especially on the weekends for long rides on Saturdays and things like that,” said Douglas. “We go to [Pemberton] and back, which is great fun. It’s a good community to meet new people and have fun doing activities with others as well.”

In addition to her responsibilities with the WTC, Douglas is involved with trail-running organizations such as We Run Whistler and We Run Pemberton as well as the local squash club. As a profession, she teaches fifth graders in Mount Currie. Douglas is an example of how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things, and she’s already looking forward to her first official Ironman next year. n

Join us for fun pre-season scrimmage games Sept. 28th • 8:30PM & 10PM

*Registration for both scrimmage and draft are required* Email Michelle at fish19@g mail.com for more information visit our FB page: Whistler Women’s Hockey

TRI HARD Laura Douglas (front row, middle) with a group of her fellow road cyclists.

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Small is beautiful in more ways than one

ONE GREAT LITTLE ART SHOW, ONE GREAT LITTLE GRAIN, AND ONE GREAT BOOK THAT TIES IT ALL TOGETHER

IT’S TINY , and beautiful, and it packs a powerful punch. Of course I mean any one of the miniature masterpieces at Arts Whistler’s annual Teeny Tiny Art Show—on until Sept. 30 at the Maury Young Arts Centre in the village, and one of the best ways you could imagine to enjoy, and even purchase, original local art. (It’s also a great fundraiser for Arts Whistler and a boost for every participating artist.)

But given this food column lies at the intersection of culture and science, let me also direct your attention to two other very small but beautiful things.

BY GLENDA BARTOSH

The first is barley—an amazing but common grain throughout the world, one that seldom gets its due. The second is the classic book that inspired the headline above and embodies a concept well ahead of its time—one we need more than ever today. E.

F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful describes an economic system not driven by greed. One that treats both the environment and people as if they really matter. Funnily enough, barley does the same.

One of the wonders of the ancient and contemporary world, barley is as close as you could get to a small but beautiful food, and I’m one of its biggest fans. I love barley’s taste. I

love its texture. I love those little pearly-white grains with a wee brown stripe (I’m talking about pearl barley here). I especially love the way I feel after eating it: Satisfied, balanced and happy.

Barley has the highest fibre levels of whole grains, including beta-glucan fibre, which lowers cholesterol and reduces the risk of heart disease. (Oats, too, are high in betaglucan.) Barley is also high in nutrients, plus it’s excellent for keeping those microbes in your gut healthy, and regulating your blood sugar after meals, ergo the “happy” feeling it gives.

Given all these beautiful qualities, barley forms an important part of many cuisines, from Korea to Syria. Cooked barley is delicious simply tossed into salads, porridge or wherever you want a nutty taste and texture. You can even make tea from it. Just hit the internet for barley-based recipes from around the world.

In fact, barley was part of the amazing collection of 150,000 “different populations” of seeds from 128 countries created by the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, with branches in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. ICARDA maintained a gene bank near Aleppo, Syria, where its headquarters were located, until rebel fighters seized it in 2012. Then the entire collection was redistributed to Morocco, Turkey and beyond.

No surprise that barley was part of the “dry area” collection. Evidence from archeological digs shows that for thousands of years, until about 5000 BCE, people who were largely hunters in northern Iraq, Iran and Turkey ate, amongst other things, large amounts of wild barley, which was well adapted to the climate. Eventually it became one of the first cultivated grains. But in our largely wheat-

and oat-driven world, barley has ended up kind of like the third kid in the family: Often overlooked or taken for granted.

Currently, barley is Canada’s third most important crop. But this mighty little grain might soon rise to No. 1, what with all the droughts and heatwaves brought on by the climate we’ve changed with our faulty economics and priorities. (Remember, it was the 1950s when the oil industry’s own scientists first warned, amazingly accurately, how burning fossil fuels releases CO2 that causes global heating, before they were silenced by their bosses.)

A study published in ScienceDaily by a biologist at the University of the Basque Country—also a very dry area now suffering evermore heat and drought—concluded that lovely little barley has a self-defense mechanism to tackle lack of water. In fact, CO2 provides this amazing plant with certain characteristics that enable it to offset the effects of drought.

If all this hasn’t gotten you excited enough about all things small and beautiful, try Schumacher’s bestseller, Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered. Note that subhead: Economics as if people mattered. Ahem. Something we could use in triplicate today.

This collection of essays by the forwardthinking economist, who was named a Companion of the British Empire for his outstanding work, was hailed as an ecobible by Time Magazine. It was also required reading at Langara College’s progressive and effective journalism program, where I graduated and the inimitable Paul Burrows— co-founder of Whistler’s first newspaper, and so much more—was an advisor.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Small is Beautiful .

To acknowledge same, the innovative Schumacher College and Dartington Trust in South Devon, England, (young people note: it’s devoted to progressive learning programs in the arts, ecology and social justice) have been bringing together thinkers and institutions to further the ideas behind Schumacher’s enlightened concept known as regenerative economics. I hope they serve some barley tea.

As for getting your very own “small is beautiful” masterpiece from the Teeny Tiny Art Show, be sure to attend the Art Party, Thursday, September 21, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Maury Young Arts Centre. It’s your first chance to buy one of these meticulously crafted miniatures by a local artist. Bonus— you can take your piece of art home that night.

Given every artwork is only 3 x 3 inches, it’s sure to fit in any teeny, tiny slice of accommodation you may be forced into in our increasingly unaffordable world.

You may well place it beside your bed so you can glance over at it as you read Small is Beautiful with your jaw dropping. It’s hard not to do so given reviews like this: “The basic message in this tremendously thoughtprovoking book is that man is pulling the earth and himself out of equilibrium by applying only one test to everything he does: money, profits, and therefore giant operations. We have got to ask instead, what about the cost in human terms, in happiness, health, beauty and conserving the planet?”

As always, hope is with us—just an idea, and some action, away.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who still has her yellowing, wellthumbed copy of Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful from Langara. n

SMALL WORLD At Arts Whistler’s Teeny Tiny Art Show, “small is beautiful” is more than just a saying.

FILE PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTS WHISTLER

MPSC Annual Pool Maintenance Closure

The MPSC fitness centre, studio, arena, changerooms and showers are now open to the public!

The pool, hot tub, sauna, and steam room will re-open on Monday, October 2. Thank you for your patience, we hope to see you soon!

Check whistler.ca/notices for more information.

Whistler musician George Skoupas releases fourth solo album

QUIETLY RAGING IS A PERSONAL STORY, AN ODE TO NATURE AND AN EXPRESSION OF MUSICAL MINIMALISM FROM THE BROTHER TWANG VOCALIST

BY DAVID SONG

GEORGE SKOUPAS dropped a new album earlier this summer. It’s his fourth solo project, and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever heard from his band, Brother Twang.

For starters, there are no vocals in Quietly Raging, which came out the last week of July. None at all. There aren’t any drums either. Instead, what you get is acoustic guitar mixed with a dash of electric guitar, grounded by some bass and keyboard work. Everything else is… well, it’s not music in a conventional sense.

This time around, Skoupas uses the sounds of nature to craft a series of moods and scenes, referring to each of his seven tracks as “a little cinematic snippet.”

For example, “Meatsauce” features the steady pitter-patter of heavy rain backgrounded by instrumentals. “Ghost Ship” paints the unsettling picture of an abandoned vessel, creaking back and forth as it is buffeted by waves and surrounded by vocal seagulls. “Thailand Express,” which Skoupas composed as a tribute to Canadian rock band Rush, captures the spirit of a train trip to Bangkok. “Fishin’” delivers as advertised, calling to mind an idyllic day on the lake with mellow guitar riffs and the sounds of reels being cast.

It all builds to a haunting crescendo with “The Finger of God,” a 16-minute musical odyssey inspired by the 1996 disaster film, Twister. Unlike Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton back in the day, Skoupas

manages to convey the awe-inspiring power of a supercell thunderstorm without Hollywood theatrics—just deliberatelyplaced instrumentation amidst the bellows of distressed livestock and the freight-train roar of a cataclysmic EF5 tornado.

CHILL OUT

Quietly Raging is not necessarily the album of choice for those seeking an uptempo banger. It is an intricate and fascinating listen for those willing to slow down and lose themselves in another world. Skoupas found inspiration for his latest unconventional work, rather befittingly, from an unconventional place.

“You know when you go to the Scandinave or some kind of spa and they just have this really relaxing music in the background?” he says. “One day, I was having a massage and my wife was next to me having her massage also, and the masseuse had some music on. It was Deva Premal. It was just really ethereal and it sounded wicked. I thought: as a guitarist, how can I make that just a little bit more interesting to me?”

The Whistlerite has remained active over the years with Brother Twang. Since 2007, they’ve shared their brand of fast-paced rock and aggressive country with the Sea to Sky and beyond. Yet there’s a side of Skoupas that appreciates the softer and more melodic side of music: stuff like Primal, Kitaro and Marty Friedman’s individual content.

“Being part of a band unit, there’s four of us. Even if I wrote a little bit more, everyone else is still going to have their input and then it shapes what that band ends up being,” he says. “But my solo albums have all been instrumental, and they’ve always explored the side of the instruments—the bass, the guitar, the interplay of that, seeing almost the bare minimum of what instrumentation, melody and harmony you need to make up a song.

“Sometimes, it takes nothing but three chords and a melody, and that’s a hit Tom Petty song.”

ALL THE RAGE

Don’t mistake Skoupas’ minimalism for simplicity, though. His latest offering is deep, nuanced and multi-layered, containing intensely personal themes from his own heart and life.

Take for instance, the album’s title: Quietly Raging. It is a reflection of Skoupas’ journey from the bright lights and non-stop hustle of Toronto to the majestic mountains of Whistler. Growing up in Canada’s largest metropolitan area, Skoupas came to feel a sense of internal turmoil and asked himself: what am I not getting from the city?

Skiing from the top of 7th Heaven at 7,000 feet with shoulder-deep powder all around answered that question in a way night-skiing in Barrie at 700 feet never could. Whistler driving is another plus in his mind—after all, Highway 99 on its most congested day is hardly a match for the traffic nightmare that is Highway 401.

Even so, Skoupas understands that no place is perfect, and the sources of his grievance have evolved over time.

“Frustrations are going to be everywhere in life, and the grass isn’t always greener on

the other side,” he says candidly. “Just because I moved out here, my concerns haven’t been abated. Now I’m a dad and my concerns are different, right? So there’s still a little bit of a rage there at the state of the government, housing, this and that.

“My friends from Toronto will always be like: ‘Oh, you moved out to the mountains and you still got the rage,’ but now it’s more quiet and in the background because there’s way more things that fill the time as opposed to when I was in Toronto.”

Then there’s a song like “The Finger of God,” which juxtaposes violence with peace and death with life in a particularly profound manner. After the tornado passes through, a juggernaut with no care for who or what it obliterates, listeners hear a slow heartbeat that eventually flatlines—an acknowledgement of nature’s destructive potential and the inevitable end of human life on Earth. Yet, after death comes the sound of new life: Skoupas’ son quietly playing guitar, his daughter being born.

“It’s my interpretation of [the afterlife],” he explains. “You could possibly die. You go through a period of who knows how long and then, who knows if you end up being in another life or whatnot. Every song is kind of like a journey like that.”

Quietly Raging is currently available on Spotify and Apple Music. n

RAGING GRACEFULLY George Skoupas of the Whistler band Brother Twang performs onstage.

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BY BRANDON BARRETT

AN INTERESTING SIGN of the Whistler Singers’ diverse membership is the crossgenerational connections forged within the group. Primarily an adult choir, the Whistler Singers also welcomes local high schoolers into the fold, with members typically ranging in age from their late teens to their 80s or 90s.

“Sometimes some of our younger people are finding accommodation through our older ones that have more of a network here. There’s carpooling going on,” says longtime musical director Alison Hunter. “We have had people come with babies to choir and at the end of the rehearsal, they can’t find their baby because the poor thing has been passed around so much.

“So, yes, we’re a choir, but more importantly we’re a community.”

Formed in the early ’80s, the Whistler Singers, and, for that matter, its sister group, the Whistler Children’s Chorus, have undergone several iterations over the years, but at their root is the same philosophy: creating a warm and inviting space for singers of all abilities to connect over a shared love of choral music.

“There’s no auditions. We have people who have been pro musicians, people who read music easily, and we have people who don’t know what those little black dots on the paper are,” Hunter adds.

The same can be said for the Whistler Children’s Chorus, open to kids from Grade 1 to 7, with artistic director Jeanette Bruce noting that, although weekly rehearsals culminate in performances, the process is more about the journey than the destination.

“Every kid is different, and they might love singing at rehearsal but are terrified to sing at a concert,” she says. “The idea of separating choir from the need to perform and valuing what happens in rehearsal just as much, if not more, as what happens at concert was an important lesson for me.”

The kids’ choir’s repertoire runs the gamut from traditional classical numbers to Disney

favourites. “Anything from familiar pop tunes to music written for children’s choirs to traditional stuff and everything in between,” Bruce notes.

Like the Whistler Singers, the local children’s choir doesn’t require any prior experience or musical knowledge—although, as Bruce explains, for kids looking to, say, learn how to read music, that’s something she hopes to tackle this year.

“Even though we don’t require kids to read sheet music, we do provide sheet music, so they are seeing it,” she says. “We like to encourage them to follow along with sheet music even if they’re like, ‘What the heck is this?’ That’s something I’m keen to dig into more this season, demystifying that a little bit.”

For the older kids, there are also leadership opportunities within the children’s choir.

“They’ll often help with leading half the group if we’re singing songs with harmonies or two parts,” Bruce said.

Both groups are now gearing up for another busy choir season, with the choirs singing as part of Whistler’s Remembrance Day Ceremony in November, as well as singing carols on Fridays and Saturdays in December throughout the village. Both choirs will host separate Christmas concerts, before coming together to perform at the long-running and ever-popular Christmas Eve Carol Service at the library on Dec. 24.

Both groups are currently accepting new members while choir season is just getting underway. Email whistlersingers@gmail.com to inquire.

The Whistler Children’s Chorus meets Tuesdays from 4 to 5 p.m. at the library, while the Whistler Singers meet the same day every week, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Myrtle Philip Community School. Barbed Choir, Whistler’s informal, dropin rock ’n’ roll choir, meets at the library every Sunday, starting Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. At that session, the choir is singing the ’80s hit “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League. There’s no need to register in advance, but you can email Bruce at publicservices@ whistlerlibrary.ca to be added to the mailing list. There’s also a Barbed Choir Facebook group to stay up to date. n

‘We’re a choir, but more importantly we’re a community’

WHISTLER CHILDREN’S CHORUS AND WHISTLER SINGERS RECRUITING NEW MEMBERS OF ALL ABILITIES AS CHORAL SEASON GETS UNDERWAY

PERFECT HARMONY The Whistler Children’s Chorus performing last spring at the Whistler Public Library.

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Book Review—Huge, by Brent Butt

BY KATE HESKETT

BEST KNOWN FOR HIS hit TV series

Corner Gas, which ran for six seasons on CTV and spawned a spinoff movie and animated series, award-winning Saskatchewan-born actor, comedian, and screenwriter Brent Butt is back in the spotlight with his debut novel Huge

An unexpectedly dark and twisted thriller, Huge follows three stand-up comedians as they embark on a run of shows across a remote stretch of rural Canadian countryside. It’s 1994, a time before cellphones and YouTube, and Dale is a 40-something comic from Chicago who’s on the back half of a mediocre career and thinking about quitting the business. Rynn is a 20-something fast-rising star from Dublin with a big Hollywood break on her horizon. And then there’s the new kid they’ve been lumped with. Hobie Huge is a last-minute addition to the bill, a towering hulk of a man whose comedic talents leave a lot to be desired.

After a life honing his craft on the road, Dale’s better-than-average stand-up skills have left him with little more than a broken marriage, an estranged daughter and an empty bank account. In contrast, Rynn’s comedic star is on the rise. Young, ambitious and specializing in off-the-cuff material, she has her eye on a lucrative gig hosting a regular

TV show. She just needs the right exposure to the right people, and this tour can deliver it.

Dale initially deems Hobie’s offer to drive and pay for gas a fair trade for having to babysit the fledgling comedian. However, it quickly becomes clear that Hobie does not take constructive criticism well, let alone the inevitable banalities of small-town hecklers. With decades of experience reading the crowd, Dale turns his finely tuned senses to his new colleague, and doesn’t like what he sees. But he needs the money, and everyone struggles with heckling when they start out, right? But as the tour rolls on, for Dale and Rynn it becomes less about getting laughs and more about getting off the road alive.

Primarily a survival thriller, Huge is peppered with tantalizing insights into the internal thoughts of a stand-up comedian. Through the eyes of Dale and Rynn, the reader gets a small taste of what it might be like to take to the stage in front of a room full of strangers. Early in the novel, Dale teaches us how to read the room in a new venue.

No cover—not a good sign. It was the second not-good sign he had encountered on his way into the place—the first being the fact he saw no poster, no banner, no anything to suggest there might be a comedy show tonight … He couldn’t see anyone anywhere who looked like a bouncer, which meant that crowd control would fall entirely on him. A few TVs were on, mounted at various heights and angles around the room to provide patrons with an option to his face.

There wasn’t even a microphone on the riser. Only one spotlight pointed at the stage area and it had a red bulb in it… No seating near the stage … A lot of factors working against him

Through Dale, Butt also delivers the kind of coffee-shop humour he is well-known for.

Dale launched into seven straight minutes

of local material, starting with what he thought of the name “Horsewater” for a community. “Makes me wonder what names were voted down,” he said, “Pigpuddle? Goatsoup? Come on, that would’ve been a better name. ‘I’m off to Goatsoup, Manitoba, for the weekend!’

The three characters are easily understood as versions of Butt at different points in his career. Rynn is starry-eyed, and has a world of possibilities at her feet, whereas Dale is coming out at the other end of his career and wondering what’s next. By extension, Hobie Huge reads as the larger-than-life, conveniently psychopathic, alter-ego created by Butt as an outlet for dealing with 30-plus years of problem hecklers.

An enjoyable page turner, readers beware that Huge is not for anyone with a weak stomach. But for anyone with a penchant for graphic violence, Butt has birthed a unique anti-hero in Dale, and his adept application of his people-reading skills to the realm of trying to outsmart a serial killer makes Huge a must read for anyone who enjoys their revenge fantasies bloody.

Kate Heskett is a writer, poet and canoe guide happily stuck in the Whistler bubble. They are currently working on their first novel.

Brent Butt will join the Whistler Writers Festival on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 8 to 10 p.m. for the Reading Event 14: Saturday Night Special—A Killer Night of Comedy, Murder and Mayhem (In-Person). For tickets, visit whistlerwritersfest.com. ■

GOING BIG Catch Brent Butt at the Whistler Writers Festival on Saturday, Oct. 14.

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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

WHISTLER VILLAGE BEER FEST

SEPT.15-21

WHISTLER VILLAGE BEER FESTIVAL

The 10th annual Whistler Village Beer Festival is in full swing! The main event, hosted on Saturday, Sept. 16, will feature 50 craft beverage manufacturers and more than 100 varieties of craft beverages, including beer, cider, and RTDs to sample. Complete with food trucks, live music, interactive activities and thousands of fellow festival lovers, this event is always an incredible time. Find more info at gibbonswhistler.com/festivalsevents/whistler-village-beer-festival.

> Sept. 11 to 17; Main Event Sept. 16

> Multiple venues

> Cost varies

IMPRINTS: ON NATIVE LAND

Join artist Raven John in a thought-provoking performance exploring your connection to colonization using ink, paper, and space. In this short performance, Raven will share a generational connection to the residential school atrocities while guiding volunteer audience participants in linoleum tile block printing. The piece delves into pain, grief, and intergenerational trauma, leaving participants with a profound sense of

self and place.

> Sept. 16, 7 p.m.

> Maury Young Arts Centre

> $5

THE TERRY FOX RUN

Walk, run, wheel or ride in this annual fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. Also welcome in the fundraiser are bikes, rollerblades and dogs on leashes. Registration is open to all, and begins at 10 a.m.

> Sept. 17, 11 a.m.

> Four Seasons Resort Whistler

> Free

TEENY TINY ART PARTY

Get ready for the highly anticipated return of the tiniest art exhibit in the Sea to Sky region. The Teeny Tiny Show is back for its sixth year, proving that great things indeed come in small packages. Local artists have poured their creativity into meticulously crafting original works, each measuring 3” x 3” or smaller. The Art Party is the first opportunity to purchase these pocket-sized artworks, and they sell fast! Make sure to attend to secure your very own miniature masterpiece. Plus, enjoy free nibbles by the incredible Picnic Whistler!

> Sept. 21, 6 to 8:30 p.m.

> Maury Young Arts Centre

> Free

FILE PHOTO BY A. COOPER / COURTESY OF WVBF

Connecting the valley

BY ALLYN PRINGLE

NO MATTER the time of year, there are sure to be people out on the Valley Trail, whether biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, walking, jogging, or skiing. The popular multi-use trail system runs throughout Whistler and, for decades, has been used by many for both practical and recreational purposes.

The origins of Whistler’s Valley Trail go back to 1976, just one year after the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) was formed. A rec report prepared by representatives of the Whistler Developers Association, the Alta Lake Ratepayers Association, the Advisory Planning Commission, and the RMOW looked at existing recreation infrastructure within the municipality and made recommendations for future recreation development. These recommendations included “a main valley trail of a minimum 12-foot-wide, dust-proof surface” connecting the existing recreational and community facilities and residential developments for cyclists and pedestrians.

This call for a trail system through the valley was echoed four years later in the 1980 Recreation Committee Report and by the Whistler Outdoor Recreation Master Plan Study prepared for the RMOW by Professional Environmental Recreation Consultants Ltd in 1980, often referred to as the PERC report.

One reason the PERC report prioritized the development of a bikeway was to make travel safer within Whistler. According to the report, “the [then] current system of bicycling on Highway 99 through Whistler is unsafe due to the heavy traffic and especially due to the number of logging and other heavy vehicles using the highway.”

To address this issue, the PERC report proposed building about 13 kilometres of paved bikeway over five years to create a north/south spine that began at the RV campground at the south end and ended in Alpine Meadows to the north. Along the way, the bikeway would link subdivisions and other developments, including Whistler Village. The master plan also included plans for a Lost Lake Loop and a Fitzsimmons Creek

Loop that could be added to the trail system, as well as an extension of the spine north to Emerald Estates along Green Lake.

Over the next four years, the Advisory Parks and Recreation Commission (ARPC), guided by its chair Trevor Roote, led public consultation meetings, passed a referendum to fund its master plan, and negotiated rightsof-way throughout the valley for the Valley Trail. By 1982, the trail was paved from the village to Alta Vista and from the River of Golden Dreams to Rainbow Drive. According to Roote, the trail “immediately became a popular commuting route, particularly with school children who no longer had to ride their bikes to school along Highway 99 playing dodge’m with logging trucks.” In 1983, the trail was paved from the village to Whistler Cay and from Rainbow Drive to Meadow Park.

Many elements of the trail system described in the PERC report are part of the Valley Trail today. The ARPC did incorporate the trail right-of-way into the negotiation of sewer rights-of-way, and the general location of the trail matched much of what the PERC report proposed. The next five-year plan of the ARPC (1985 to 1989) included the expansion of the Valley Trail out towards Emerald Estates. The physical design of the trail, however, is not quite as the PERC report envisioned.

While most Valley Trail users are accustomed to a mix of walkers, cyclists, skateboarders and more, all keeping to the right of the yellow line except to pass (and then using their bell or calling out to alert those they’re passing), the PERC report proposed a six-foot, two-way paved bikeway with a separate-but-adjacent three-foot gravel pedestrian trail.

The importance to the community of developing recreation, and in particular the Valley Trail, was recognized quite early on. For his work as the chair of the ARPC, Roote was named Citizen of the Year in 1981, and was awarded the Freedom of the Municipality in 1984. Since then, the Valley Trail has continued to expand throughout Whistler, and continues to be a popular commuting and recreational route for residents and visitors alike. n

HAPPY TRAILS Two riders on the newly paved section of the Valley Trail in 1983.

WHISTLER QUESTION COLLECTION

NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR A PERMANENT CHANGE TO A LIQUOR LICENCE

ESTABLISHMENT LOCATION: 4222 Village Square

LICENSE TYPE: Liquor Primary

APPLICANT: Bar Oso

Bar Oso is a liquor primary licensed establishment with hours of service from 9 a m - 1 a m Monday through Sunday The licensee has applied to the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch (LCRB) for a structural change to the liquor primary licence to permanently increase the interior capacity of the establishment on the basement (lower) level from 18 to 58 persons

Residents and owners of businesses may comment by writing to:

Climate Action, Planning and Development Services

Resort Municipality of Whistler

4325 Blackcomb Way

Whistler, BC V8E 0X5

planning@whistler ca

PETITIONS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.

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Free Will Astrology

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 15 BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries photographer Wynn Bullock had a simple, effective way of dealing with his problems and suffering. He said, “Whenever I have found myself stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say.” I highly recommend you experiment with his approach in the coming weeks. You are primed to develop a more intimate bond with the flora and fauna in your locale. Mysterious shifts now unfolding in your deep psyche are making it likely you can discover new sources of soulful nourishment in natural places— even those you’re familiar with. Now is the best time ever to hug trees, spy omens in the clouds, converse with ravens, dance in the mud, and make love in the grass.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Creativity expert Roger von Oech says businesspeople tend to be less successful as they mature because they become fixated on solving problems rather than recognizing opportunities. Of course, it’s possible to do both—untangle problems and be alert for opportunities—and I’d love you to do that in the coming weeks. Whether or not you’re a businessperson, don’t let your skill at decoding riddles distract you from tuning into the new possibilities that will come floating into view.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Fernando Pessoa wrote books and articles under 75 aliases. He was an essayist, literary critic, translator, publisher, philosopher, and one of the great poets of the Portuguese language. A consummate chameleon, he constantly contradicted himself and changed his mind. Whenever I read him, I’m highly entertained but sometimes unsure of what the hell he means. He once wrote, “I am no one. I don’t know how to feel, how to think, how to love. I am a character in an unwritten novel.” And yet Pessoa expressed himself with great verve and had a wide array of interests. I propose you look to him as an inspirational role model in the coming weeks, Gemini. Be as intriguingly paradoxical as you dare. Have fun being unfathomable. Celebrate your kaleidoscopic nature.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” Cancerian author Henry David Thoreau said that. I don’t necessarily agree. Many of us might prefer love to truth. Plus, there’s the inconvenient fact that if we don’t have enough money to meet our basic needs, it’s hard to make truth a priority. The good news is that I don’t believe you will have to make a tough choice between love and truth anytime soon. You can have them both! There may also be more money available than usual. And if so, you won’t have to forgo love and truth to get it.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Before she got married, Leo musician Tori Amos told the men she dated, “You have to accept that I like ice cream. I know it shows up on my hips, but if you can’t accept that, then leave. Go away. It is non-negotiable.” I endorse her approach for your use in the coming weeks. It’s always crucial to avoid apologizing for who you really are, but it’s especially critical in the coming weeks. And the good news is that you now have the power to become even more resolute in this commitment. You can dramatically bolster your capacity to love and celebrate your authentic self exactly as you are.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The Virgo writer Caskie Stinnett lived on Hamloaf, a small island off the coast of Maine. He exulted in the fact that it looked “the same as it did a thousand years ago.” Many of the stories he published in newspapers featured this cherished home ground. But he also wandered all over the world and wrote about those experiences. “I travel a lot,” he said. “I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” You Virgos will make me happy in the coming weeks if you cultivate a similar duality: deepening and refining your love for your home and locale, even as you refuse to let your life be disrupted by routine.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My hitchhiking adventures

are finished. They were fun while I was young, but I don’t foresee myself ever again trying to snag a free ride from a stranger in a passing car. Here’s a key lesson I learned from hitchhiking: Position myself in a place that’s near a good spot for a car to stop. Make it easy for a potential benefactor to offer me a ride. Let’s apply this principle to your life, Libra. I advise you to eliminate any obstacles that could interfere with you getting what you want. Make it easy for potential benefactors to be generous and kind. Help them see precisely what it is you need.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In your history of togetherness, how lucky and skilful have you been in synergizing love and friendship? Have the people you adored also been good buddies? Have you enjoyed excellent sex with people you like and respect? According to my analysis of the astrological omens, these will be crucial themes in the coming months. I hope you will rise to new heights and penetrate to new depths of affectionate lust, spicy companionship, and playful sensuality. The coming weeks will be a good time to get this extravaganza underway.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Is it ever morally permissible to be greedily needy? Are there ever times when we deserve total freedom to feel and express our voracious longings? I say yes. I believe we should all enjoy periodic phases of indulgence—chapters of our lives when we have the right, even the sacred duty, to tune into the full range of our quest for fulfillment. In my astrological estimation, Sagittarius, you are beginning such a time now. Please enjoy it to the max! Here’s a tip: For best results, never impose your primal urges on anyone; never manipulate allies into giving you what you yearn for. Instead, let your longings be beautiful, radiant, magnetic beacons that attract potential collaborators.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Here’s a Malagasy proverb: “Our love is like the misty rain that falls softly but floods the river.” Do you want that kind of love, Capricorn? Or do you imagine that a more boisterous version would be more interesting—like a tempestuous downpour that turns the river into a torrential surge? Personally, I encourage you to opt for the misty rain model. In the long run, you will be glad for its gentle, manageable overflow.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to the Bible’s book of Matthew, Jesus thought it was difficult for wealthy people to get into heaven. If they wanted to improve their chances, he said they should sell their possessions and give to the poor. So Jesus might not agree with my current oracle for you. I’m here to tell you that every now and then, cultivating spiritual riches dovetails well with pursuing material riches. And now is such a time for you, Aquarius. Can you generate money by seeking enlightenment or doing God’s work? Might your increased wealth enable you to better serve people in need? Should you plan a pilgrimage to a sacred sanctuary that will inspire you to raise your income? Consider all the above, and dream up other possibilities, too.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean author Art Kleiner teaches the art of writing to non-writers. He says this: 1. Tell your listeners the image you want them to see first. 2. Give them one paragraph that encapsulates your most important points. 3. Ask yourself, “What tune do you want your audience to be humming when they leave?” 4. Provide a paragraph that sums up all the audience needs to know but is not interesting enough to put at the beginning. I am offering you Kleiner’s ideas, Pisces, to feed your power to tell interesting stories. Now is an excellent time to take inventory of how you communicate and make any enhancements that will boost your impact and influence. Why not aspire to be as entertaining as possible?

Homework: For three days, love yourself exactly as you are. Don’t wish you could change yourself. Newsletter. FreeWillAstrology.com.

In addition to this column, Rob Brezsny creates EXPANDED

In-depth weekly forecasts designed to inspire and uplift you. To buy access, phone 1-888-499-4425. Once you’ve chosen the Block of Time you like, call 1-888-682-8777 to hear Rob’s forecasts. www.freewillastrology.com

Victoria Shilston

LONG-TERM RENTALS

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Brand-newExecutiveviewhomefor rentinSunstone,Pemberton. Unfurnished.Availablelong-term. Referencesand1yrleaserequired. 2600Sq/ft.4beds,3fullbaths,office, chef’skitchen,hugeoutdoorpatio, largemudroom,garage,parkingfor2 carsandplentyofstoragespace.N/S, N/P$5500month+utilities.Snow removalandyardmaintenanceare included.AvailableSept1st. kristina_waldie@hotmail.com

BeautifulNewStudioSuite

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

Newmodernstudiosuiteforrentin Sunstone,Pemberton.Privateentry. Unfurnished.Cooktop,W/D.Mt.Currie views.$1600permonthinclusive. Mustprovidereferences.1-yearlease required.N/SN/P.Suitssingle professional.Parkingfor1car. AvailableOct1st.604-905-9723 kristina_waldie@hotmail.com

HIRING WE ARE

Why work for us?

All Departments

Communications

Community Planning

Engineering

Finance

Public Works

RCMP

Recreation

We offer competitive wages, a comprehensive pension plan and health benefits, and we are driven by our passion to serve community.

• Clerk 2 – Casual/ On-Call

• Public Engagement Specialist – Regular Full-Time

• Plan Examiner 2 – Regular Full-Time

• Manager of Environment – Regular Full-Time

• Engineering Technician – Regular Full-Time

• Accounts Payable Coordinator – Regular Full-Time

• Utilities Technologist – Regular Full-Time

• Detachment Clerk – Casual/On-Call

• Recreation Program Leader – Regular Part-Time

As an equitable and inclusive employer, we value diversity of people to best represent the community we serve and provide excellent services to our citizens. We strive to attract and retain passionate and talented individuals of all backgrounds, demographics, and life experiences.

squamish.ca/careers

GARIBALDI GRAPHIC S PART

TIME SALES ASSOCIATE

Applicant must be friendly, professional and enjoy multi-tasking Duties include customer service and performing a variety of print jobs. 2 days per week.

Please apply in person to 1200 Alpha Lake Road in Function Junction or email resume to whistler@garibaldigraphics.com

piquenewsmagazine.com/ local-events/

PivotalResearchInc.isconducting asurveytounderstandarearesidentsexperiencewithtransit. Completea5minutesurveyby scanningtheQRCodeorvisit https://www.pivotalresearch.ca/ bctransportation

EMPLOYMENT

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

PHSAisHiring

AccountsReceivableClerks! Wehavecasualpositionsforcashiers atWhistlerHealthCareCentrestarting at$26.51/hr!Connectwith careers@phsa.ca.

GuestServicesAgent

We’relookingforapassionateGuest ServicesAgenttojoinourteam.

JobDescription:

AsaGuestServicesAgent,youwillbe thefirstpointofcontactforourguests, providingawarmandwelcomingexperiencefromthemomenttheyarrive.

Yourfriendlyattitude,excellentcommunicationskills,andabilitytoanticipateguestneedswillbecrucialinensuringapositivestay.Inaddition, candidateswithmaintenanceskills andavaliddriver’slicensewillbegivenpreference.

info@whistlersuperior.com www.whistlersuperior.com

Lil’wat Nation Employment Opportunities

Ullus Community Centre

• Transition House Support Worker – night shift

• Financial Reporting Manager

• Accounts Payable Coordinator

• Accounts Receivable Coordinator

• Human Resources Generalist

• Band Social Development Worker

• Family Enhancement Worker

Lil’wat Health & Healing

• Assistant Health Director

• Clinical Counsellor

• Homemaker

Please visit our career page for more information: https://lilwat.ca/careers/

Vacasa’s forward-thinking approach and industry-leading technology help set us apart as the largest full-service vacation rental company in North America.

We are seeking individuals with a passion for providing exceptional vacation experiences for our Owners and Guests.

We offer competitive wages and benefits: Travel allowance for Squamish/Pemberton-based employees OR Ski Pass/Activity allowance, Extended Medical, RRSP match, Fun & Safe Work Environment-Great Team, opportunities to grow and more.

Local Operations Manager (12-month maternity leave coverage)

Apply online today!

https://www.vacasa.com/careers/positions or email: paul.globisch@vacasa.com or call to find out more details at 604-698-0520

We thank all applicants for their interest but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

The

Whistler Valley Housing Society is seeking applications for a: Part-time Administrator

• Approximately 40 hours per month

• Duties will focus on Support for the Board of Directors

• Pay commensurate with experience.

The Whistler Valley Housing Society is a not-for-profit established in 1983 and is the owner of Whistler Creek Court a 20 unit affordable rental housing project for Whistler employees.

The society’s purpose is to supply, operate, manage and maintain low and moderate income housing on a nonprofit basis for Whistler employees.

WVHS currently has a 30-unit rental building under construction for tenancy mid 2024.

For more information and to apply please contact: cjewett@whistler.ca

WE ARE GROWING....SO WE ARE HIRING!

Our team is expanding and so we are looking for a Certified Dental Assistant (Full or Part Time).

NEW GRADS WELCOME! COMPETITIVE WAGES BASED ON EXPERIENCE.

NO EVENINGS OR WEEKENDS! Great extended benefit package and uniform allowance (after 3 months of employment) & free parking!

We pride on being a supportive and positive work family while always providing honest, quality dental care for all our patients. We are locally owned and operated. Our staff are long term residents of Whistler, Pemberton & Squamish. Is this you too?

If so, we want to hear from you!

Please send your resume and a little about yourself to: managercreeksidedentalwhistler@gmail.com.

CIVIL CONSTRUCTION AND SNOW SERVICES

BUILDING AN EXCELLENT COMPANY, PEOPLE, RELATIONSHIPS, AND RESULTS

SEEKING CHEF

WHO LIVES FOR ADVENTURE

We are hiring a talented chef to prepare meals for small private groups at the Bralorne Adventure Lodge located in beautiful Bralorne, BC, just a few hours from Whistler with worldclass untouched snowmobiling, skiing & snowboarding at your doorstep! Part-time, four-days per week (min.) from January through end of March. Own transportation required and meals when working. Couples can apply.

Please send resume to bookings@bralorneadventurelodge.com www.bralorneadventurelodge.com

SOLVERS

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

GRAVEL TRUCK DRIVER, Squamish - BC Driver’s License: Class 1 or 3 with Air Brakes, Manual Transmission, Full-time, Monday – Friday.

HEAVY EQUIPMENT OPERATOR, Squamish - Minimum 5 years or 5,000 hours operating experience on excavator. Full-time, Monday – Friday.

PROJECT COORDINATOR, Squamish - BCIT Construction Management, or equivalent technical diploma or degree required. Full-Time, Monday - Friday. APPLY

instagram.com/coastalmountainexcavations

The Pinnacle Hotel Whistler has the following positions available:

•

HOUSEMAN AM/PM

Please reply by email: parmstrong@pinnaclehotels.ca

Free Housing

Join our team of Plumbers and Gas Fitters

Hiring 3rd and 4th year apprentice or journeyman candidates with experience in service/repair work.

• Offering competitive wages

• Providing fully stocked truck, tools, and phone

• Extended health plan available.

• We can hire skilled foreign workers and support permanent residency applications.

• Short-term accommodation availablefree of charge. Long term housing options available as well.

Send your resume to: Dough@spearheadsph.com

WE ARE HIRING WHISTLER

• BUSSERS (evenings/PT) $18/hr

• HOSTS (evenings/PT) $19/hr

• DISHWASHERS (evenings/PT) $25/hr

• PREP COOKS (PT) $22-25/hr for experience

• COOKS (evenings/PT) $19-23/hr

Open interviews Mon - Thurs from 4-5 PM, or email your resume to schedule an alternate interview time at whistler@kegrestaurants.com

40 Years Celebrating

Whistler Glass is looking for a Full Time Glazier

• Competitive wages with benefit packages

• Measurement & installation of windows, shower doors, glass guardrails, mirrors, skylights, etc.

• Assist with shop duties i.e., ship and receive, cutting glass, etc.

• Coordinating jobs to completion

• Quality control of products

Please send resume to nealy@whistlerglass.com

Resort Municipality of

Whistler

Employment Opportunities

• Building Official - Plan Examiner

• Fitness Instructor

• Fitness Trainer

• Library Services Specialist

• Lifeguard/Swim Instructor

• Program Leader - Myrtle Philip Community Centre

THE 2023-2024 PEMBERTON GUIDE on stands now!

Resort Municipality of Whistler

• RCMP Operational Support Coordinator

• Skate Host

Employment Opportunities

• Youth Leader

· Lifeguard/Swim Instructor

· Legislative and Privacy Coordinator

AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF

· Skate Host

· Program Leader

• Senior Communications Officer

· Lifeguard/Swim Instructor

• Trades 1 - Mechanic

· Wastewater Treatment Plant Process Supervisor

· Labourer I – Village Maintenance

· Solid Waste Technician

• Equipment Operator ll - Snow Clearing

· Accountant

· Youth and Public Services Specialist

Resort Municipality of Whistler whistler.ca/careers

The

Visitor Services Lead

• Provide friendly and helpful customer service to ensure an exceptional Museum experience

• Sell admission tickets, memberships, and Shop product

• Maintain and create visually appealing merchandise displays

Please send your cover letter and resume to: Sonya Lebovic, Museum Shop & Admissions Manager: slebovic@audainartmuseum.com

Staff

Whistler Olympic Park is hiring for the 2023–2024 season (November to April)

We are one of the largest cross country skiing and snowshoeing venues in British Columbia, located in the beautiful Callaghan Valley, just south of Whistler.

What we offer:

STAFFHOUSINGOPTIONSINWHISTLER!

Staff

Open positions:

Facility Operations Worker – Snow Clearing

What

STAFF HOUSING OPTIONS!

Competitive wages & guaranteed hours

Extensive benefits package & perks incl. health & wellness options, WB season pass financing & more Whistler’s most unique & inspirational workplace!

Mirae Campbell Photography

ACROSS

Evolution versus erosion

MANY , many days ago I was a child. I don’t consider them the good old days, just old days. That said, life seemed simpler. Actually, life was simpler—four channels of television, less “culture” to share and therefore more commonly shared culture, more socially and legally enforced “normality,” less “diversity.”

Simpler... but not better. Oppressive, actually. Unless you fit in.

There were laws on the books criminalizing homosexuality, cohabitation—that is, couples living together without the “blessing” of marriage—miscegenation, and other forms of social integration, all designed to uphold the “moral” order of society. All designed to drive so-called deviant behaviour underground by threatening the liberty and livelihood of those brave enough to engage in it in the light of day

BY G.D. MAXWELL

or be accidentally or clandestinely discovered.

Those who were inclined towards behaviours termed deviant, yet willing to engage in them, were driven underground where they furtively sought out others of a like mind. Many more opted to live false lives, pretending to be something they weren’t, even going so far as to sleepwalk their way through socially accepted lifestyles, much to the detriment of their reputed partners and unfortunate children.

In the afterglow of the otherwise somnambulant 1950s, that started to change. The civil rights movement was the pointy end of the stick. Black people were fed up with being oppressed. They pressed their case for equality against brutal resistance. They found an ally in a most unlikely place—the Supreme Court of the U.S.

Unlikely because the Chief Justice, Earl Warren, turned out to be a wildcard. The former district attorney, governor of California, proponent of interring JapaneseAmericans during the Second World War, and opponent of Dwight Eisenhower for president in the 1952 election, was appointed by Eisenhower to the court. I’m sure Ike assumed this staunch Republican would march lockstep with the times.

The Warren Court, as it came to be known, changed everything. A year into his tenure, Warren helped shape the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education decision, ruling school segregation was unconstitutional. Later decisions struck down Jim Crow laws and upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court went on to upend many of the heavyhanded laws that sought to keep people other than white males in their places.

During the 1960s, women came out of their kitchens and fought for equal rights, unrestricted access to contraceptives and therapeutic abortions. A heady brew of other disaffected groups pressed for the fundamental right to be, if not free, at least less oppressed. Homosexuals—rebranded gays— took to the streets demanding recognition and acceptance. Pacifists rioted for peace.

Students occupied administrative buildings.

Battles were fought, rights were won, the social order expanded to include many of those who emerged from underground.

Ironically, one group remained relatively amorphous. Transgender people burst into the North American public eye in 1952, when George Jorgensen flew to Norway and returned Christine Jorgensen. The former GI was a media sensation. She went on to be a major celebrity but minor entertainer. She penned an autobiography, and a film based on her life was made.

Yet somehow, after that door opened, people convinced, often from a young age,

A recent study of the literature published on the subject from 2011 to 2021 was reported by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport in a paper titled, Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: A Scientific Review. The findings, broken down into biomedical and sociocultural categories, were squishy, citing limited evidence one way or another in the former and cultural backlash in the latter. Duh.

If sport was the opening salvo, the conflict became fully engaged when it entered the Bathroom Battlefield and has reached a peak in the current Protect the Children skirmish.

Fears of trans women assaulting “real”

could pee without perversion popping up in the stall next to them.

Unsatisfied, the anti-trans forces turned their attention on children who believe they’re trans. More specifically, children who either want to be recognized as something other than male-female or seek medical intervention to support their gender dysphoria.

While it seems clear Canada, at the federal level, supports a broad interpretation of the rights and protections afforded to trans people, including school-age children, and most provinces fall into line with that, some cracks have appeared.

New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative government announced changes to a 2020 policy in June of this year. While trans students were within their rights under the old policy to oblige educators to refer to them by their preferred pronouns, students under 16 now require either an acquiescent teacher or their parents’ consent to do so. Saskatchewan went down the same path in August.

that they’d been born into the wrong gender slipped back into obscurity.

Until recently.

The Transgender Wars began on the playing fields. Was it fair to allow women who were born male to compete against women who were born female? Sporting bodies were all over the place on this topic. But most came down in favour of disallowing trans women to compete in women’s’ competitions. Of course, these were the same organizations— frequently run by men—who had fought against the inclusion of women in many sports over the decades.

women in ladies toilets became a flashpoint in conservative-versus-liberal cultural showdowns. As soon as some jurisdictions either passed laws or courts affirmed the “right” of trans women to use restrooms aligned with their sexual identity, culture warriors warned about letting male sexual predators into women’s bathrooms.

The lions and tigers and bears, oh my, argument was fear without foundation. But never ones to let facts stand in the way of a convenient way to oppress nonconformists, a wave of restrictive laws were proposed, and in many cases passed, to assure real women

And this weekend, in Quebec City, federal Conservatives at their three-day convention voted to adopt policies limiting transgender health-care for minors—whether supported by their parents or not—and creating more single-sex spaces, biological women-only bathrooms.

Whether these policies become part of the party’s platform rolling in to the next election will be up to its leader. Go big or play to the base, most of whom, if the votes in Quebec City are any indication, support expanding the Trans War.

I guess it poses, once again, the old question about evolution versus erosion. All too frequently these days, I’m unsure which path our culture is following. ■

If sport was the opening salvo, the conflict became fully engaged when it entered the Bathroom Battlefield...

PHOTO BY LORDHENRIVOTON / E+ / GETTY IMAGES

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