In search of the continent’s largest shorebird. - By By Priyanka Kumar // High Country News
06 OPENING REMARKS Whistler’s new Active Transportation Strategy is timely, as e-bike activity ramps up on the Valley Trail—leading to some close calls for editor Braden Dupuis.
08 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR This week’s letter writers weigh in on highway safety in the Sea to Sky, and float a solution for Whistler’s Spruce Grove Park.
11 PIQUE’N YER INTEREST Columnist Andrew Mitchell has been driving the highway a lot lately, which gives him a lot of time to think—mostly about why it sucks so badly.
42 MAXED OUT As the political circus south of the border carries on, Max is leaning into the audacity of hope.
12 CHECK UP A health-care needs report from Vancouver Coastal Health details gaps in the system while planning for the future.
13 GET ACTIVE A new Active Transportation Strategy at municipal hall aims to reduce local reliance on passenger vehicles.
24 RIDING THE WAVE Squamish’s Rhys Verner reflects on his promising career despite an underwhelming 2024.
28 FIVE GOES LIVE The genre-bending Fort Knox Five goes live in Whistler Aug. 15.
COVER I won’t pretend I understand the allure of bird-watching, likely because I don’t like to sit still for too long, but I must admit I would love to catch a glimpse of one of these prehistoric-looking birds with my own eyes some day. - By Lou O’Brien // www.lobriencreative.com
Publisher SARAH STROTHER - sstrother@piquenewsmagazine.com
Founding Publishers KATHY & BOB BARNETT www.piquenewsmagazine.com
AUGUST 9, 2024
OPENING REMARKS
Close calls on the Valley Trail
THE APPROACHING whoosh is audible well before it’s visible on Whistler’s Valley Trail—the violent knell of yet another twowheeled pedestrian death machine, rushing up behind you at what feels like breakneck speed.
You freeze; send a silent prayer to the sky that they’re paying full attention as they approach.
Often they aren’t. Quite often they are chatting with a friend on a separate death machine, or even riding two or three to their
BY BRADEN DUPUIS
own; blaring terrible music, drunk; or (God help us all) FaceTiming or filming a TikTok.
As they pass, often within what feels like inches, you realize breakneck speed is not inaccurate—if one of these bad boys were to actually hit you, it could absolutely break your neck, your back, your very will to live.
The average e-bike weighs anywhere between 45 and 80 pounds, not factoring in the rider’s weight, or all the toys and gear they’re schlepping all over the valley.
And yet they rush by, paying you no mind, hardly pedalling but still going an easy 25 kilometres an hour or more.
It’s true: e-bikes are great for the environment, and a game-changer for active transportation in the resort.
But as more and more people realize that, and trade in the car for something more efficient, Whistler’s Valley Trail seems to be getting more dangerous by the year.
So it’s encouraging to see the Resort
Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) roll out a new Active Transportation Strategy, with one of its main goals being to “establish a comprehensive year-round active transportation network” (read more on page 13).
To accomplish that, the RMOW acknowledges it will require “advocating for active transportation accommodation on Highway 99,” given that the provincial Ministry of Transportation has “authority and jurisdiction” over all Highway 99 improvements.
Let’s hope the province is amenable to local advocacy efforts on that front—because the Valley Trail is seemingly nearing its limit for safe cycling these days.
If Whistler is to get serious about ditching
If
million by 2029.
What might that mean for Whistler?
Well, imagine all those whooshing, whirring, two-wheeled pedestrian death machines you’ve been narrowly avoiding all summer. Then imagine a whole lot more of them.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but I have had at least four very close calls on the Valley Trail this summer, just trying to walk my dog in my neighbourhood. Massive, ripping e-bikes coming within inches of taking me out, without any word of prior warning (aside from the aforementioned death knell whoosh), and never a word of apology.
It’s not just e-bikes. A recent fifth close call involved a Whistler super senior, decked
fast (I do prefer them to the speed demons, but putting a limit on these group sizes, or spreading them out somehow, is an easy first step to improving safety).
The Valley Trail, with its 40-plus kilometres of paved pathways, is a marvel, and one of the absolute best aspects of Whistler.
But it will soon become unusable for pedestrians at this rate.
Like so many municipal documents, the RMOW’s new Active Transportation Strategy is long on big-picture vision, short on firm specifics—but it says a lot of the right things.
Aside from advocating with the province for active transportation accommodation on Highway 99, it recognizes that establishing a true comprehensive active transportation
Whistler is to get serious about ditching the passenger vehicles, a key plank in its climate-action strategy, an e-bike commuter route along Highway 99 will be crucial.
the passenger vehicles, a key plank in its climate action strategy, an e-bike commuter route along Highway 99 will be crucial.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global e-bike market size was valued at about US$37.47 billion in 2022, before jumping to US$43.32 billion in 2023.
Fortune estimates the market will nearly triple by 2030, to US$119.72 billion.
According to Mordor Intelligence, Canada’s e-bike market size is US$33.76 million in 2024—projected to grow to $86.27
all-out in spandex on a $2,000-plus racing bike, who simply could not wait for us slowass walkers to get out of their way, instead deciding to force themself and their fancy bike through a perceived opening in the pack, coming within inches of taking out at least three people.
And then there are the groups of meandering tourists, sometimes in a solid line up to 10 people strong, forcing you to wait with a forced smile as they doddle past, going God knows where, but certainly not
network will also require things like more bicycle lanes and routes on municipal streets; sidewalks (!); upgrading and enhancing the existing Valley Trail; improvements to intersections and crossings; and, perhaps most importantly, interconnectivity between it all.
But it won’t be a quick fix.
So as the RMOW works to make active transportation safer, in the meantime, maybe we can all just slow down a bit?
Wishful thinking, I know. n
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Hazardous driving on Highway 99 is ‘mind-blowing’
This letter was sent to Premier David Eby, and shared with Pique.
Last month we all heard about the three separate horrific motorcycle events that claimed the lives of three motorcyclists in the Lower Mainland. Some reports say the death toll on the Sea to Sky highway (a.k.a. Sea to Die highway) is about 25 for 2024… so far.
As a full-time resident of Whistler for the last eight years (previously of Vancouver), and a frequent traveller to and from the city, it must be known that the driving habits of some drivers (auto and motorcycle) is horrendous… so much so we normally do not drive Highway 99 on weekends to avoid the risk. The amount of excessive speed, hazardous driving and risk-taking along this stretch is mind-blowing.
Understandably, the RCMP who patrol this highway are doing their best with the resources they are provided (woefully understaffed), but barely scratch the surface in bringing effective enforcement. The cost to reinforce the police resources (hire more officers) would be astronomical just for the Sea to Sky, never
mind the whole province, which could also use better enforcement. There are enough excessive speeders in the Lions Bay stretch alone that would keep RCMP hopping full time.
Coincidentally, we had just returned from a camping trip to Vancouver Island on Friday, July 19, driving north on Highway 99 passing by the place (Ocean Point Road) where a motorcyclist would be killed moments later. Upon reviewing our dash cam, seven motorcycles can be noted speeding (some up to 140 km/hr) southbound toward the collision
zone. This footage has been passed on to the RCMP for their investigation.
In some European countries they use a speed-enforcement technique some know as “Distance Based Radar.” Essentially it would involve setting up cameras to capture vehicle identities entering a prescribed zone (i.e. Horseshoe Bay) and leaving a zone (i.e. Porteau Cove). If that vehicle was noted to complete that route in under a certain time it would determine the vehicle average speed of (just say) 10 km/hr faster than the speed
limit… a fine would be issued. I use Horseshoe Bay to Porteau Cove as an example zone (rather than Horseshoe Bay to Squamish) because a lot of the car and motorcycle racers tend to stop at Porteau which would skew their actual travelling speeds. Thus a separate zone established between Porteau Cove and Squamish (and Squamish to Whistler) would be prudent to ensure uniform enforcement.
Primarily, the human cost to lives lost and injured (friends, families and first responders) is enormous—add in the health-care and first responder financial burden and we have a case of “a few who abuse society’s privileges” at a horrible cost for the rest of us.
Some would say that this would be just “another cash cow”… so be it.
Jim Brown // Whistler
A solution for Spruce Grove Park
Like a lot of Whistlerites, I have been watching the gathering Waldorf storm, sparked by a council decision to extend the lease on the land the school is situated on for one final year. Reaction is polarized from apathy to outrage, and at time of writing the lease has been extended an extra year, to 2026, although fine detail seems scarce. I don’t intend to add opinion to this issue; picture framers and op-ed columnists have already done a good job.
There is a community requirement for recreational space. The tennis/pickleball
community will need a new home once the Northlands are finally developed as the Whistler Racket Club, home for these activities, will be repurposed/relocated. Representatives of the Mature Action Community are looking for a more permanent, sustainable location
“Here’s an opportunity that satisfies so many community interests—all that is needed is leadership...”
- GUY DARBY
to hold recreational gatherings, and Kids Combo Camps, which keep a lot of children occupied providing daycare and great activities, will also need a location. Add the various societies/groups that represent the arts and you have a large swathe of Whistler becoming interested parties.
Whistler Waldorf School will have an activity centre next door, and users of the splendid Lost Lake trails will have a facility option to eat/ drink/socialize after their activities.
Even better, drawings already exist illustrating the school and a recreation facility can happily co-exist in Spruce Grove without impinging on the sacred baseball diamonds.
Here’s an opportunity that satisfies so many community interests—all that is needed is leadership and some joined-up thinking.
Guy Darby // Whistler
n
So here’s the solution. How about building a multi-use recreational amenity centre in Spruce Grove that could house all these activities? Spruce Grove has been designated a recreational space by the Resort Municipality of Whistler. The associated build costs could be picked up by the Northlands developer, which has a commitment to provide a community amenity. The current Whistler Racket Club is operated without any financial burden to the already-hard-pressed Whistler taxpayer. The
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.
FOR FAMILY REASONS I’ve been driving the highway a lot lately, all the way through Vancouver to sunny Richmond, which gives me a lot of time to think—mostly about why it sucks so badly.
You’d think the reason would be traffic and the sheer number of vehicles on the road at any given time. And at the strangest times as well—driving through the city at 10 p.m. on
BY ANDREW MITCHELL
a Sunday night isn’t much different than 10 a.m. on a weekday.
But the reality is I don’t necessarily mind traffic, at least not when people are behaving. Not when it’s fair and everyone is equally crawling. You can listen to music, relax, look around, have a conversation, and generally ponder the meaning of life.
But people don’t behave—they get angry and impatient, drive more aggressively, follow too closely, change lanes any time there’s an opportunity to gain all of a vehicle length, cut you off while changing back into your lane, get themselves stuck in the middle of backed-up intersections they shouldn’t have entered, run red lights, refuse to let people in, and generally make the traffic experience
worse for everyone. And for what? How many minutes can you really gain driving like a complete arsehole?
Instead of relaxing and waiting it out, the tension builds, the horns start, and the vibe shifts from “what are you gonna do?” to “every driver for themselves!”
There have been all kinds of studies on the causes of traffic and aggressive driving is a big part of it. For example, any time someone has to slam on their brakes to avoid an aggressive driver it can cause a chain reaction through the entire traffic column that leads to a jam. Same thing when someone is following the vehicle ahead too closely and repeatedly tapping their brakes.
Aggressive drivers also cause more accidents and generally force everyone else to drive more defensively and tentatively to avoid getting hit. For example, not knowing if vehicles are turning or not because the drivers are too cool to use their signals (shout out to all the pickup drivers) really makes it hard to know what to do heading into an intersection.
Similarly, we know that if people calmed down and drove the speed limit, left space, signalled their turns, stayed in their lanes, merged properly, etc., then everybody would get to their destinations faster. Instead, a handful of loose cannons are creating traffic havoc everywhere they go.
Speaking of which, the province recently created the ultimate road-rage inducer on Taylor Way—a new third lane on the southbound side
I assume is there so drivers can turn right out of the neighbourhood and merge with the bridge traffic, or so drivers can pull out of bridge traffic to get to Park Royal or Marine Drive. How that lane gets used is a different story.
Every time I pull up to the traffic column I see cars—and they’re almost always nice cars— pull out and try to use that new third lane as a passing lane, pushing their way ahead of all the other vehicles waiting patiently in traffic.
Instead of relaxing and waiting it out, the tension builds, the horns start, and the vibe shifts...
Some people may honk to indicate they’re unhappy, but these people don’t care because this jerk move is absolutely a time-saving measure. The volume of traffic in rush hour means maybe half a dozen cars can make a left turn from each lane at the lights, and that light at Taylor Way and Marine Drive takes forever to cycle. Cheating with the third lane on Taylor Way can easily cut five to 10 minutes off your trip into the city.
It always seems like it’s the people who follow the rules who are at a disadvantage these days, which doesn’t seem fair. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain by
driving aggressively.
The province has done a few things to try to calm traffic. For example, a few years ago they started to ticket slower drivers for blocking passing lanes. As well, the province has started to ticket drivers that enter intersections late and/or with nowhere to go and get stuck there, blocking pedestrians and cross traffic. They’ve also added more cameras to catch drivers running red lights. But we could be doing more. Speed cameras, for example.
ICBC just announced a “Usage Based Discount” program for drivers who go less than 10,000 kilometres in a year—the reason being that you’re on the road less and therefore less likely to get into an accident. But I would argue “how” you drive matters more than “how far.”
It’s 2024. My watch talks to my oven and has its own built-in GPS. My in-law’s car can park itself. The technology exists today to properly reward people for driving safely—keeping close to the speed limit, not tailgating, not running red lights, not turning or changing lanes without signalling, etc. Install a GPS and camera-enabled snitch device in everyone’s car that determines how much insurance you’ll pay next year and watch what happens on the roads. If my car could also snitch on other vehicles around me doing dumb and dangerous things, then so much the better.
Or we could keep the current situation where aggressive drivers are rewarded for making traffic worse and our roads left safe. n
Sea to Sky health-care needs report shows critical service gaps
THE STUDY IS PART OF A THREE-PHASE, 30-YEAR MASTER PLAN WHICH WILL CREATE A ‘VISION’ FOR HEALTH-CARE IN WHISTLER, PEMBERTON, SQUAMISH AND ADJACENT COMMUNITIES
BY LIZ MCDONALD
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT for a new healthcare plan from Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) shows what residents already know— services are stretched, and residents need more locally accessible infrastructure.
Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish, as well as rural communities outside these towns, were recently surveyed by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) on health-care needs in the Sea to Sky. The survey will inform a 30-year master plan and site plans for healthcare called Health Vision Sea to Sky.
The planning process started in June 2023 and includes three phases. The first phase, What We Heard, was released in December 2023, and seeks to create a “vision for the future of acute, long-term care and community health-care services within the Sea to Sky corridor.”
VCH also released a separate report in consultation with local First Nations.
The second and third phases of the study include a draft clinical services plan and draft master site plans for Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.
The report focused on “critical gaps and challenges around current health services in the Sea to Sky corridor, as well as future priorities and opportunities.”
GAPS IN THE SYSTEM
Highlights in health-care gaps and challenges include long wait times for emergency and urgent care, limited access to specialized
care and diagnostic imaging, few options for long-term care and insufficient access for primary care.
The only local hospital in the Sea to Sky is Squamish General Hospital, which isn’t equipped for specialist care. People needing maternity and oncology specialists often travel to Lions Gate Hospital.
Long-term care beds are at capacity, and there aren’t enough options for senior living. Primary care practitioners are either retiring or overwhelmed.
Pemberton Health Centre and Squamish General Hospital both lack computed tomography (CT) scanners, despite the “considerable” demand.
While the local population of the Sea to Sky has ballooned between 2016 and 2021, according to data from Statistics Canada, another factor straining health-care is tourism, with visitors flocking to the corridor for mountain biking, skiing, hiking and climbing, which “puts additional pressures on local health services,” according to the report.
Finally, a lack of public transport exacerbates the problem when people need to commute to a health centre away from home, and frequent closures of Highway 99 add to the frustrations.
Heidi Butler is the operations director of community care for VCH, and said information from the report will inform VCH’s vision.
“We’ll probably have Phase 2 and 3 very closely tied together, because when we look at what clinical services we need, we also are looking at what infrastructure will be needed to then support those clinical services,” she said. “So, we’ll probably be combining Phase 2 and 3 together that will start in the fall of this year and carry on and through the winter.”
Butler couldn’t confirm yet what infrastructure will go where, and said the infrastructure plans are recommendations.
“The infrastructure plans are really just to say, what would we recommend to support that level of clinical service over the next 30 years,” she said. “We’ll be talking about what that looks like in the fall of this year.”
Shoring up acute, long-term care and community services will require lots of money, and Butler said VCH will continue to work with the Ministry of Health and other funding partners to strategize implementing the plan.
“It won’t happen overnight, and it’s something that we’re going to have to continue to work to prioritize the areas that are of greatest need and work with our ministry partners and other funding partners to ensure that we can implement the plans,” she said.
While the exact nature of what health-care sites will go where has yet to be revealed, Butler did note a CT scanner is slated for operations at Squamish General Hospital next year.
CORRIDOR PRIORITIES
While the Sea to Sky corridor’s populations and health-care are interconnected, each community has distinct needs. Butler said the vision aims to accurately understand these needs, create site plans for Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, and find integration.
“So as a part of the planning, there will be three distinct site plans, the one for Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, as well as an integrated, high-level plan that will speak to how those three sites will integrate together, share services, rely on each other, and then also how the Sea to Sky will also integrate with the North Shore and other areas in Vancouver,” she said.
While there was overarching themes that spanned the length of Sea to Sky communities, the report found each area had somewhat different priorities.
The top three services identified by the public as a local priority were urgent primary care, diagnostic imaging services and mentalhealth services.
Other desired additions include lab service and physicians for minor or moderate injury care.
Co-location of services was targeted as a potential opportunity for filling these gaps, with respondents pointing to Whistler 360 and The Foundry in Squamish as successes.
Squamish’s challenges align closely with the corridor’s themes, due to the respondents representing 64 per cent of all those surveyed.
For Whistler residents, specialist care is a challenge, and for Pemberton, long-term care space is more commonly a challenge than other communities.
By gender, men reported needing urgent or emergency care access more commonly than women, and women reported receiving long-term care was a challenge more often than men.
Gender diverse, two-spirit, trans or nonbinary respondents noted more commonly than other groups that communications between hospitals and primary care providers is challenging.
Indigenous communities, meanwhile, responded that culturally appropriate care is more commonly a challenge.
While the survey responses skewed heavily towards the District of Squamish, consultation with municipal leaders, town planners and hospital foundations helped ensure Phase 1 heard from stakeholders throughout the corridor, according to Butler.
“I would encourage people to engage in Phase 2,” she said. “If they haven’t had the opportunity to in Phase 1, there’s still opportunity. We really want to hear from people.”
To read the reports or provide feedback, visit VCH’s website. n
Whistler endorses new Active Transportation Strategy
THE STRATEGY WILL HELP GUIDE WHISTLER TOWARDS REDUCING COMMUNITY RELIANCE ON PASSENGER
BY SCOTT TIBBALLS
THE RESORT Municipality of Whistler’s (RMOW) mayor and council has formally endorsed a new Active Transportation Strategy, which will act as a high-level document to guide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Passenger vehicles are our largest source of emissions in Whistler, [representing] over 50 per cent of our community-wide emissions,” said Luisa Burhenne, the RMOW’s manager of climate and environment, in a presentation at the July 23 council meeting.
Burhenne, presenting on behalf of the RMOW staff working group that created the strategy, said “getting people out of their cars is the single biggest action we can do to achieve our climate targets,” hence the development of a strategy to lean into other modes of transport.
The Active Transportation Strategy, as explained by Burhenne, was crafted to help identify priority areas, and map out actions that could help Whistler achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by promoting active transportation, which is defined as human-powered transportation.
What it isn’t is a list of items to do tomorrow—that comes later.
“The strategy helps us identify where we want to dig deeper, or where we want to go further,” Burhenne said. “It is not a plan that outlines specific gaps in our network, and it’s not an action that has a timeline and scope and budget. From the strategy we will develop plans.”
The strategy incorporated feedback that suggested the RMOW needed to lean into collecting robust data, invest in active transportation infrastructure, and make active transportation “the most convenient way of getting around.”
Burhenne laid out the strategy’s five objectives in her presentation at the July 23 meeting.
VEHICLES
First, the strategy seeks to establish a comprehensive, year-round active transportation network that would include cycling along Highway 99 as a commuter route. This would be done through active engagement with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI), which has jurisdiction over the highway.
Second, the RMOW needs to create a network that is accessible for everyone, which minimizes conflict between all users: This could be partly achieved by integrating accessibility guidelines into all design decisions around active transportation.
For the third objective, the RMOW needs to invest in essential infrastructure amenities and operational support for the network, such as secure bike parking, lighting and more to make biking around more convenient.
The fourth objective aims to create awareness and increase motivation to use the network, which could be done through programs such as GoByBike week, and the promotion of the e-bike share program in Whistler.
Finally, the fifth objective is to ensure the strategy remains a living document by preparing the network for increasing use through to 2030 and beyond as a result of municipal greenhouse gas goals. Burhenne said by making the strategy flexible and open to new technologies and approaches as they became available, the active transportation network could be future-proof beyond 2030.
Currently, there are a number of items already underway in Whistler that feed into the active transportation strategy, such as the bike lane demonstration project on Village Gate Boulevard, the ongoing roll-out of more secure bike parking, e-bikes in the bike share program and the bike valet service expansion.
While the strategy is high-level, Burhenne said next steps involve resource planning, and “foundational tasks” to achieve the objectives, such as further MOTI engagement and bakingin design principles.
PLAN OF ACTION Whistler’s new Active Transportation Strategy aims to get more locals and visitors out of their passenger vehicles in the resort.
PHOTO BY ASCENTXMEDIA / E+ / GETTY IMAGES
Angell Hasman &Associates Realty Ltd.
Whistler opens its wallet for Invictus Games
THE RMOW WILL DIRECT $240K IN MRDT FUNDING TO VILLAGE ANIMATION FOR THE GAMES TO BE HELD NEXT YEAR
BY SCOTT TIBBALLS
THE RESORT Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) is dipping into MRDT reserves to bankroll a late request from the Invictus Games to support village animation around the sporting event which will come to Whistler in early 2025.
In a report to council on July 23, the RMOW’s general manager of community engagement and cultural services, Karen Elliott, explained the organizers of the Games put in a late request to the municipality to support village animation to the tune of $240,000.
The Invictus Games is an international multi-sport event for wounded servicemen and women, and was founded and launched by royalty in 2014. The games coming to Whistler has long been anticipated, with Prince Harry visiting Whistler in 2023 and 2024 as part of preparations.
The request—supported by council with no dissent—will be funded through the RMOW’s festivals, events and animations program, which is an annual initiative designed to attract visitors to Whistler by enhancing events around town through municipal funding that comes from the hotel tax—or MRDT.
As explained by Elliott, the request from the Invictus Games came late for the 2024 allocation of funding for the programs, which was decided in November of 2023.
The 2024 program that was already allocated to third-party festivals and events tallies $841,000 across 19 different events.
The Invictus funding allocation is larger than any of the 19 events, with the nextlargest allocation going to the World Ski and Snowboard Festival (held in April), which received $170,000. MRDT funding comes from taxes levied on overnight stays at Whistler’s various hotels, guesthouses and short-term rentals.
“Invictus came to us in about May,” said Elliott. “This is not unusual for one-off events; they don’t follow our regular event calendar, so it wasn’t surprising to us.”
The late ask also came with a request the RMOW funds be made available to Invictus in 2024, as the Invictus Games themselves will be held early in 2025, from Feb. 8 to 16.
Elliott said timing of the games meant the RMOW funds would be best put to use in 2024 so preparations could be completed in time.
Elliott said the RMOW was offering $240,000 towards village animation, and that amount met the ask from the Invictus Games organizers. That funding would also be backed up by “value in-kind” support from the RMOW through operational and logistical
help before and during the event. “Value in-kind” support is staff time and resources.
“The festivals, events and animation funds will be used to support unique, fun, accessible and interactive village animation, featuring relaxing viewing zones, music and dance, sport-themed activities, and local arts and heritage themed activities,” said Elliott.
But further details on how the $240,000 will be spent were scarce.
“We don’t want to provide too many details tonight as we don’t want to steal their thunder in anticipation of the games,” Elliott said.
Elliott stressed the importance of supporting the Invictus Games before councillors were asked to decide on the request.
“It’s not only a chance for us to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with visitors and cheer on an amazing group of athletes, but it’s also a chance for us to learn … from the stories of resilience, to see the impact of creating belonging and connection and acceptance by understanding the journey that these service personnel have taken to get to Vancouver and Whistler, and also to test the accessibility of the resort and to understand how accessible it is to those both with visible and invisible injuries,” she said.
“We have many athletes who will be coming that have post-traumatic stress
disorder and so while we can’t see their injury, there will be accommodations made to make sure they’re comfortable while they’re here.”
Questions from council were minimal, with only Councillor Jessie Morden taking the opportunity to query whether directing $240,000 would impact any other thirdparty event-funding from the RMOW—to which Elliott noted the third-party events and animations budget has already been allocated, and is in the process of being spent.
She added no funding will be diverted, and the $240,000 would instead come from the RMOW’s MRDT reserve fund.
A communications official for the RMOW later told Pique the amount remaining in the reserve would depend on funding raised by the tax through the end of 2024. At the end of 2023, the MRDT reserve sat at $4.2 million.
“Our current forecast, after the funding of the Invictus contribution, is that the balance at year-end will be slightly lower than $4.2 million,” they said.
When it came time to vote on the funding allocation and the required changes to the 2024 budget, all councillors who offered comment expressed support for the Invictus Games, and voted unanimously in favour.
The games come to Whistler and Vancouver Feb. 8 to 16, 2025, with 500 athletes from around the world expected to attend. n
RMOW chips in $3.2M towards $45M-plus housing project in Cheakamus
THE PROJECT RECENTLY ENJOYED AN INFUSION OF MORE THAN $12M FROM THE PROVINCE
BY SCOTT TIBBALLS
WHISTLER’S MAYOR and council has approved stumping up $3.2 million to go towards the construction of employee housing at 1475 Mount Fee Road, hot on the heels of the province pouring $12.7 million into the same project.
Councillors approved moving $3.2 million from the employee housing reserve fund to the Whistler Housing Authority (WHA), to make up the Resort Municipality
[T]he
Speaking just a day later at a regular council meeting, Chapman explained the $3.2 million from the RMOW employee housing reserve was about “meeting the equity gap” to ensure the building could proceed, with a further $2 million coming from the WHA to reach the $17.9 million. Further, $100,000 of the $3.2 million from the reserve came from Tourism Whistler contributions.
Notably, Chapman highlighted that much of the $3.2 million in reserve funds came from MRDT—or the hotel tax on overnight stays in the community.
$3.2 million from the RMOW employee housing
reserve was about “meeting the equity gap” to ensure the building could proceed.
of Whistler’s (RMOW) portion of what will be a $45.2-million project to deliver 104 units in two buildings on one lot in Whistler’s Cheakamus neighbourhood.
The project, currently under construction, has an expected move-in date for residents in early 2026.
According to the RMOW’s manager of projects planning, John Chapman, the $45.2-million project has a mortgageable value of $27.3 million, with an equity requirement of $17.9 million of which the majority—$12.7 million—will be covered by the provincial government. That funding was announced to much fanfare by B.C. Premier David Eby, who visited Whistler on July 22 to announce the cash infusion, while also availing the project to a further $27 million in low-interest financing.
Questions to staff on the funding ask, predictably, coalesced around numbers.
Councillor Cathy Jewett wanted to know the value of the land—”approximately $1.927 million” according to CAO Ginny Cullen— while Coun. Jeff Murl sought more detail on whether the $3.2 million was required in order to access the provincial funding source, to which he was told yes.
Murl also drilled down on detail—or lack thereof—on where the $27.3 million of mortgageable value number came from, and was told it was derived from—among other things—applied policy on rental income. Murl expressed a desire for more detail on the numbers on future projects, but ultimately supported the financial ask.
Read the full story at piquenewsmagazine. com. n
BREAKING GROUND Reps from the Resort Municipality of Whistler and Whistler Housing Authority pose for a photo with Premier David Eby and Minister Ravi Kahlon in Whistler July 22.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHISTLER HOUSING AUTHORITY
Zube Aylward’s property for sale
THE OFF-GRID HOMESTEAD IS INCREDIBLY UNIQUE AND RIFE WITH HISTORY—INCLUDING THE MURDER OF ITS PREVIOUS OWNER
BY LIZ MCDONALD
NESTLED IN A FOREST and perched above Anderson Lake is an off-grid property for sale that is rich in local history.
Located at 20100 Highline Road, D’Arcy, the homestead spans 5.6 hectares, features two dwellings, one-of-a-kind architecture and a log cabin dating back to the 1940s. The property was once owned and developed by Zube (Patrick) Aylward, an infamous artist known for designing The Mushroom House in Whistler.
Aylward was murdered on the property Oct. 13, 2018, and no arrests were ever made in the case. While rumours swirled about the grisly nature of his death, described as a home-invasion-style murder, the exact motive remains unclear. Police at the time noted the incident was targeted and isolated, with no risk to other members of the community.
The stunning property is now for sale, having changed hands from Aylward’s wife, Pat, to the current owners. The property was previously listed for $2,999 million and now runs for $2,699 million. It’s listed by Engel & Völkers and presented by Rob and Sherry Boyd.
The property’s features include two dwellings with three bedrooms, a wine cellar,
patios, living rooms, three bathrooms, a spa, an 8.3Kw hydro power plant and 1,000 feet plus of pebble and sand beach. It is zoned RR4, allowing for development and commercial
purposes, including short-term rentals.
The remote yet proximal property is accessed by boat, float plane or a winding dirt road that snakes its way above the crystal-
clear water of Anderson Lake. Driving the 18 kilometres to tour the property, a dust cloud formed behind me. The only person I came across was a single dirt bike rider. It was easy
STUNNING VIEWS An aerial view of 20100 Highline Road.
PHOTO BY JORGE ALVAREZ
to feel seclusion. Occasionally, I would see a boat jetting across the expansive water below, reminding me I wasn’t all alone.
UNIQUE AS NATURE
It’s difficult to discern who will purchase the land, but the features favour someone with ingenuity. Organic gardens, a vineyard and fruit trees provide opportunities for sustenance, and anglers and hunters could easily enjoy a fresh bounty. Landscape painters have ample inspiration to capture the lake’s ever-changing light, while water-sport enthusiasts could spend countless days offshore.
In the main house, the backdoor opens into an open-concept kitchen and dining room with interlocking flooring. Wooden support beams frame the ceiling, and a dining room table sits by an expansive window soaking the warm wood in a soft glow. Grand, forest-inspired chairs perch along the woodwork and seem appropriate for an Ent from Lord of the Rings
The home is as unique as nature, with no two pieces of cut wood resembling the other, only ever mirroring pieces close by.
The rest of the dwelling features a spacious den with a wood stove, ample seating and access to a patio with a mushroom sculpture and panoramic views of Anderson Lake. A
NEWS WHISTLER
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on tools alone.
Inside the ship, the yellow ceiling undulates thanks to repurposed railroad lines as rafters.
“The actual surplus rail lines from the railway makeup the rafters, and then concrete is put over top of that so it would withstand landslide, fire, earthquake, everything,” Beresford said.
While Earthship architecture was part of the inspiration for a stone structure, Beresford believes a fire at the Mushroom House in Whistler was another impetus for building something unbreakable.
“A tour guide left a cigarette on the countertop, and it fell and lit the whole place on fire. So he already had a passion project get seriously damaged by fire, and so he was very sensitive to fire,” he said.
A PIECE OF HISTORY
Prior to the Earthship, Aylward’s materials bent towards wood. The stone building is a departure from that style, and it’s somewhat fitting his last build was constructed from solid, magma-formed rocks.
The property, like everywhere else in British Columbia, is at risk for wildfires. Evidence of the Casper Creek wildfire from
Organic gardens, a vineyard and fruit trees provide opportunities for sustenance, and anglers and hunters could easily enjoy a fresh bounty.
guest bedroom with an en suite ensures space and privacy for guests, whereas the master bedroom includes a walk-in closet, loft, en suite and private balcony.
EARTHSHIP
Perhaps the most interesting build on the property is the Earthship, which took Aylward 14 years from start to finish. Built into the earth, it keeps cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Earthships are sustainably designed homes which first gained conceptual appeal thanks to architect Michael Reynolds in 1971. He constructed homes from recycled material and appeals to off-grid lifestyles of self-sufficiency and sustainability.
Victor Beresford is one of the current owners, and he explained the monumental amount of work Aylward put into the stonework alone.
“The way that [Aylward] made it was using Inca-inspired shaping of the rock so that they fit together in all different forms of geometric patterns that all interlocked, and they’re two-foot-thick stone walls with no cavity wall on the inside, meaning they’re just big blocks of stone,” Beresford said.
While the blocks of granite took 14 years to fit together, it’s not without reason. Beresford said Aylward used diamondchained chainsaws to carve the rock,
July 2023 is singed into trees when driving up to the home.
However, Beresford noted the number of maple trees on the property and in Casper Creek, which runs through the land, provides protection, as do the rock-solid walls of the Earthship.
Throughout the cool, open-concept home, arched windows and doors are adorned with peacocks and sunflowers.
The kitchen’s exhaust system is just as unique as the rest of the Earthship, and is an example of steampunk influence. Made from a bicycle gear and a forged bronze handle, an exhaust pipe opens by using the handle to turn the gear.
“The steampunk school of architecture really helped formulate those ideas of making these kinetic sculptures to be able to perform ordinary, rather mundane functions,” Beresford said about the design.
A master bedroom and en suite includes a jade bath situated behind the bed, and a large wooden closet is accessible from the bedroom and bathroom.
The most stunning feature of the property is the spa. The jade room includes a cold dunk tank and sauna, as well as a shower, with natural light pouring in from a window.
For someone who wants to own a piece of history, live off the land, or run a business, the opportunities at 20100 Highline Road are endless. n
Ornulf Johnsen slated for Canadian Ski Hall of Fame
THE NORWEGIAN WAS WHISTLER’S FIRST SKI-SCHOOL DIRECTOR AND OWNED GROUSE MOUNTAIN’S FIRST SKI SCHOOL
BY LIZ MCDONALD
WHISTLER’S FIRST ski-school director and founder of Grouse Mountain’s ski school, Ornulf Johnsen, is headed for the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame and Museum.
Founded in 1982, the hall of fame was created “to honour the accomplishments of pioneers, competitors, coaches and visionaries in skiing and snowboarding. This special space shares the stories of Canadians who have excelled throughout Canada and the world or contributed to the advancement of snowsports in a spectacular way,” according to the nonprofit’s website.
The ceremony is slated for Nov. 15 in Montreal, and Johnsen will be inducted in the alpine builder category.
The award is fitting, when looking back on the years Johnsen has given in service to the sport and the people who pursue it. Born in Norway in 1934, skiing has intertwined his life as far back as he can remember. In a previous story published in Pique, he described his relationship with snow.
“It was just part of life,” he explained. “After you finished breast-feeding, it was like, ‘here’s your baby bottle, here are your skis ... When you live in Norway, when winter is a major part of your life, the only way you’ll go
out and play is either on skates or on skis.”
The sport would prove instrumental in his military career during the Cold War, where he taught NATO personnel to survive harsh winters, and eventually led him to London, England, and then Chile, teaching skiing and learning Spanish.
Then, Johnsen came to Vancouver in 1965, when Franz Wilhelmsen launched Garibaldi Lift Company, in what would become Whistler.
He spent time drumming up interest before its opening, making presentations in Vancouver to entice skiers.
“For example, I had set up a training session at various YMCAs, we invited people to come and train with us to strengthen their bodies to come skiing,” he said.
“Some people came up from Vancouver to ski—they have skied in the little mountains, and they come up and looked at Whistler and had to turn around and go home.”
Anywhere else in North America couldn’t compare to the sheer vertical drop of Whistler, which was part of what drew Johnsen into the mountains that could go tête-à-tête with European slopes.
When his contract at Garibaldi Lift Company came to an end, Wilhelmsen convinced Johnsen to stick around, introducing him to various friends on the Coast.
Describing Willhelmsen as a gentleman, Johnsen said their relationship led to an
Tsetspa7 Forestry LP Forest Operations Map ID #1706
Notice of Public Review and Comment
Notice is hereby given that Tsetspa7 Forestry Limited Partnership, holder of Forest Licence A83924 is seeking public review and comment on Forest Operations Map (FOM) ID #1706, which is covered by Tsetspa7 Forestry Limited Partnership Forest Stewardship Plan The review and comment period related to FOM ID #1706 is available for a 30-day period between August 9th, 2024 to September 8th, 2024 This FOM consists of 22 proposed cut blocks, as well as the associated roads, located in the Lower Lillooet River Valley in the Sea to Sky Natural Resource District
The FOM can be viewed at https://fom.nrs.gov.bc.ca/public/ projects, and by searching the FOM ID #1706 or Licensee using the ‘find’ function. Alternatively, the information contained in the FOM can be made available for in-person viewing during regular business hours at Chartwell Resource Group Ltd.’s office at #201 – 1121 Commercial Place, Squamish BC
Comments can be submitted anytime during the 30-day period through https://fom.nrs.gov.bc.ca/public/projects, e-mailed to wstaven@crgl.ca, or mailed to the address noted above. Please reference the FOM ID when submitting comments.
Following the review and comment period, this FOM may be relied upon to apply for a Road Permit or Cutting Permit for a 3-year period, ending September 8th, 2027.
opportunity for him to become the owneroperator of Grouse’s first ski school.
“I did something that few people have. I gave [Grouse] a business proposal and told them that I don’t want to be a skiing instructor. I said, ‘I want to own this place,’” he said. “And
so, in the presentation, they accepted my offer, and I owned Grouse Mountain Ski School for about 25 years.”
Before adaptive skiing programs were created, he started skiing lessons for the blind at Grouse, hiring two women who worked in health-care to lead lessons.
“I knew anyone who can feel the wind in their face from skiing would take to it,” he said.
Other accolades from his time at Grouse included spearheading youth programming, which saw 400 kids each day on weekends. He also brought graduated ski lengths to Canada and eventually sold the ski school in 1987 to Grouse Mountain Resort.
Grouse Ski School alumni, Rob Wallace and Gerda Koch, were instrumental in his nomination and worked with him during his ownership of the ski school.
In an email about the news, they wrote they had worked on the application for more than five years.
For Johnsen, the induction came as a surprise, and he expressed gratitude to Wallace and Koch for their time working together and for putting his name forward.
“Most of my life, I’ve never done anything or expected to be recognized by somebody because we’re doing something really well,” he said. “If someone needs something, you go and help them. You don’t need any reward for it. The reward itself was helping.” n
Join us on Wednesday, June 19, to learn about and discuss some of the most important issues our community faces: climate, housing, smart tourism, and community engagement.
Whether you are here for a good time, not a long time, live here permanently, or call Whistler your second home, you rely on many municipal services.
• Information and interactive displays from 4–5:30 p.m. & 6:30–8:30 p.m.
• Update on: climate, housing, smart tourism, and community engagement from 5:30–6:30 p.m.
• Discuss with Mayor, Council, staff and your neighbours from 6:30 p.m. onwards.
As costs rise and needs grow, we want to hear how you want your community dollars spent so we’re investing in what matters most.
Downstairs at the Whistler Conference Centre (upstairs is the Inside Scoop tradeshow).
Childminding, light food and refreshments are included.
Learn more and discuss online at whistler.ca
Take the municipal priorities survey. Open now through August 16.
WAY OF LIFE Ornulf Johnsen is set to be inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ORNULF JOHNSEN
Resort Municipality of Whistler whistler.ca
Photo credit: Justa Jeskova
Motorists stranded after pair of mudslides on Duffey Lake Road
LIGHTNING STRIKES SPARK NEW WILDFIRES NEAR PEMBERTON AND WHISTLER
BY BRADEN DUPUIS
MOTORISTS WERE STRANDED north of Pemberton and Mount Currie this week after a pair of mudslides closed Highway 99 overnight on Aug. 5.
According to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, it wasn’t one slide, but two of about 400 to 600 cubic metres.
The slides were caused by heavy rain shortly before 6 p.m. on Aug. 5, and impacted between Rancheree Road and Seton Lake Road, south of Lillooet.
The highway was closed with no detours available while crews assessed the damage on Aug. 6.
Luckily, no injuries were reported in the slide, and the highway was reopened that evening.
Mary Louise Poirier was returning home to Mount Currie from a weekend camping trip with her boyfriend when they came across the slide.
The weather was getting stormy by the time they passed through Lillooet, she said,
with heavy rain and lots of lightning.
“When we first got onto Duffey Lake Road, two vehicles flashed their hazards at us—we didn’t know why so kept going,” she said.
The couple soon found out. Poirier estimated the slide happened “maybe 20 minutes” before they arrived.
“There was many vehicles parked and many people outside their cars. Someone told
Mother Nature, as the lightning in the area Aug. 5 also sparked several new fire starts in the Pemberton region.
As of Pique’s weekly press time, crews were dealing with five small fires in the Pemberton and Whistler area.
“Due to a smattering of lighting across the Pemberton zone last night, (Aug. 5) BCWS is currently responding to several new wildfire
“I did see a few people standing in the mud—it was up to their knees!”
- MARY LOUISE POIRIER
us it was a mudslide that washed out the road. I got out to go take a look. I didn’t go too close because I was cold and being cautious,” she said.
“I did see a few people standing in the mud—it was up to their knees! Also many people standing around it. We waited awhile, just in disbelief and shock. We didn’t know what to do.”
Needing to get home to care for the dogs, the couple eventually decided to take the long way around to the Lower Mainland and up to Pemberton, arriving home at 2:20 a.m.
That wasn’t the only excitement from
starts in that area,” said Sam Bellion, fire info officer with the Coastal Fire Centre, on Aug. 6.
“Between the incidents we have four initial attack crews, two Type-3 crews, several response officers and four helicopters actioning these incidents.”
A fire southwest of Pemberton and north of Whistler, at Rutherford Creek, was originally being held, but had grown to six hectares as of press time.
“We are currently responding to Rutherford Creek wildfire (V31841) located eight kilometres southwest of Pemberton with two Initial Attack crews, two helicopters and
air tanker support. This fire is approximately six hectares in size and is classified as Out of Control. It is burning at a rank 3-4 (a moderately to highly vigorous surface fire).” BCWS said on social media.
“The fire is highly visible from the Pemberton area and surrounding communities. There is no threat to communities or values at this time.”
A second fire, northeast of Whistler at Ure Creek, was being held at 8 hectares as of Wednesday morning, Aug. 7.
North of Pemberton, crews were also dealing with three small fires at Birken Creek and Birkenhead Lake, all out of control.
Whistler’s fire danger rating was listed as extreme as of press time.
Campfires are currently prohibited.
The Whistler Fire Rescue Service reminds the public we all have a shared role in fire prevention.
“This means adhering the campfire ban, fully extinguishing cigarettes in ashtrays or water, consulting with WFRS on high-risk construction activity within 10 metres of the forest/vegetation and reporting illegal burning or fires to 911,” the Resort Municipality of Whistler said last week.
See smoke? In Whistler, report it by calling 911. Outside of Whistler, call *5555 on a cell phone or 1-800-663-5555.
Stay up to date on the latest at bcwildfire.ca. n
MUD BROTHERS A pair of mudslides on Duffey Lake Road Aug. 5 stranded motorists for hours.
PHOTO BY MARY LOUISE POIRIER
Queen grasslands OF THE
In search of the continent’s largest shorebird
BY PRIYANKA KUMAR / HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
IT IS ONE THING to drive through the grasslands of northern New Mexico. It’s quite another to walk through them. When the winds are relatively calm and there are clouds in the sky, the prairie stretches meditatively ahead, flanged here and there with glimmers of illumination. It may look like nothing but grass and light, but on foot you can see the prairie’s rich wildlife community—a herd of pronghorn antelope grazing in a prairie dog town, or a Say’s phoebe flycatching while letting out a plaintive pee-ur. The very fortunate might see the queen of grassland birds: the long-billed curlew, Numenius americanus, which arrives here in the spring from Mexico, the Gulf Coast, or even Central America, depleted after flying hundreds of miles in just a couple of days.
Grasslands are gorgeous ecosystems. The shortgrass prairies of northeastern New Mexico brim with blue grama and buffalograss— perennial grasses whose roots stabilize the soil—and a subtle multitude of wildflowers. Over the last two centuries, though, the flat, fertile grasslands of North America have been razed for agricultural development: The American Bird Conservancy estimates that 20.8 million hectares in the Northern Great Plains have been plowed under and replaced with cropland. In 2018 and 2019 alone, nearly 243,000 hectares of Northern Great Plains grasslands—an area almost the size of Yosemite National Park— were converted to fields of wheat, corn and soy.
Like many grassland birds, long-billed curlews nest directly on the ground. They tend to choose open, flat expanses with very short grasses; curlews are territorial during the breeding season, and a single pair will fiercely defend an area of 40 hectares or more. Once their young hatch, curlews may use taller grasses to shield the chicks from the elements and from predators such as coyotes, snakes and ravens. When grasslands are commandeered for crops or fragmented by residential development, curlews lose the habitat they need for breeding.
Though the long-billed curlew was once abundant in North America, in 2016 it landed on the North American Bird Conservation Initiative’s “Watch List” of species most in danger of extinction without significant conservation efforts. The initiative’s 2022 report confirms a narrative of population decline among grassland birds: Species such as the mountain plover and chestnut-collared longspur have lost more than 75 per cent of their populations since 1970. “Since the 1960s, we’ve lost more than 40 per cent of grassland birds,” Steven Riley at the American Bird Conservancy told me. “A lot of grassland birds are in dire condition today.” Today, an estimated 140,000 long-billed curlews breed in grasslands ranging from northeastern New Mexico to southern British Columbia, but they continue to be threatened by habitat loss and, in some places, by the use of pesticides and rodenticides, which can kill not only the grasshoppers and other insects that curlews depend on but also birds themselves.
ON MEMORIAL DAY last year, my husband, Michael, and our two girls and I hiked in the Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge without seeing a trace of a long-billed curlew. Not even a cry. There were other birds— western meadowlarks in yellow-and-black sang throatily from fence posts, and horned larks with schoolgirlish headbands scuttled in the dirt, looking for grass seeds. Long days spent observing birds are like a yatra—a pilgrimage. A naturalist, I’ve been watching and studying long-billed curlews for more than two decades, and I know not to expect an appearance simply because I’m in the field in the right season. Transcendent experiences, after all, are rare.
After driving an hour north of Rio Mora, we turned west toward the town of Cimarron, following back roads. The afternoon light was translucent, playing in the sky like musical notes, with clouds gathering in tones of grey and the deep blue retreating until the billowy gray clouds all but devoured the sky. We drove past private grasslands, and I scanned the prairie for curlews until my eyes hurt.
Then, in a mass of sage-gold grass, I spotted an unmistakable decurved bill.
I gasped. “I saw a curlew!”
“Should I turn around?”
“Yes!”
As soon as Michael pulled over to the shoulder of the road, I moved toward the two-foot-tall curlew. A second curlew, perhaps its mate, stood in the same field, some 30 feet to its right. The pair screamed almost in unison, determined to scare me away. I suspected that they had a nest nearby; as part of the courting ritual, the male scrapes a shallow nest in the ground, and the female later lays a clutch of four mottled eggs in the depression. Maybe this pair had chicks, since neither parent seemed to be sitting on a nest. Cur-lee! Cur-lee! The female’s spectacularly extended bill, over eight inches long and more curved at the tip than her companion’s, moved almost robotically as she opened it wide, emitting shrill staccato cries.
The pair flew over me, arcing across the road and screeching as they flew. Then they soared into the field on the other side, never far above my head. Soon, I saw another pair of curlews flying over the second field. Four curlews! As the first pair landed, I saw the female deftly pluck a grasshopper from the ground and swallow it. Moments later, she downed another.
If I had to pick one bird species to venerate, it would be the curlew. The reasons are partly anthropomorphic—these large, gangly birds are fiercely protective of their young, and the fathers
stay behind to rear the chicks after the mothers fly on to central Mexico or some other wintering grounds. Though curlews are monogamous, a paired male and female may spend the winter in different places before returning each spring to the same grassland to breed. Talk about a couple giving each other space! The pair rears the chicks for the first two or three weeks; after the mother leaves for her wintering grounds, the father stays until the chicks can fly away from the nest site, usually another two or three weeks. Compare the devotion of curlew fathers to, say, hummingbird dads, who typically have nothing to do with chick-rearing.
A sunbeam broke through the clouds, and the curlews kept flying against the shifting skylight. The first two curlews returned to the field. Fat raindrops began to fall, and, reluctantly, I returned to the car. Moments later, I saw a flash of lightning dancing a jig in the sky. I soon trooped back toward the curlews, who were patrolling the field while mechanically letting out their cur-lee cry. Deep in the grass, nearly camouflaged, I glimpsed a small bird. A chick? No, a horned lark. By this time, my own chicks had come out into the rain and were watching and listening to the curlews, almost as mesmerized as I was. Light whirled about, grey, silver and blue. I might have been Dorothy in Oz, standing alongside a Good Witch—Mia, whose blessings on our road trips are de rigueur—and my not-at-all Cowardly Lion, brave Pika. That afternoon has stayed with me like a shining crystal, reminding me why I live a bird-filled life.
IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO
, the area’s three national wildlife refuges are islands in a sea of private ranch and farmland, about 6,500 hectares altogether in a region where a single ranch can cover more than 40,000 hectares. Last summer, I’d looked for curlews on the wildlife refuges and, as in previous summers, found them mostly on nearby ranches instead. So, this spring, Michael, our two girls and I embarked on a road trip from Santa Fe to learn how ranchers are providing habitat, in some cases inadvertently, for the largest shorebird on the continent.
The curlews’ cries rang out within me in March, when we stopped at the visitor centre of the Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge. I was looking for Eric Spadgenske, the supervisor of the Northern New Mexico National Wildlife Refuge Complex. A lanky, middle-aged man with close-cropped hair, Spadgenske has an air of efficiency mingled with Southern charm. He had hiked with us last year at the Rio Mora Wildlife Refuge, and Mia and Pika shyly pointed out a photograph from the hike that was showcased in the visitor centre. I told Spadgenske that I planned to look for curlews on private ranches during this year’s road trip, and he nodded approvingly. Rio Mora hosts one or two curlew pairs each year, but given the species’ large breeding territories, two pairs are “probably close to saturation” for the small refuge, he said.
After we left the visitor centre, I birded at nearby Melton Pond, eyes lingering on American avocets and common mergansers, before heading across the town of Las Vegas to the Mallette Farm. A couple of weeks earlier, a pair of local hikers had enthusiastically recommended it to me as a place where they had spotted some migratory birds, so I figured that the farm must be doing something right.
The family’s land is located at the northern edge of town, within the traditional homelands and hunting grounds of many Indigenous peoples, including Apache, Pueblo, Comanche and Ute communities. The 323-hectare farm has been in the same family for 120 years, and Shirley Mallette, the current matriarch, was minding the feed store when I arrived. Soon, we were talking sandhill cranes and long-billed curlews; her adult son, who stood nearby, nodded, affirming that in years past he had seen curlews in the farm’s pastures. Like many local landowners, the Mallettes let native grasses, including blue grama and sacaton, grow everywhere. In wet years, they seed their 60-hectare pasture with oats, wheat and alfalfa.
The Mallettes lease their pastures to neighbouring cattle owners, and, in the summer, a keen observer can sometimes spot long-billed curlews foraging alongside the cattle who graze there. Badgers, elk and burrowing and barn owls share the land, too. An added attraction for wildlife in this dry climate is the farm’s holding pond, used mostly to collect rainwater.
Mallette’s kids grew up playing in the pasture; once they were adults, however, they all left to live in Denver and other cities. “But then it dawned on them that they couldn’t have their horses and dogs,” she chuckled. In time, all came back and are now active in the farm’s management. When a middle-aged man walked by, she said, “That’s Tim, the baby of the family.”
When I asked about pesticides, Mallette said, “We’ve never used them” on the pasture. Like many other farms in the 1940s and ’50s, though, they sprayed DDT inside their farm buildings to control flies. AUGUST 9,
FEATURE STORY
Years later, her husband, Pete, and her mother-in-law lost most of their hearing, which Shirley Mallette blames on their long exposure to the spray (research has linked the use of some pesticides to hearing loss). Since then, she said, her family has avoided pesticide use entirely.
Despite the loss of his hearing, Pete Mallette has had a long life; he recently turned 90. While I spoke with his wife, he brought over her walker so that she might perch on it.
THE NEXT MORNING , my family and I went for a hike in the Rio Mora refuge before driving an hour north to Cimarron. We didn’t take the back roads, the way we did last June, because the curlews had not yet returned from their wintering grounds. The inn where we stayed was adjacent to a mountain ridge, and during our first night, the spring winds moaned and wheezed, chilling the room. I woke early to the sight of grasses fluttering in the cold, unrelenting wind. Even the staid juniper trees were dancing.
The wind had scarcely eased when we arrived at CS Ranch, which is stunningly laid out below the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. In front of the main ranch house, Julia Stafford was feeding a flock of wild turkeys; she and her siblings represent the fourth generation of ranchers in the family, and I would later meet the sixth generation—her sister Kim’s granddaughters, the eldest one in Grade 2. My own thirdgrader, Pika, wandered about, petting the dogs Hank and Belle and watching the turkeys eat the seed Stafford had scattered.
While Pika and Mia stayed near the house with Kim and her granddaughters, Stafford drove Michael and me through parts of the 45,000-hectare ranch, where the family raises cattle, breeds horses, and offers guided hunts for antelope, deer and elk. Stafford and her sister, Kim, grew up on this ranch along with their four brothers, all of whom remain actively involved in ranching. Out in the pastures, curlews were beloved birds; the family has always tried to give the birds space. Stafford has only happened upon curlew nests a handful of times. “My father was a real bird-watcher and enthusiast, and he would always watch for them in the spring,” she remembered.
Stafford pointed out a variety of grasses growing in the ranch: blue grama and galleta grass are the most common, but there is also sideoats grama, little and big bluestem, coarser grass such as alkali sacaton, and, especially in natural depressions, vine mesquite grass. “The blessing of this area is that (much of it) was never plowed,” Stafford said. “So the land is a natural seed bank.”
Robert Sivinski, who spent two decades as New Mexico’s state botanist, later told me that native grasses such as blue grama and buffalo grass can take a beating by cattle and persist. He added that ranchers often think non-native grasses will produce more beef, since they can grow faster and create more biomass, but they tend to be less nutritious than the natives. “It’s important to have a native ecosystem for native wildlife, including invertebrates, who are the base of the whole food system,” Sivinski stressed. I’ve seen first-hand why native grasshopper populations are crucial to curlews: The birds need a whole lot of grasshoppers to feed their growing chicks.
The Staffords carefully manage their grasslands, following advice from groups that focus on grazing in arid regions, such as the Quivira Coalition and the Savory Institute; they move their cattle frequently to avoid overgrazing, and mow the pastures early in the season, when it’s less likely to disrupt ground-nesting birds. “The native species have always been here, but they’re just really expressing themselves in all of the pasture,” Stafford said. “That’s been a hugely satisfying thing for me, to watch the diversity of all the rangeland species becoming a more common sight.” In 2018, the family worked with the New Mexico Land Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to place a 3,200-hectare conservation easement on part of their land.
The shortgrass prairie at CS Ranch can host as many as three pairs of breeding curlews. They hadn’t arrived yet, but I spotted a horned lark, a bird I often see in similar seasons and habitats, flying in short bursts. The diversity of grasshoppers and other insects in the grass made me suspect that CS Ranch doesn’t use pesticides, which Stafford confirmed. “We’re fortunate that there’s not a whole lot of insect pressure on the cattle or the native prairie,” she said.
The curlew is part of an interdependent community that needs functioning grassland ecosystems that stretch across hundreds of thousands of acres. Keystone species like bison and prairie dogs keep grasslands open, creating nesting habitat for grassland birds. While I was looking for curlews last summer, my daughter Pika was hoping to get a good look at a herd of more than a hundred bison we had glimpsed only fleetingly on nearby private land, their bodies glistening in the morning sun. “Let me know if you see them,” she said, scanning the fields. During hikes at the Rio Mora Refuge, I usually came upon a herd of bison and their young belonging to the Pueblo of Pojoaque, grazing there thanks to a partnership between the refuge and the tribe.
Even people who don’t care about bison or curlews might note that grasslands, which sequester impressive amounts of carbon, keep the planet functioning and habitable for all of us. But it bears repeating that climate change is not the main cause of the decline of grassland species like the long-billed curlew; the primary culprit is still habitat loss, and the North American grasslands are one of the most at-risk habitats in the world.
The North American Grasslands Conservation Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate in July 2022, attempted to create a coordinated strategy for conserving grassland ecosystems across the continent, much like existing strategies for sagebrush and wetlands. Relying on a voluntary, incentivedriven program, the act endeavoured to encourage the planting of native grasses and removal of invasive species, along with wildfire and drought mitigation and soil carbon sequestration. While the act failed to make headway and hasn’t been reintroduced, incentives for grassland conservation are offered to landowners through the Department of Agriculture’s Grassland Conservation Reserve Program as well as various state programs. In northeastern New Mexico, the High Plains Grassland Alliance also advises landowners and ranch managers on wildlife stewardship.
Botanist Sivinski has witnessed the consequences of private grasslands management, for worse as well as for better. “One rancher in Hidalgo County in New Mexico drained his cienega and planted the nonnative weeping lovegrass instead,” he told me. “Then the cattle didn’t like it. And he regretted doing what he did because the lovegrass turned into a weed … It’s hard to get that diversity back, and the species that aren’t there anymore.” But he also recalled the shortgrass prairie on the DeHaven Ranch in northeastern New Mexico, where the owner, a retired schoolteacher, managed her orchard and a small herd of cattle to ensure good grass cover, varying soil depths and a variety of species. The DeHaven has woody vegetation, too, including native oaks, and that has created a patchwork of habitats that benefit a variety of wildlife. The ranch also has “prairie mounds”—low, naturally occurring hillocks—and when it rains, water pools between the mounds.
“That is where I saw my first and only long-billed curlew,” Sivinski said, growing radiant and solemn.
I nodded, understanding. Since my long-billed curlew sighting last June, I have tracked curlew footprints in Oregon, Utah, California and even western Alaska, where the bristlethighed curlew migrates in the spring. But the sighting in Cimarron still has a special resonance for me. The very next afternoon, we’d returned to that grassy field, and I saw the head and bill of one of the previous day’s curlews sticking out of the grass. This time, we stopped only briefly to minimize the disturbance. Still, the ever-alert female began to call. A couple of minutes later, the male flew back, his rufous wings touching down in the sage-gold grass. I imagined that the chick or chicks waited camouflaged in the grass between the parents. A horned lark, perhaps the same one I’d seen in the grass yesterday, was now on a fence and soon ducked back to the ground. The two curlews remained about 30 feet apart.
A car whizzed by, and the driver glanced curiously at me. As I stood there in jeans and a T-shirt, I probably seemed to be staring at nothing but a sea of grass. The driver didn’t hear Mia speculate that the male curlew had likely gone to get some insects and, upon seeing our car stop nearby, the female had called him back. As Mia stitched together our field observations, her eyes lit up, and I knew that she, too, had been touched by the wonder of curlews.
This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation. Sarah Trent contributed reporting. This article appeared in the July 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Queen of the grasslands.” n
Migration patterns of the long-billed curlews.
DANIEL HUFFMAN / HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
Tiny titans
ONE AFTERNOON last August, I was one of thousands swarming the beach at Lost Lake Park—though only a hundred of those were actually people. The rest of the crowd was less obvious: behind a low barrier on a marshy corner, multitudes of newly metamorphosed Western Toads, each smaller than a fingernail, were exiting the water to take their first tentative hops on land.
Having spent their time since springtime hatching wriggling around as tadpoles, the new environment—not to mention novel acts of breathing air and using legs—takes some
BY LESLIE ANTHONY
getting used to, and the toadlets had appeared to pause to consider this trope of rebirth, an echo of the water-to-land transition pioneered by amphibian ancestors in the Devonian Period. That meant 370 million years of evolution packed into the DNA of these tiny titans—and plenty of instinct. With a new range of hazards rendering the beach even more perilous than the lake, the toadlets were quick to get moving again, heading for the cover of vegetation.
Over the next few days they’d follow a route shaded by quarter-round plastic fencing to gain the forest in which they’d either prosper or perish. By design, nature had favoured the latter; indeed, fewer than one per cent of these determined emigrants would make it to adulthood. And the gauntlet started along the fence, where potential death
awaited from heat, desiccation and predation by gartersnake, crow or shrew, each patiently awaiting the chance to gobble its fair share.
But while nature was nasty, the fencing obviated a far larger threat: humans. With the odds already stacked against them, added mortality of busy roadways, trails and lawns could tip the balance for a local toad population. And for years here, there was indeed cause for worry: each summer, thousands of toadlets were squashed by people, bikes and cars as they struggled toward the forest. It wasn’t malicious—they were just too small and the rest of the world too big and indifferent. And so, for several weeks each summer, visitors were treated to constellations of tiny carcasses. The optics were bad, the biodiversity impacts worse.
The Resort Municipality of Whistler
toadlets, ferrying them in plastic cups to the safe side of the fence.
That day last August, I was myself a toad guardian. Several years had passed since I’d last volunteered and I noticed two positives. First, increased buy-in from park users, who, save for the occasional entitled or litigious type (https://shorturl.at/dNdJh) seemed more interested than inconvenienced. And second: far fewer dead toads. Something was working.
As I answered a query about why toadlets piled up together (the same reason tadpoles swarm—safety in numbers), two kids tore across the lawn between beach and forest. The older, a girl, held aloft a cup, trailed by her excited younger brother. A frazzled voice in the distance pleaded for them to stop running. “But mom—we’re saving toads!”
Though the Western Toad is found in 80
Even where nature is protected and celebrated, roads and trails have negative effects...
eventually installed fencing to direct forestbound toadlets away from high-risk areas. It also protected breeding and tadpole habitat, installed interpretive signage and constructed permanent underpasses—plus a new bridge!—to funnel toadlets along several preferred routes (these can change year to year). Now, when toadlet emergence is nigh, more temporary aid structures are added and the access road and parking lot closed; park visitors can grab a shuttle from the village to within half a kilometre. During this time, volunteers dressed like crossing guards in hi-viz vests patrol the area, answering questions (there are plenty), politely asking visitors to watch their step or walk their bikes, and scooping up errant
per cent of B.C., it’s also listed as a provincial Conservation Concern and of Special Concern under the federal Species at Risk Act, so it’s great to see this happening in Whistler. Better still to know similar efforts are underway across the province. Even where nature is protected and celebrated, roads and trails have negative effects on toads in the oftenshortsighted drive to create recreational space. Which is why a good chunk of B.C.’s toad conservation occurs in provincial parks.
Rachel Shephard of the Squamish Environment Society (SES) manages a Western Toad-monitoring project at Fawn and Edith Lakes in Alice Lake Provincial Park, an area laced with trails where toads were annually getting squashed—in part because no one knew
anything about the populations. “We figured we could learn more than just the anecdotal information we were getting from hikers,” says Shephard, who, in partnership with B.C. Parks, marshals volunteers to keep an eye on tadpole growth and development and, when they exit the lake, conduct toadlet counts at various transects. “We want to know if they’re crossing trails, where, and the level of mortality,” she says of information used to visualize hotspots that require mitigation. “We’re basically eyes on the ground, gathering all sorts of data relevant to the health of the population.”
Although long-term monitoring and data-gathering are the two most important things in conservation, they’re the leastlikely practices to be funded by governments, which prefer quick solutions that make them look good. It can turn even the most noble conservation effort into a best-guess scenario. And toads are notorious for keeping people guessing. For instance, why do they choose certain wetlands or lakes to breed in? And what is actually a threat to them? (See underwater camera footage of invasive sunfish gulping in tadpoles then spitting them out captured by an SES volunteer: youtube. com/watch?v=WfO7XLYGklw.)
It helps that people genuinely tend to like toads; there’s something about their ubiquity, their stern-yet-unmalign stare, that makes for an acceptable emissary of the chthonic domain—friendly characters from fairy tales and kids’ books.
As elsewhere, tracking what’s happening at Fawn and Edith Lakes requires diligence; every year is different with respect to water level or weather, and thus, toad movements and timing. “We just try and do the same thing every year to the best of our ability,” says Shephard. “And use those data to mitigate impacts.”
Leslie Anthony is a biologist, writer and author of several popular books on environmental science. n
TOADAL PROTECTION Efforts to protect the Western Toad extend far beyond Whistler.
PHOTO BY LESLIE ANTHONY
‘Without
even knowing it, I had the
perfect training’
RHYS VERNER REFLECTS ON HIS PROMISING CAREER DESPITE AN UNDERWHELMING 2024
BY DAVID SONG
AT ONE POINT, Rhys Verner considered himself an underdog.
While he grew up riding his bike and playing various other sports like soccer and football, he also didn’t enter his first Enduro World Cup (EDR) race until his 20th year. At that point, Verner was a cross-country rider who’d hit a bit of a wall: juggling highlevel athletics with a bachelor’s degree in economics is no easy feat, particularly if you also want some semblance of a social life.
With very few accumulated points compared to many of his opponents in Europe, Verner found himself starting most events at the back of the pack. Sometimes, the field was so congested that he’d walk through his first lap. It was a reality check for an accomplished talent with Nationals and World Championships experience.
Fortunately, it was 2017 and enduro was beginning to take off. Verner’s network supported him on a trip to Finale Ligure, Italy for his inaugural competitive outing in the discipline. He struck gold, in the process having “the most fun weekend ever.”
And he never looked back.
“Perfect timing for me,” Verner recalled. “I needed a change and it suited my skill set from the beginning. If enduro was popular
when I was a kid, I probably would have just started there, but I was in this weird crosscountry and downhill mix.
“The reality was, I’d been riding enduro my whole life. I went up climbs and pinned it on some pretty technical descending. Without even knowing it, I had the perfect training to eventually make enduro my main sport.”
athleticism and potential to take over the long stages of any given race. Both got to bask in some more glory together with a goldand-silver finish in the 2023 Canadian Open Enduro—Melamed on top.
Verner concluded last season with four top-15 results (including a fourth place) in addition to the aforementioned medals.
“I’m just trying to get back to the mindset I was in last year, where you’re stoked to get the opportunity to race.”
- RHYS VERNER
RIDING THE WAVE
Verner’s breakout campaign came in 2023, as he secured the first EDR triumph of his life. It all came together on June 15 in Leogang, Austria as the Squamolian powered to a trio of stage wins and a top-five placing in the other three. The opposition was stiff, with two-time American EDR titleholder Richie Rude and French veteran Alex Rudeau on the podium in second and third, respectively.
Mere weeks before that breakthrough, Verner locked up a silver medal in Pietra Ligure, Italy as he gave Whistler-based standout Jesse Melamed a run for his money.
Melamed has always spoken well of Verner in regard to his dedication, overall
“There’s not ever going to be one specific thing that makes [consistent success] happen, and if I knew, I would have done it again,” he remarked. “I really value the people around me. I’ve had Jesse up there the whole time. He’s always been successful. Once you realize that [you’re almost on his level], you get some confidence. Things were clicking last year, it felt pretty easy and I rode the wave.”
‘GOOD
RESULTS COME WHEN YOU’RE NOT CRAZY STRESSED’
But 2024 has not been so kind to Verner. His only EDR top 15 as of this writing materialized
in Leogang, but his campaign opener in Finale Ligure was a blazing hot, cramp-filled nightmare. He laboured to 24th, then absorbed a thumb injury that limited him to 19th in Bielsko-Biala, Poland.
More disappointment unfolded at this year’s Crankworx.
Though Verner placed a very respectable seventh at the Garbanzo DH (won by Rude), he bowed out of the Canadian Open Enduro after Stage 1. Melamed and Remi Gauvin landed atop their home-turf podium again, but he couldn’t join them.
Verner feels several of his recent results are not indicative of his physical potential. He admits to asking himself, more than once: if I’ve won before, why am I not doing so again?
But then he puts it all back into perspective. EDR contains the world’s best athletes, and if it was easy to podium, everyone would do it.
“Now I’m just trying to get back to the mindset I was in last year, where you’re stoked to get the opportunity to race,” said Verner. “The good results come when you’re not crazy stressed. You take it seriously and try as hard as you can … but the reality is, I was just having fun when I was doing super well. I shouldn’t change that now.”
Other Canadian performances also tend to raise the Squamolian’s spirits. Melamed remains in the mix, with Gauvin, Kasper Woolley, Jack Menzies and Elliot Jamieson distinguishing themselves at various junctures too.
Now it’s time for Verner to get back in the saddle and remind folks of what he can do. n
TRAILBLAZER Rhys Verner blazes a trail through the forest during the 2023 Canadian Open Enduro.
PHOTO BY ROB PERRY
SPORTS THE SCORE
‘This year, we just kept on building’
WHISTLER WOLVES HEAD COACH BLAKE STEWART REFLECTS ON HIS TEAM’S INAUGURAL RLBC CHAMPIONSHIP
BY DAVID SONG
NINE DAYS BEFORE the Canadian women’s rugby sevens team ascended to a program-best Olympic silver medal in Paris, the Whistler Wolves were making their own history on a local scale.
A pair of tries from Blake Mahovic helped propel the Wolves to the first Rugby League British Columbia (RLBC) Grand Final title in its four-year existence. Harvey Lew and Kane Strachan also found the end zone, with Lew knocking in three conversions and a penalty kick, as Whistler downed the Vancouver Dragons 26-12.
It’s the first time since 2019 that an RLBC team has won both the annual rugby nines tournament and the 13s season. Head coach Blake Stewart won’t soon forget how his men rose to the occasion.
“Last year, we won the Nines and then fell away a little, but this year we just kept on building,” Stewart said. “We were able to build a squad of 33 people registered, which was highest among [all RLBC teams] and we’re the newest. The Grand Final win is unreal— obviously, that’s what you strive to do—but the participation is really what I’m happy about.”
Whistler’s U18 boys saw action too, prevailing over the Vancouver Valley Vipers in two exhibition matches before the seniors got going.
A TALE OF TWO HALVES
The scoreboard does not tell the full story of how the 2024 RLBC championship game unfolded on July 21 at South Surrey Athletic Park.
“We were all calm on the bus ride down,” recalled Mahovic. “We were in high spirits, but there was a definite stillness. The Dragons are a big, intense team, so we had prepared for their big ball carriers and disruptive tackling.”
Whistler got off to a fast start, breaching the try line within moments. They entered halftime up 18-6, cruising on both sides of the ball. Fans may have expected the bloodbath to continue… but that’s not what took place.
Instead, the Dragons bared their own fangs as 30-degree heat took its toll on every athlete. Vancouver pounded the Wolves’ line again and again, winning time of possession and threatening to grind out a comeback via sheer force of will.
“Luckily we defended so well,” Stewart remembered. “You can teach defense individually and in a group and all that kind of stuff, but you can’t teach people to defend for each other, and that was the most pleasing thing.”
The Dragons threw their best punches, but Whistler withstood them and eventually struck back. Mahovic cashed in another try, and a penalty goal by Lew with six minutes to play helped sweeten the pot.
Wolves halves and middles maintained control of the game, and edge players kept their work rate high until the last whistle.
Mahovic earned the RLBC Finals MVP
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award, while his teammates voted Conal Donnelly Player of the Game. Donnelly’s steadfast defence anchored Whistler when it mattered most.
“We’ve been playing a really great brand of rugby all year, and we knew all we had to do was execute it again as a squad,” Mahovic said. “It was an incredible team effort, and I’m really proud to call myself a Wolf alongside all my brothers.”
‘TALENT FOR RUGBY IN THE CORRIDOR IS HERE’
Most RLBC squads are based in the Lower Mainland, with a significant population to recruit from. The Wolves only draw from Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton, but that fact hasn’t held them back—in fact, it might even be advantageous in a counterintuitive sort of way.
“The boys that have been around already know each other,” Stewart said. “Anytime new people come in, they’re probably living in Whistler for the most part so we’re hanging out on the weekends regardless of whether rugby is on or not. We’ve all got similar interests: biking, snowboarding and rock climbing.
“The Vancouver Dragons have been around for almost 10 years now. I believe that in four years, we’re in just as good a position as they are—both on and off the pitch.”
Veterans like Mahovic, who are seasoned both overseas and in the Canadian national pipeline, are invaluable. Captain Josh Michalik is younger, but steadily finding his voice as leader of his unit. Longtime Squamolian Keith Reeves has joined Stewart as a coach, elevating the Wolves’ training to a new level.
Both men have the same philosophy: develop their people first, and the on-field results will come.
Meanwhile, the junior Wolves are lobbying Stewart for additional games this year. They’ll get their wish with an upcoming Saturday fixture at Whistler Secondary School.
“When [U18 involvement] is player-led, that makes growth so much easier,” remarked Stewart. “Talent for rugby in the corridor is here. Kids just need to be exposed to it.” n
WOLVES AT THE DOOR Ryan Ketler of the Whistler Wolves carries the ball at the 2024 RLBC Grand Final.
PHOTO BY GARRY DOSA
KARIN EMOND
Wild Wood’s barbecue menu is worth a trip to Function
THE LONGTIME LOCAL CULINARY INSTITUTION IS ABOUT MORE THAN JUST BREAKFAST
BY BRADEN DUPUIS
AS FAR AS Whistler culinary institutions go, few have stood the test of time in the way the Wild Wood in Function Junction has.
Originally opened in 2002, the restaurant has proven itself a locals’ breakfast mainstay for more than 20 years solid.
“Everyone has their favourites. It’s hard to get people to try different things,” said Bob Haselbach, longtime local chef, barbecue connoisseur, and owner of Wild Wood since 2020.
That’s one of the downsides of having a consistent, fan-favourite menu—when the regulars come in, “I have to give them stuff for free for them to try anything different,” Haselbach joked. “They already knew what they wanted before they got here.”
Long venerated for its breakfast offerings,
including multiple nods in Pique’s annual Best of Whistler readers’ poll, Haselbach adds a new flavour to the mix with his awardwinning barbecue offerings.
Locals and guests alike can take on the barbecue menu from Friday to Monday (from 3 to 8 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays,
given Haselbach’s pedigree behind the grill.
A longtime fixture on the competitive barbecue circuit, these days Haselbach is cooking for a new crowd.
“Now my customers are my judges,” he said. “So I’m looking for new judges to come eat my food.”
“Now my customers are my judges. So I’m looking for new judges to come eat my food.”
- BOB HASELBACH
and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays)—an easy option for anyone looking for an alternative to Creekside or Whistler Village.
Barbecue menu offerings include tantalizing ribs, chicken, pulled pork and brisket, with sides like coleslaw, potato salad, corn bread and beans. You really can’t go wrong whatever you choose, but combo offerings allow you to mix and match to your stomach’s content—and content you will be,
Haselbach said he went from doing about 12 competitions a year down to two, before quitting altogether during COVID. It was during a camping trip with his partner he had a revelation.
“I made burgers that I would have turned in to the judges just for two of us … no one else around, zero stress—I’m like, this is way better,” he said.
“So yeah, I’d rather spend my weekends
either here or doing catering, and then maybe one day I’ll get back into it.”
For now, he’s keeping his barbecue skills sharp four days a week at the Wild Wood, cooking for himself and his loyal customers.
“It’s a small town—if I go out and see somebody at the park or the store, you can’t be serving crap or I’ll hear about it everywhere, right?” he said with a laugh.
Haselbach describes his signature flavour profile as “sweet heat,” though his current menu is on the milder side to appeal to a wider range of tastes (guests can always customize their meats with hot sauce offered on the side).
“All the sides are vegetarian, and then we have a homemade, vegan-friendly veggie burger and a smoked veggie sandwich for the vegetarians that want to cheat and be dirty,” he said.
“It’s on a buttery baguette with cream cheese and smoked vegetables—it’s pretty good.”
But if barbecue isn’t your thing, you can still count on the old, reliable favourites.
“I’ve done my best to keep everything the same for breakfast and lunch,” Haselbach said.
“Why fix what’s not broken?” n
GRILLING TIME Catch longtime local chef and barbecue competitor Bob Haselbach at Wild Wood in Function Junction.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILD WOOD
MEADOW PARK SPORTS CENTRE SWIM • SKATE • SWEAT • SQUASH
R
I
The Whistler Youth Centre + Freestyle Whistler present:
Fort Knox Five goes live in Whistler Aug. 15
BAND LEADER STEVE RASKIN HAS PREVIOUSLY LIVED IN THE SEA TO SKY
BY DAVID SONG
ALTHOUGH HE HAILS from Washington, D.C., Fort Knox Five frontman Steve Raskin is both well-acquainted with and passionate about the Sea to Sky corridor. Whistler was the first place he lived outside of America’s capital, and he’s likely spent more time touring the area than any other region of Canada.
Raskin returns to his old stomping grounds on Aug. 15 as Fort Knox Five Live joins the Whistler Summer Concert Series. He’s bringing an all-star lineup of West Coast talent, including Mark Woodyard of the Lazy Syrup Orchestra, Neighbour Music’s Matt Dauncey, vocalist Emily Molloy, percussion man Chris Cuoto and Danny Fernandez, a.k.a. Def3.
Together, they’ll aim to fuse electronica with live instrumentals in a way few other groups do.
FROM D.C. TO B.C.
Fort Knox Five emerged some 20 years ago as a collaboration between Raskin, Rob Myers,
Sid Barcelona and the late Jon Horvath. All were involved in other projects at the time, but linked up to transcend conventional limitations of genre. They asked: why not throw a pinch of rock and a dash of reggae into a blender with electronic music and see what happens?
Most of the outfit’s content was produced in-studio but performed live, causing the men
things. There was always a big connection between D.C. and B.C., especially the Sea to Sky community.”
And what have the Washingtonian’s overall impressions of Whistler been?
“I moved there probably seven or eight years ago [for a stint],” Raskin recalls. “I have tons of friends there, and by the time I ended
“The energy at shows that I’ve played [in the Sea to Sky] is usually unmatched in terms of enthusiasm...”
- STEVE RASKIN
to joke that they were their own cover band. It was also logistically easier for Raskin and Horvath to tour as a pair of DJs than it was to take the whole show on the road, relegating Fort Knox Five to annual or biannual performances at specialty events.
The initiative withstood the test of time, and Raskin was approached this summer about a gig at Whistler Olympic Plaza.
“As a band, I think we performed in Washington, D.C. and Whistler more than anyplace else,” he says. “We did the World Ski and Snowboard Festival and all these
up moving it already felt like home. What I’ve noticed over the years about the Sea to Sky in general: people are genuinely fans of music. The energy at shows that I’ve played is usually unmatched in terms of enthusiasm and appreciation.”
‘THE
MAGIC MOMENT’
Raskin himself appreciates what can happen when he and his peers get into their creative laboratory.
Pre-recorded or looping material is ripe
for experimentation. Contemporary editing software allows one to remove any part of a given song (i.e. the drums or bassline) while leaving the rest intact to be mixed with other ingredients. It’s an endless realm of possibility for the right mind.
“Anytime you add a live element— instrument, voice or whatever—to an electronic thing, you’re already creating something more than pure DJing allows you to do,” says Raskin. “The magic moment to me was always where two songs overlapped and created a third song, and when you add another layer of live instrumentation, it has that effect.”
Mash-ups have long been integral to DJ culture, especially two or three decades ago when Raskin got his start. A Bob Marley a capella plus a house beat can equal a live remix that gets a crowd going, and Fort Knox Five brings its own spin to that approach.
“If you’re doing a Fort Knox Five song instrumentally and you start singing another lyric on top, then all of a sudden you’re creating something new there,” Raskin says. “I think that’s what’s exciting about this type of format, and I’m really excited to bring it to Whistler. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a live set with a band up there.”
Dunks from The Funk Hunters will kick things off Aug. 15 at 6:30 p.m. with a 45-rpm vinyl set before Fort Knox Five takes the baton at 7:30 p.m. More details at whistler.com/ events/concerts. n
HOLD DOWN THE FORT Steve Raskin is one of the co-founders of Fort Knox Five.
PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE RASKIN
5Rhythms puts down roots in Whistler
INSTRUCTOR ANNA MROZIK EXPLAINS 5RHYTHMS IS A FORM OF DANCE OPEN TO ALL
BY DAVID SONG
5RHYTHMS is not your typical dance curriculum.
It’s a philosophy more than it is a specific genre like ballet, jazz or contemporary. Founded in 1977 by the late American Gabrielle Roth, this particular school of thought and practice has become increasingly prolific ever since.
Anna Mrozik believes 5Rhythms can be a valuable part of one’s weekly routine, which is why she’s been running classes in Whistler since January.
Born in Poland during the Cold War, Mrozik did not grow up dancing. She built a respectable resume as a financial analyst for various corporations. Yet a part of Mrozik had always wanted to coach other people, investing in holistic growth rather than numbers, spreadsheets and reporting.
Corporate burnout eventually took hold, and Mrozik sought change. She discovered a 5Rhythms class in Vancouver before the pandemic, which quickly became her favourite way to express herself through movement. The European expatriate committed hundreds of hours to workshops and practice until she became eligible to apply for official instructor training.
But what is 5Rhythms and how does it work?
RIDE THE WAVE
5Rhythms is open to people from all walks of life, regardless of skill level. It’s highly improvisational and encourages attendees to find and refine their own style. The only structure comes in the form of the titular five rhythms, which Mrozik likens to parts of a day.
“The first is called ‘flowing,’” she elaborates. “Think about the early morning. You’re waking up, moving gently to get your coffee … waking up the body and the mind. These movements are continuous, circular and grounded. It’s like a cat who’s stretching.
“Then it builds up to ‘staccato.’ As the word probably already indicates, it’s defined, sharp, precise, clear and expressive. Think about mid-morning or noon when we need to get stuff done … and when we interact with lots of people. A staccato person [would be] Michael Jackson.”
Next up is the “chaos” rhythm, where the precision of staccato becomes wild, unstructured and unpredictable. Mrozik uses the example of a hectic afternoon: deadlines approach, weekend plans change and family members are possibly getting into trouble. At this point, dancers are encouraged to throw themselves almost like a rag doll and surrender to the moment.
Fourth, we have “lyrical.” As the proverbial work day reaches its denouement, students transition into a relaxed and creative state
Margot Beatrice Murdoch
MURDOCH, MARGOT BEATRICE (NÉE LEBRUN) OCTOBER 3, 1964 – AUGUST 3, 2024
of being. Mrozik says these moves are light, whimsical and often done on your toes.
The last rhythm is known as “stillness,” representing nighttime and one’s final moments before bed. Calm, meditative and restful is the name of the game here.
Mrozik explains all five rhythms combine to form a metaphorical wave of sorts, and they always take place in the same order.
‘BODY, MIND, SPIRIT’
The benefits of 5Rhythms can extend well beyond the physical realm.
“We are all emotional beings, right?” Mrozik asks rhetorically. “The day is filled with experiences and emotions … and we act on them but we don’t find ways to process them. Nowadays, we are stimulated so much with information, but this practice is an incredible tool to actually process emotions.
“Body, mind and spirit: those three aspects of our lives need to be taken into consideration if we want to heal certain parts of ourselves. When you put your psyche in motion, it will heal itself. You show up [to every class] as you are. Let’s say you don’t have much energy one day—you move with that.”
A number of others feel the same way. They tell Mrozik they consistently feel relaxed and at peace after sessions, with a level of freedom they don’t tend to receive from other things.
“People are a little bit turned off by [things that lack a specific structure],” Mrozik says. “But when those people who are hesitant finally come for practice, they often say, ‘wow, this is just so wonderful.’”
Learn more about 5Rhythms in Whistler at 5rhythms.com/teachers/Anna+Mrozik. n
IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS that we announce Margot died peacefully surrounded by her family. She was born and grew up in Ottawa where she attended St. Pius X High School. She graduated from Queen’s University before teaching for several years at St. Pius. Shortly after moving to Vancouver, Margot met and married Brent Murdoch, the love of her life. They moved to Whistler where Margot taught, Brent pursued a career as an architect, and they had their three children. Margot was a loving and devoted mother to Nicole, Conrad and Michael. An accomplished outdoors woman herself, she was the foremost cheerleader and logistics support person for her children’s many athletic activities. Margot was a vigorous, kind, generous and clear-thinking woman who got things done. She was a tireless contributor to her Catholic parish, the outdoor recreation community in Whistler, and her many friendships. Through over thirty years in B.C., Margot maintained loving ties with her family back in Ottawa and its environs. In particular, she led the Murdoch clan to their annual summer holiday at the LeBrun family cottage on 31 Mile Lake, the setting of innumerable fond memories. A deeply affectionate person herself, Margot will be remembered lovingly in turn. Alongside her immediate family, she will be sorely missed by her parents, Conrad and Diana LeBrun (née Grace); sister Anne Marie (Jeremy Monette); brothers Paul (Gina Charos) and David (Mary-Ellen); in-laws Brian, Lorraine, and Laurie Murdoch; cousins, nieces and nephew. The family is tremendously grateful for the compassionate care that Margot received at the Whistler Health Care Centre and the Squamish General Hospital.
Visitation will take place at Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church, on Wednesday, August 14 from 6-9pm. Funeral Mass will be at Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church, on Thursday, August 15 at 11am.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ovarian Cancer Canada, the Whistler Healthcare Foundation, or the Squamish Hospital Foundation.
FEEL THE RHYTHM Whistler 5Rhythms dance instructor Anna Mrozik.
PHOTO BY SARAH WILLIAMSON
15 & 16 | lakeside park + alta lake
Roland's Pub is open for lunch Wednesdays & Thursdays from 11:30am!
Join our lunch club!
Get 10 stamps on your lunch card and your 11th lunch is free* (Restrictions apply)
Children are welcome everyday until 10pm, so bring the kids in for brunch on the weekends from 11am - 2pm
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
FLAG STOP FESTIVAL
FLAG STOP THEATRE & ARTS FESTIVAL
The annual Flag Stop Theatre & Arts Festival returns in 2024 with an incredible array of talented actors, comedians, playwrights, musicians and dancers to entertain you for four spectacular summer days and nights. Witness the finest performances at Florence Petersen Park in Whistler Village accompanied by a beer and wine garden, and food vendors, and on the iconic floating stage at The Point Artist-Run Centre. Go to thepointartists.com/flag-stop-festival-2024 for tickets and details.
> Aug. 9 and 10
> Various locations
> Varies
THE SUFFERS
The Suffers’ musical style, showcased on their latest album It Starts With Love, is a potent blend of Gulf Coast Soul and socially conscious lyricism. Their sound, described as a fusion of ’70s R&B, disco, jazz, and contemporary gospel, resonates with audiences as they navigate themes of love, growth, and self-acceptance.
> Aug. 9, 7:30 p.m.
> Olympic Plaza
> Free
WHISTLER MEDITATES SUMMER SKILLS SERIES
Power up your personal tool kit! Discover, deepen, or reinvigorate your meditation and mindfulness practice with this summer skills series on Aug. 9 and 23. Each week focuses on a different set of mindfulness tools and practices and also includes immersive, guided meditation experiences.
> Aug. 9, 8 a.m.
> Whistler Public Library
> Free
MOVIES IN THE PLAZA: NEXT GOAL WINS
Make Movies in the Plaza your new summer tradition and get cosy on the Great Lawn for a cinematic experience under the stars. Movies are scheduled on select Wednesday and Saturday evenings this summer and are free to watch. Bring blankets or low chairs for a relaxing evening under the stars.
> Aug.10, 8 p.m.
> Olympic Plaza
> Free
CRANKBROTHERS QUEST FOR MADNESS
Go on the quest and ride all of the Whistler Mountain Bike Park Zones for a chance to win rad prizes from Crankbrothers. Be sure to take snaps of clues and when you have found five or more, head down to Dusty’s in Creekside to see the Crankbrothers team and spin their wheel of fortune to win.
> Aug. 10, 12 to 4 p.m.
> Whistler Mountain Bike Park
> Free
ARAXI LONGTABLE DINNER
Araxi Restaurant’s Culinary Director Chef James Walt welcomes guests to the 12th-annual Araxi Longtable Dinner nestled under Mount Currie at the picturesque North Arm Farm. Guests will enjoy a cocktail reception followed by a four-course family style menu with wine pairings from British Columbia’s top producers.
> August 11, 3 p.m.
> North Arm Farm
> Tickets start at $289
PHOTO COURTESY OF STEPHEN VOGLER
$2,995,000
Discover thebestofBlueberry!Blueberry Heightsis aquiet,picturesque,13-unitcomplex nearWhistler Village.Enjoy theValleyTrail system,the renowned Whistler Golf Course,and allthatWhistlerhas to offer.Thisspacioustownhome offers1,948 sqft across 3levels, with 3.5bedroomsand 2.5 bathrooms. Open conceptliving, dining,and kitchen areas on themainfloorwithspaciousdecks,facing both East andWest. Features includeradiant heat,a steamshower, anddesignerlighting. Privategarage, andmudroom provideample storage.
ElizabethChaplin
604932 1311
elizabeth@elizabethchaplin.com
realestateatwhistler.com
Whistler’s early accommodation providers
BY ALLYN PRINGLE
WHEN PLANNING a visit to Whistler, one is offered a variety of accommodation options, from a tent at a campground to a hotel suite in Whistler Village. Another option is a pension, similar to a bed and breakfast but sometimes offering more than one meal. While municipal guidelines and requirements for pensions were introduced in 1983, by the summer of 1985 Whistler had only three official pensions, with another two in the approval process, and an unknown number operating illegally.
The oldest of the three, Haus Heidi on Nesters Road, was opened by Jim and Trudy Greutzke in 1978 and had a steady supply of return visitors to the four-bedroom pension by 1985. In White Gold, Luise and Erich Zinsli had Chalet Luise, a similarly sized pension to
supplies, and all other administrative duties, as well as ensuring guests felt at home, and often it was a family affair. At Alpine Lodge, Ruth Hidi took on the bulk of the pension work while her son attended school and John worked as a building inspector for the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District.
Two other pensions were also going through the approval process during the summer of 1985, making for a total of five “official” pensions. Nobel House in Alta Vista, owned by Jan Holmberg and Ted Nebbeling, was finishing up renovations and would then receive its business licence. In White Gold, Jacques and Ursula Morel were in the process of having their property rezoned from residential to tourist pension. The zoning bylaw at the time defined a pension as “a building used for temporary lodging by paying guests that contains guest rooms, common areas including a dining room intended for
Running a pension was a full-time operation, involving cooking, cleaning, changing linens...
Haus Heidi. The largest of the three approved pensions was the eight-room Alpine Lodge Pension (not to be confused with Alpine Lodge in Garibaldi), run by Ruth Hidi with the help of her husband John and son Brian.
The typical cost of a double-occupancy room at any of the pensions ranged from $35 to $50/night in the summer months, and all three provided a substantial breakfast for guests, eaten together in a communal dining room whether guests knew each other or not. At Chalet Luise, breakfast might have consisted of a ham and cheese omelette, French toast, or bacon and eggs with homemade bread. Each pension also provided communal spaces for guests to relax and socialize.
Most pension proprietors had their own living quarters within the building, though Alpine Lodge was unusual in that its proprietors lived next door. Running a pension was a fulltime operation, involving cooking, cleaning, changing linens, taking reservations, ordering
the use of such paying guests, and an auxiliary residential dwelling unit.”
There were both benefits and drawbacks to proper zoning. Authorized pensions were required to be members of the Whistler Resort Association (WRA), and so were eligible for its centralized booking services, had more encompassing insurance, and were usually better situated when applying for loans. There was also, however, a cost associated with authorization. Pension owners had to pay a $750 deposit to begin the rezoning process; pension-zoned properties paid higher sewage and water fees; pensions had to provide offstreet parking; and properties had to make alterations to comply with commercial safety standards, all of which could add up.
Today there are still a number of pensions and bed and breakfasts operating in Whistler, though the definitions have changed some, and visitors continue to have many options when choosing a place to stay. n
HAUS AND HOME Haus Heidi a year after opening.
WHISTLER QUESTION COLLECTION, 1979
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ASTROLOGY
Free Will Astrology
WEEK OF AUGUST 9 BY
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Legend tells us that the first person to drink tea was Chinese Emperor Shennong in 2737 BCE. As he lounged outdoors, tree leaves fell into his cup of water and accidentally created an infusion. Good for him that he was willing to sample that accidental offering. It took many centuries, but eventually tea drinking spread throughout the world. And yet the first tea bag, an icon of convenience, didn’t become available until 1904. I don’t expect you will have to wait anywhere near that long to move from your promising new discoveries to the highly practical use of those discoveries. In fact, it could happen quickly. The coming weeks will be a favourable time to ripen your novel ideas, stellar insights, and breakthrough innovations.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I hope that in the coming months, Taurus, you will be refining your skills with joy and vigour. I hope you will devote yourself to becoming even more masterful at activities you already do well. I hope you will attend lovingly to details and regard discipline as a high art—as if doing so is the most important gift you can give to life. To inspire you in these noble quests, I offer you a quote by stage magician Harry Blackstone Jr.: “Practice until it becomes boring, then practice until it becomes beautiful.”
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Wohlweh is a German word that means “good pain” or “pleasurable pain.” It might refer to the feeling you have while scratching a mosquito bite or rubbing your eyes when they’re itchy from allergies. But my favourite use of the word occurs when describing a deep-tissue massage that may be a bit harrowing even as it soothes you and provides healing. That’s a great metaphor for the kind of wohlweh I expect for you in the coming days. Here’s a tip: The less you resist the strenuous “therapy,” the better you will feel.
RESORT MUNICIPALITY OF WHISTLER NOTICE OF ASSISTANCE
In accordance with section 24 of the Community Charter, the Resor t Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) hereby gives notice that on March 19, 2024 the RMOW Council approved value in kind (VIK) agreements for 2024 in accordance with the VIK provisions established in Council Policy A-39 to provide access to RMOW facilities at no cost to four local non-profit organizations. The names and fair market value of the use of those facilities is set out below:
• Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment up to $12 ,760
• Conservation Office Service up to $11,142
• Sea to Sky Invasive Species up to $7,137
• Whistler Adaptive Spor ts Program up to $28,616
In addition, on January 23, 2024 Whistler Council approved up to $50,000 in funding to the Whistler Institute of Learning Society to further educational oppor tunities, learning and dialogue. All of the recipients are providing important services to the Whistler community that Council has determined fur thers the goals of the Whistler community as identified in Whistler’s Official Community Plan.
Pauline Lysaght
Resor t Municipality of Whistler Corporate Officer
ROB BREZSNY
is also a staunch political activist. That blend of qualities is uncommon. Why do I bring this to your attention? Because now is an excellent time to synergize your pragmatic devotion to financial success with idealistic work on behalf of noble causes. Doing both of these activities with extra intensity will place you in alignment with cosmic rhythms—even more so if you can manage to coordinate them.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio actor Sally Field told a story about an agent who worked for her early in her career. In those formative years, all her roles were on TV. But she aspired to expand her repertoire. “You aren’t good enough for movies,” the agent told her. She fired him, and soon she was starring in films. Let’s make this a teaching story for you, Scorpio. In the coming months, you will be wise to surround yourself with influences that support and encourage you. If anyone persistently underestimates you, they should not play a prominent role in your life’s beautiful drama.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): One Sagittarius I know is building a giant sculpture of a humpback whale. Another Sagittarius is adding a woodshop studio onto her house so she can fulfil her dream of crafting and selling fine furniture. Of my other Sagittarius acquaintances, one is writing an epic narrative poem in Greek, another is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Northern California to the Columbia River in northern Oregon, and another has embarked on a long-postponed pilgrimage to Nigeria, the place of her ancestors’ origin. Yes, many Sagittarians I know are thinking expansively, daring spicy challenges, and attempting fun feats. Are you contemplating comparable adventures? Now is an excellent time for them.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): I earn my living as a writer now, but for many years I had to work at odd jobs to keep from starving. One of the most challenging was tapping the sap of Vermont maple trees during the frigid weather of February. Few trees produce more than three gallons of sap per day, and it takes 40 to 50 gallons to create a single gallon of maple syrup. It was hard work that required a great deal of patience. According to my analysis, you Cancerians are in a metaphorically comparable situation these days. To get the good results you want, you may have to generate a lot of raw material—and that could take a while. Still, I believe that in the end, you will think the strenuous effort has been well worth it.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I love the fact that Antarctica doesn’t belong to anyone. Thirty nations have research stations there, but none of them control what happens. Antarctica has no government! It has a few laws that almost everyone obeys, like a ban on the introduction of non-Indigenous plants and animals. But mostly, it’s untouched and untamed. Much of its geology is uncharted. Inspired by this singular land, I’d love for you to enjoy a phase of wild sovereignty and autonomy in the coming weeks. What can you do to express yourself with maximum freedom, answering primarily to the sacred laws of your own ardent nature?
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Babylonia was an ancient empire located in what’s now Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Among its citizens, there was a common belief that insomnia was the result of intrusive visitations by ancestral spirits. Their urge to communicate made it hard for their descendants to sleep. One supposed cure was to take dead relatives’ skulls into bed, lick them, and hold them close. I don’t recommend this practice to you, Virgo. But I do advise you to consult with the spirits of deceased family members in the coming weeks. I suspect they have a lot to tell you. At the very least, I hope you will explore how you might benefit from studying and pondering your ancestors’ lives.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran tennis player Naomi Osaka is one of the highest-paid women athletes ever. She
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): When I opened my fortune cookie, I found a message that read, “If you would just shut up, you could hear God’s voice.” In response, I laughed, then got very quiet. I ruminated on how, yes, I express myself a lot. I’m constantly and enthusiastically riffing on ideas that are exciting to me. So I took the fortune cookie oracle to heart. I stopped talking and writing for two days. I retreated into a quiescent stillness and listened to other humans, animals, and the natural world. Forty-five hours into the experiment, I did indeed hear God’s voice. She said, “Thanks for making space to hear me. I love you and want you to thrive.” She expounded further, providing me with three interesting clues that have proved to be helpful in practical ways. In accordance with your astrological omens, Capricorn, I invite you to do what I did.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Scientists at the University of California devised a cheap and fast method for unboiling an egg. Their effort wasn’t frivolous. They were working with principles that could be valuable in treating certain cancers. Now I’m inviting you to experiment with metaphorical equivalents of unboiling eggs, Aquarius. You are in a phase when you will have extra power to undo results you’re bored with or unsatisfied with. Your key words of power will be reversal, unfastening, unlocking, and disentangling.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Every week, I imbibe all the honey from an eight-ounce jar, mostly in my cups of hot tea. To create that treat for me, bees made a million visits to flowers, collecting nectar. I am very grateful. The work that I do has similarities to what the bees do. I’m constantly gathering oracular ideas, meditating on the astrological signs, and contemplating what inspirational messages my readers need to hear. This horoscope may not be the result of a million thoughts, but the number is large. What’s the equivalent in your life, Pisces? What creative gathering and processing do you do? Now is a good time to revise, refine, and deepen your relationship with it.
Homework: Can you boost your willpower just by deciding you want to? Try it. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.
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
Community Centre
• General Manager of Community Services ($120,000 to $135,000 per year)
• Capital Projects Manager ( $59,878 to $73,564 per year)
• Skel7awlh Steward ($17.40 to $20.90 per hour)
•
•
•
•
($17.40
$20.90 per hour)
• Custodian/ Events Host ($17.40 to $20.90 per hour)
• Housing Administrator ( $46,683 to $63,973 per year)
• Transition House Support Worker ($20.90 to $29.45 per hour)
• Temporary Assisted Living Supervisor ($25.65 to $35.15 per hour)
• Youth Centre Coordinator ($20.90 to $29.45 per hour)
• Family Mentor ($38,038 to $53,599 per year)
Xet’òlacw Community School
• High School Teacher (upper Math) ($60,015 to $109,520 per year)
• Social Worker/ Counsellor( $80,371 to $91,673 per year)
• Elementary School Teacher: Grade 3 ($60,015 to $109,520 per year)
• High School English and Humanities Teacher ($60,015 to $109,520 per year)
Ts’zil Learning Centre
• Indigenous Support Worker – Academic ($38,038 to $53,599 per year)
• Outreach Worker ($38,038 to $53,599 per year)
MANAGER, SALES & MARKETING
Full Time, Year Round
Love a good challenge? Passionate about the place you call home? Whistler.com is looking for community-loving, mountain-appreciating, environment-respecting people to join our team.
The Manager, Sales & Marketing is a sales-driven and results-oriented individual, with a focus on creating compelling offers and promotions, and maintaining supplier account relationships, including managing the Preferred Partner Program and the Whistler Rewards loyalty program.
This role works closely with the Senior Manager, E-Commerce and the Tourism Whistler Marketing team to develop timely and relevant offers for our customers, and explores new opportunities to drive year-round incremental room nights and revenue.
What we offer: a nine-day fortnight schedule, an excellent benefits package, a commitment to health and wellness, and a fun and supportive team environment.
The starting salary range for this role is
Xet’olacw Community School Job Postings:
Elementary School Teacher - Grade 3
Mount Currie, BC Full-time
$60,015.00-$109,520.00/year
Title: Elementary School Teacher
Department: Community School
Status: Full Time Regular
Pay Grid: Teachers
Reporting to: School Admin Team
Summary of Duties:
• The Elementary School teacher will teach courses, which involves instruction in differentiated classes under the supervision of the School Admin Team.
Key Deliverables and Expectations:
• Teach all subjects in the selected i.e. Grade 2 Class with Physical Education, Ucwalmícwts (traditional language), and a library time supervised by other teachers or staff.
• Committed to excellent instructional preparation and consistent record keeping. Timely reporting to administration, when necessary, e.g., report cards, attendance records and data request
• Use data to drive classroom/school–wide improvement initiatives
• Maintain open and consistent communication with students and their families about their academic progress
• Teach numeracy and literacy in collaboration with others according to the school’s strategies for improving academic outcomes
• Be a positive team player committed to the belief that all children can learn at high levels
• Commit to ongoing professional development including willingness to be coached by the Elementary Supervisor and Regional Principal via school visits, video teleconference calls etc. and joining Provincial Professional Learning Community model (in Vancouver) and a School-Wide PLC model on site.
• Working in the ReadWell Program (platooned) as well as Literature program and centers.
• Work with Saxon Math in collaboration with other Primary teaching staff
• Enjoy participating in school event days such as Sports Day, Eagle Run, and Flake Rodeo etc.
• Perform other related duties as requested. Experience and Attributes:
• Possession of / or ability to apply for a B.C. Teaching Certificate
• Experience and/or education in special needs an asset
• Strong interpersonal, communication and collaborative skills including the ability to communicate effectively with students, staff, and parents.
• Strong assessment practices.
• Strong classroom management skills.
• Ability to accommodate the needs of students with a range of learning styles and abilities.
• Ability to use strength-based, student centered approaches to plan engaging and educational lessons and courses.
• Ability to motivate students and to adjust instructional strategies accordingly.
• Ability to use technology to enhance student learning.
• Ability to embed local First Nations culture into teaching practice.
• Experienced and/or interested in integrating place-based, outdoor learning practices in educational delivery.
• Knowledge of the B.C. curriculum.
• Must complete a Criminal Record Check
• TQS Category
Please
CIVIL CONSTRUCTION
BUILDING AN EXCELLENT
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
TRUCK DRIVER - Valid Class 1 or Class 3 with air brakes required. Manual transmission. 2 years experience preferred. $32-$40.45 per hour.
HEAVY EQUIPMENT OPERATOR, Squamish - Minimum 5 years or 5,000 hours operating experience on excavator. Full-time, Monday – Friday. $33-$42 per hour.
HEAVY DUTY EQUIPMENT MECHANIC, Whistler – Red Seal Certified preferred, Commercial Truck & Transport and Transport Trailer preferred. Class 1 or 3 with air brakes preferred. Tools available for rent. $39.70 - $47.90 per hour.
CONSTRUCTION LABOURER – Great opportunity to learn on-the-job. Stamina for physically demanding work and perseverance to brave inclement weather required. Previous experience preferred but not required. Training provided. $25-$32 per hour.
• Month end reconciliations including all bank and balance sheet accounts
• Accounts Receivable invoicing and collections • Month end reconciliations including all bank and balance sheet accounts
• Financial analysis and POS system reporting What we offer: • Brand new affordable staff accommodation
Financial analysis and POS system reporting
• Salary: $56,000-$65,000/year depending on experience and education
Do not move the position or change the typesetting of the headline. The bottom angled keyline should always align with the angled gradient jolt.
Headlines & images can be mixed and matched as needed.
Headlines & images can be mixed and matched as needed.
NOTE: “Carv e out a new career path” should always be paired with a winter image
NOTE: “Carve out a new career path” should always be paired with a winter image
Our team of people is what sets us apart from other builders. As we continue to grow as the leader in luxury projects in Whistler, our team needs to expand with us. We are currently hiring:
Labourers ($20 - $30 hourly)
Experienced Carpenters ($30 - $45 hourly)
Carpenter Foremen ($40 - $50 hourly)
If body copy is shorter, copy block can be nudged down to balance out visually in column
If body copy is shorter, copy block can be nudged down to balance out visually in column
Carpenters Helpers /Apprentices 1st to 4th year ($25 - $35 hourly)
Rates vary based on experience and qualifications. Red seal a bonus but not mandatory. EVR is committed to the long-term retention and skills development of our team. We are passionate about investing in our team’s future.
We offer:
• Top Wages
• Training & Tuition Reimbursement (Need help getting your Red Seal?)
• $500 Annual Tool Allowance
• Extended Health and Dental Benefits for you and your family
• Flexible Schedule - Work Life Balance. (We get it. We love to ski and bike too.)
• Assistance with Work Visa and Permanent Residency (We can help!)
• Positive Work Environment
We promote from within and are looking to strengthen our amazing team. Opportunities for advancement into management positions always exist for the right candidates. Don’t miss out on being able to build with the team that builds the most significant projects in Whistler. Send your resume to info@evrfinehomes.com We look forward to hearing from you!
FACILITIES ENGINEER
FACILITIES ENGINEER
ACCOUNTANT, OPERATIONS & GOLF
Full Time, Year Round
Full Time, Year Round
The Facilities Engineer is responsible for the oversight, maintenance, repairs and efficient operations of all main mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and the overall common areas at the Whistler Conference Centre, Whistler Golf Course and Driving Range.
Full Time, Year Round for the oversight, maintenance, repairs mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and the overall common areas at the Whistler Conference Centre, Whistler Golf Course and Driving Range
Love a good challenge? Passionate about the place you call home? Tourism Whistler is looking for community-loving, mountainappreciating, environment-respecting people to join our team.
The Accountant, Operations & Golf is responsible for supporting with the day-today operation of the Finance department, and all aspects of accounting policy and procedures related to the Operations and Golf departments within Tourism Whistler.
This position requires an individual who possesses a 4th Class Power years of related experience gained in a commercial building or hotel Experience and knowledge of direct digital controls, energy management systems and green initiatives is also important. Previous leadership experience, with knowledge of applicable buildings codes and health
This role requires a collaborative team player with excellent communication and organizational skills, and previous experience in accounting within a mid-sized organization.
What we offer: nine-day fortnight schedule, a hybrid approach that balances in-office and remote work, an excellent benefits package, a commitment to health and wellness, and a fun and supportive team environment.
The starting salary range for this role is $55,000 - $60,000 annually.
This position requires an individual who possesses a 4th Class Power Engineering Certificate (or is currently enrolled), complimented with five years of related experience gained in a commercial building or hotel. Experience and knowledge of direct digital controls, energy management systems and green initiatives is also important. Previous leadership experience, with knowledge of applicable buildings codes and health and safety practices is an asset.
TO VIEW OUR CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, AND TO APPLY, VISIT US ONLINE AT WHISTLER COM/CAREERS
TO VIEW OUR CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, AND TO APPLY, VISIT US ONLINE AT WHISTLER.COM/CAREERS.
TO VIEW OUR CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, AND TO APPLY, VISIT US ONLINE AT WHISTLER.COM/CAREERS.
Client: Tourism Whistler
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Xet’olacw Community School Job Postings:
High School Teacher (upper level Math)
Mount Currie, BC Full-time $60015.00-$109520.00/year
Title: High School Teacher
Department: Community School
Status: Full Time Regular
Pay Grid: Teachers = $60,015-$109,520
Reporting to: School Admin Team
Summary of Duties:
• The High School teacher will teach courses, which involves instruction in differentiated classes under the supervision of the School Admin Team.
Key Deliverables and Expectations:
• Strong classroom management skills.
• Ability to accommodate the needs of students with a range of learning styles and abilities.
• Ability to use strength-based, student centered approaches to plan engaging and educational lessons and courses.
• Ability to motivate students and to adjust instructional strategies accordingly.
• Strong interpersonal, communication and collaborative skills including the ability to communicate effectively with students, staff, and parents.
• Strong assessment practices.
• Ability to use technology to enhance student learning.
• Ability to embed local First Nations culture into teaching practice.
• Experienced and/or interested in integrating place-based, outdoor learning practices in educational delivery.
• Knowledge of the B.C. curriculum.
• Perform other related duties as requested.
Experience and Attributes:
• Possession of / or ability to apply for a B.C. Teaching Certificate
• Must complete a Criminal Record Check
• TQS Category
View jobs at Lil’wat Nation https://lilwatnation.easyapply.co/
JOB POSTINGS
The Cayoose Creek Band is a progressive First Nation located in the BC Interior. At CCB we welcome new and diverse talent. CCB is currently seeking skilled individuals for the following positions.
FINANCE DIRECTOR
The Finance director will oversee the financial management of all departments within the Cayoose Creek Band (CCB). The finance director is intended to the be the most Senior Employee under the Administrator and will act when the Administrator is unavailable. The Finance director will also act as an advisor to Chief and Council when making financial decisions related to our trust and management of our lands.
FINANCE CLERK
The Finance Clerk is responsible for processing routine accounting transactions and performing a variety of accounting activities related to the payment and receipt of money; computers, classifies, and records transactions into the Cayoose financial accounting systems.
EMERGENCY & FIRE SMART COORDINATOR
The Emergency & Fire Smart Coordinator is responsible for the facilitation of Emergency & Fire Smart-related activities within the CCB community. The position will ensure that the Emergency & Fire Smart activities are supported, developed, and implemented in accordance with Provincial guidelines and CCB Policies.
FIRE SMART ASSISTANT
The Emergency & Fire Smart Assistant is responsible for assisting the Emergency Fire Smart Coordinator in the facilitation of Emergency & Fire Smart-related activities within the CCB community. The position will to ensure that the Emergency & Fire Smart activities are supported, developed.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT
The role of the Social Work Assistant is to work with a multi-disciplinary team to ensure that the Child & Family team has support with administration duties i.e. Maintaining filing and record systems, scheduling appointments,referral to right Child & Family team member.
OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE ASSISTANT
Under the guidance of the O & M Manager the Operations and Maintenance Assistant is responsible for a wide variety of administrative office duties including maintenance duties.
BLACKCOMB CHIMNEY
GLASS SPECIALISTS
The audacity of hope
IN 2004, Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Titled The Audacity of Hope, it stumped for the election of John Kerry as president in the November election, positioning the race as one of hope against cynicism. It didn’t work. Bush the Second was re-elected. But it laid the groundwork and theme for Obama’s election four years later.
The evening of June 27 this year, I was determined to not watch the debate between Joe Biden and that other guy. I was sure I didn’t need the aggravation. After all, I can no longer vote in U.S. presidential elections. No dog in that race, thank you.
But the political junkie in me gravitated to PBS, drawn by a masochistic power I couldn’t ignore. The candidates were introduced,
BY G.D. MAXWELL
Biden started to speak. Ninety seconds later, I turned it off. I’m sure my face looked as though I’d been struck in the head with a twoby-four. “Sweet Jesus,” I thought. “Biden’s had a stroke!”
It only took that long to grasp what the reaction was likely to be. By all accounts it was even worse than I expected. He never hit his stride... or maybe that was his stride. Over the next three weeks things spiralled downhill. Biden was in a flat spin. There was a relentless torrent of news stories about his cognitive deficits. There was a very good performance at a news conference completely overshadowed by Biden conflating Kamala Harris with Trump as his vice president.
The end came on July 21. It was inevitable once the big money parked itself on the sidelines, understanding it would be wasted funding Biden’s run.
There was a lot of speculation about whether and when Biden would drop out of the race. There was well-founded concern about the infighting likely to take place among Democrats if he did, each camp pushing for their own preferred candidate and each concerned the others would refuse to embrace any candidate but their own.
It was a grim period. Unless you were a supporter of the Orange Monster. What little hope there may have been vanished like a fart in the wind. The obvious choice to succeed Biden was the vice president, Kamala Harris. But her profile was almost non-existent. She made a splash as Biden’s running mate in 2020 and then disappeared into the netherworld of vice presidential anonymity, surfacing only to cast the deciding vote in the senate more often than any other vice president in history.
I’d abandoned hope. Grim sounding op-eds by what are generally thought of as being left-leaning writers began to yield the election to the Republicans. Canadians with a political bent began to muse in funereal tones about the appalling confluence of a Trump presidency and a Parliament led by Pierre Poilievre.
Cue the audacity of hope.
Harris caught fire. Money began to flood into the Democratic Party. Suddenly the veep was everywhere, and for the first time in four years people began to notice her. She was tough. She was aggressive. She was young. Suddenly, it was Trump who was the old man, yesterday’s man, the blathering idiot with the over-educated redneck running mate. The race was shaping up to be one of youthful fresh thinking versus old men shouting at clouds, longing for the days when women knew their place and laws were there to make sure they didn’t stray too far from whatever that place was.
Whatever that place is, I’m sure Harris
It’ll be interesting to watch how it all unfolds, knowing there are still nearly half the voters south of the border who march in line with the Monster.
Days before Biden announced he was dropping out of the race, Aaron Sorkin—he of The West Wing—wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times suggesting if he were scripting the race, he’d have the Democrats run a moderate Republican, namely Mitt Romney, for their presidential candidate. Calling it a bold move that put their money where their mouth was in terms of bringing unity to the country, it goes without saying the notion got no traction in Democratic circles.
Suddenly, it was Trump who was the old man, yesterday’s man, the blathering idiot with the overeducated redneck running mate.
ain’t there. It’s already been interesting to see how off-balance Trump is, flaying around to deal with her when all the planning has been to taunt Biden as a doddering old fool. There’s speculation whether he’ll even debate her at all, though if I were Harris I’d consider refusing to debate him on the grounds she didn’t want to give credence to a seditious convicted felon, a serial philanderer, sexual abuser, frequent bankrupt, racist, sexist, pussy-grabbing, draft-dodging cheat.
But it seemed like a bold idea to have Harris enlist a moderate Republican who wasn’t in Trump’s pocket as a running mate. There likely would have been a tectonic shift in American politics if she had. There would likely have been an exodus of Republicans who hold their nose and vote for Trump if she had.
Well, she didn’t. On Tuesday she announced Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. If you have no idea
who that is, you’re not alone. If you know Minnesota is a state that borders Ontario, you’re ahead of many Americans whose grasp of geography remains woefully limited.
If that sounds too harshly judgmental, it wasn’t that many years ago I was speaking by phone with a sheriff in New Jersey who I’d sent legal papers to be served on a local resident. Several weeks had elapsed and I asked him if he’d successfully served them. “Yes,” he replied. “I mailed you my affidavit of service two weeks ago. But you know how slow international mail can be.”
He was shocked to discover New Mexico was actually a state in the U.S. and even more shocked to find out it had been since 1912! I didn’t ask him how much international postage he’d put on the envelope.
But I digress.
With the manifold faults Trump and Vance can claim between them, the Harris campaign has latched onto “weird” as their epithet of choice to describe them. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure I’m not offended. Many people, some quite close, some family, think I’m weird. Come to think of it, most of my friends are pretty weird themselves. It seems too general. Better than deplorables, but not specific enough.
I’d borrow from Tammy Duckworth, Senator from Illinois. She lost both legs while a helicopter pilot during the Iraq War. Responding to Trump labelling her treasonous for not applauding during one of his State of the Union speeches, she took to calling him Cadet Bone Spurs, referencing one of his Vietnam draft deferments.
It’s a better label. Hits closer to home. Might make those vets who support him think twice. n
