AS LEGIONS OF SKIERS and boarders descend on Whistler Blackcomb for what is being described as the best opening in years, some are forced to miss out.
While thousands are eyeing mountains full of fresh powder, Lesley Broadhurst is staring down another year-plus of recovery time after being hit by a reckless skier last March.
“Yes, I will experience major FOMO this season, especially with all of this fresh snow falling,” Broadhurst said in an email. “But I
BY BRADEN DUPUIS
stay focused on my 12-18 month timeframe, and the significant progress I have made.”
Broadhurst was skiing at Whistler Blackcomb on March 7 when a man she estimates to be doing up to 65 km/h collided with her from behind.
The man only stopped momentarily, and left before identifying himself.
Broadhurst’s injuries were significant: a broken tibial plateau requiring 2.5 hours of surgery at Lions Gate Hospital, and a fractured right clavicle.
Major knee surgery on March 10 was followed by 12 weeks in a wheelchair at a North Vancouver rehab centre. Broadhurst started walking again in early June, and by August was able to start doing short, moderate hikes. She’s since moved up to gym workouts two or three times a week along with physio, weights and “many, many exercises … it’s a full-time job,” she said.
“Thanks to BC Health/VCH, I had a brilliant surgeon who put my knee back together, and I actually have no pain in the knee, so getting back on skis and all the other sports that I love to do looks promising… they are telling me. The reality timeline on this next huge step is 12-18 months, so skiing this season is unlikely.”
Given the seriousness of her clavicle fracture, Broadhurst is facing another surgery in January.
“Twelve to 18 months of my life will be the reality timeline here, before I can get back into the sports and activities I love to do… all for a guy who decided not to safely manoeuvre around me/give me a minimum of two to three feet—that’s all I needed,” she said, noting there was nobody around her on the wide section of Dave Murray Downhill she was traversing when the unknown man hit her.
For officials at WB, safety is always top of mind, and in a pre-opening day interview with Pique, COO Belinda Trembath wanted to “reassure locals we’re continuing to work very closely with our mountain safety team to provide a safe experience on mountain.”
From changes designed to create better access to the Catskinner loading area on Blackcomb for “first-timers skiing the Easy Out trail” to connecting the top of the Excelerator quad to a new Catskinner Express trail,
Trembath also mentioned a new mower WB acquired that covered ample terrain on both mountains this summer, which “really sets us up to provide that better-groomed product early in the season.”
But the mountain operator can only do so much. Staying safe on the mountains—and keeping others safe—comes down to personal responsibility.
Senior manager of patrol, Adam Mercer, advises skiers and riders to check conditions reports so they can visualize and mentally prepare before heading up.
“Once you get on the hill—you’ve heard this over and over again—it’s all about reading the signage … read the waiver, read the Alpine Responsibility Code,” Mercer told Pique at a pre-season ski-around. “And then beyond that, read the on-hill signage, your direction signage, look at the rope line. Can I duck this rope? Why is this rope here? Do I know what’s below here? Ask yourselves a lot of questions.”
And if you ever come up with questions
“My biggest disappointment—there has been minimal, ineffective follow-up, NO accountability, or consequences for this skier’s complete disregard for my safety on the mountain, and minimal efforts to try and find him,” she said, adding enforcing the code is one of Vail Resorts’ responsibilities.
“This is not happening—lack of patrollers and minimal marshalls (yellow-jackets); there are no consequences communicated or posted anywhere; there should be surveillance cameras on high-risk runs, there should be immediate procedures in place to find/ identify reckless skiers, etc.
“In short, there are MANY things they could be doing to significantly reduce the horrendous accidents caused by reckless/outof-control skiers and snowboarders… but of course, it comes at a significant cost, more safety staff and time. When I sign that waiver, I am assuming they are spending and doing everything possible to effectively manage safety on their slopes.”
[S]afety standards need to be government-regulated, with a set number of patrollers per skiers on-mountain, and accidents causing injury tracked and reported transparently, “so we, their ‘guests,’ can truly assess how safe their mountain is BEFORE signing that waiver.”
- LESLEY BROADHURST
Trembath said mountain safety staff were “really innovative this summer in thinking about how skiers circulate” on Blackcomb.
“It was particularly looking after those firsttimers and low to intermediate skiers that want to avoid mixing with folks coming out of our signature terrain park area.”
On the Whistler side, crews have made improvements around Olympic station “to improve the experience for first-timers midmountain,” she added.
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you or your group don’t have the answers to, you can always ask a mountain staffer, call dispatch, or stop a patroller.
The Alpine Responsibility Code states (among other things) that if you are involved in a collision or incident, you must share your contact info with those involved as well as a ski-area employee.
Broadhurst would likely have some small comfort in her recovery if the man who hit her abided by the code.
Broadhurst suggested safety standards need to be government-regulated, with a set number of patrollers per skiers on-mountain, and accidents causing injury tracked and reported transparently, “so we, their ‘guests,’ can truly assess how safe their mountain is BEFORE signing that waiver.”
In the absence of such changes, it all comes back to personal responsibility.
Be prepared, ski to conditions, manage your speed, and always adhere to the code. n
Do your part to protect Whistler’s bears
As a former Whistler Bear Aware coordinator, I am disheartened to see recent posts of people disrespecting the boundaries of bears in the village.
Bears are in a crucial time of their calorie consumption for the winter. In the summer, a black bear consumes 8,000 calories a day. They burn 6,000 a day and about 4,000 a day during hibernation. In the fall, their calorie intake jumps to 15,000 to 20,000 a day. This change of intake is called hyperphagia.
A sow not only has to gain enough weight for hibernation, but the number of cubs she will birth that winter greatly depends on her calorie intake in the fall. After mating in the spring, her eggs suspend in her system until November. At that time her body determines how many eggs will drop and develop depending on how much weight she has gained over the fall to support herself during hibernation, multiple cub birth in the cave, and for breast feeding.
The race is on in the fall to gain as much weight as possible.
The alpine is currently covered with snow so a good food supply is scarce. Now is when a tired bear will resort to a village to find garbage scraps and restaurant grease traps. He/she can gain
their calories a lot faster this way.
Therefore, not only is a sow trying to gain weight quickly to go hibernate, ovulate, and eventually give birth, the bear is also exhausted.
Imagine what these bears are going through.
Add in the mix, a drunken idiot in the village, who thinks it’s funny to stand close to a bear and poke at it verbally as well as get too close to it, which will eventually cause conflict. This causes so much stress for the bear and
can result in unnecessarily losing more calories and/or unnecessary human/bear conflict.
Relocation doesn’t work this time of the year because a bear will lose calories just to get back to their territory, which makes their situation worse and they will get into more conflict to find food. Or they will get so weak that if they run into a territorial male along the way, they could get killed.
I saw a video on Pique’s website of two men way too close to the bear AND the bear was eating something. It warned them as well.
They were lucky.
The three major things to look for when you run into a bear are:
1. Is there food nearby or is it eating?
2. Does it have cubs nearby?
3. Are you blocking their exit?
This is all they care about. Do not bother them or block them from these needs.
A bear can run 35 m.p.h., whereas an average human can run four to six m.p.h. So trying to outrun a bear is not possible. Even when they are slower and tired in the fall.
Bears are more predictable than dogs. They will warn you with a slap on the ground and grunting. If that doesn’t work, they will fake charge you. They are very fair with their warnings and usually on average will give off about three to five warnings. If you are very close to their cubs or food, you may not get a warning.
If you don’t listen to them, eventually they will hurt you. When this happens, the bear is destroyed and future cubs within her. All for what? Some entertainment and a FB video post?
If you encounter a black bear:
1. Don’t run away. Running will trigger the bear’s predatory instincts and make an attack more likely.
2. Slowly move sideways away from the bear.
3. If the bear follows, stop moving and hold your ground. Put your arms up in the air to look bigger.
4. Talk to the bear as you walk away slowly. Tell them they are good, that you are leaving, and that they have nothing to worry about.
Make as much noise as possible from your mouth. I.e. talk or sing to the bear. Or shout,“go away bear!” They do not relate humans to bear bells.
Do not tease it or stop too closely to film it. Absolutely do not feed bears. This conditions them to humans and results in conflict.
Look to make sure you are not blocking the bear from food/exit/cubs.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
that leaders were accountable to the people. By law, councils provide audits to the Indian Affairs minister. By comparison, most First Nations people have never seen an audit. Thus if information is power, band councils have too much.
Real government requires accountability to the governed. It means that the governed must pay for government. So bands should have the resources and authority to allow them to generate the wealth needed to sustain “real” government.
Recent federal policy allows off-reserve
“We live in bear country. This is their land. Respect and love them.”
- ELENA BUTLER
We live in bear country. This is their land. Respect and love them. Most of all, enjoy their magnificent beauty and power.
For more info on bears visit bearsmart.com.
Elena Butler // Kamloops
Indian Act is an anachronism
You say that something is an anachronism when you think that it is out of date or old-fashioned. First Nations people seek accountability. Most will tell you their band councils have too much power. In reality, council authority is delegated and therefore limited.
Real power stays with the Canadian government. In delegating powers to bands, the government gave no thought to ensuring
First Nations people to participate in band elections. This, however, does not affect “custom” rules. These include hereditary systems that are determined by birth and gender. Federal policy supports hereditary systems, denying accountability through elections.
I have studied hereditary systems and the title was always passed down to the oldest child, regardless of gender.
For Canadian politics and government, we should be looking at Nunavut’s style of government. No political parties. Regional elected candidates move to Iqaluit to form government, and they choose a leader together. The premier today comes from Grise Fiord, the most northerly town in Canada.
Cecil Ledoux // Shalalth n
Backcountry Update
AS OF WEDNESDAY, NOV. 27
The winter season is off to an encouraging start, with backcountry recreationists busy getting after the early season snow and leaving behind the memory of the lessthan-stellar 2023-24 season. A storm pulse moving through the region Thursday night is expected to replenish the powder supply while reinvigorating surface instabilities like wind slabs for the weekend.
Earlier this week, large surface hoar crystals were reported all over the region. When new slabs form over these fragile crystals, the snowpack will likely be quite touchy. The areas likely to pose the highest avalanche hazard are sheltered areas where surface hoar was able to
develop, combined with leeward slopes prone to wind-loading.
It’s not the type of layer we like to see in the snowpack. However, the warming event forecast for the first week of December could be as much a blessing to our young snowpack as it is a curse to skiing and riding conditions. Let’s hope the warm temperatures allow a natural avalanche cycle to flush the problem out.
At this early stage of the season, avalanches should be considered especially dangerous. In most areas, there is still a lot of ground roughness that threatens to increase the severity of potential injuries caused by even small avalanches. n
CONDITIONS MAY VARY AND CAN CHANGE RAPIDLY Check for the most current conditions before heading out into the backcountry. Daily updates for the areas adjacent to Whistler Blackcomb are available at 604-938-7676, or surf to www.whistlerblackcomb.com/mountain-info/ snow-report#backcountry or go to www.avalanche.ca.
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.
ONE WEEK AFTER OPENING day in Whistler, and the reviews are still rolling in.
“Best one in years!” texted Pique columnist and longtime local mountain enjoyer, The Outsider Vince Shuley.
“The alpine coverage is really good. Still needs more snow for full-send conditions, but it’s the base we need.”
Seeing as how I’m still a few hundred
BY BRADEN DUPUIS
squats short of being in bend-and-send shape, I’ll take Vince’s word for it. But at least I know his word about these things is good.
As of Tuesday, Nov. 26, Whistler Blackcomb had a base depth of about 125 centimetres, with a total of 255 cm falling so far this season.
And on Wednesday, Nov. 27, as Pique went to press, WB opened Whistler’s Harmony Zone, followed by the Crystal Zone on Blackcomb a day later.
That brought skiable terrain to 3,300 acres (1,335 hectares) spread across the two local mountains.
There wasn’t a ton of fresh snow in the local long-range forecast as of Pique’s press time, but according to UBC Okanagan
researcher Michael Pidwirny, the outlook is favourably frosty for the months ahead.
“The precipitation forecast is very, very good for both November, which we’re seeing right now, and for December,” Pidwirny told Pique last week. “For January and February, they predict the snow will be heaviest just to the south of Whistler in Washington State. But that’s so close that it will probably have an effect.”
across the province are spinning. By the time this week’s Pique hits the stands Nov. 29, Sasquatch Mountain Resort, Baldy Mountain and Fernie Alpine will all be open, followed by Mount Timothy Recreation Resort and Revelstoke on Nov. 30.
Five more are scheduled to open a week later, on Dec. 6, and by mid-December, every ski area in the province should be open for business.
“Everyone has a ton of snow ... it’s snowing like crazy. I mean this stuff is white gold.”
- MICHAEL J. BALLINGALL
ACROSS B.C.
According to onthesnow.com, there were seven ski areas to ride in B.C. as of Nov. 26, but only Powder King, north of Prince George, was fully open.
Powder King was also the only ski area boasting a deeper base than WB, at about 150 cm.
The other B.C. ski areas currently open include Big White, Cypress Mountain, Grouse Mountain, SilverStar and Sun Peaks.
But it won’t be long until more lifts
When Big White opened Nov. 22, its alpine snow base had reached 103 centimetres, conditions so good they attracted a record 2,500 visitors. Michael J. Ballingall, the resort’s senior vice-president, told Glacier Media’s Stefan Labbé the opening day snow was among the best the resort has had in its 61-year history.
“Everyone has a ton of snow,” he said, rattling off a list of resorts across the province. “It’s snowing like crazy. I mean this stuff is white gold.”
Keep it coming, Mother Nature.
MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR
Looking south of the border, there were no fewer than 46 ski areas to choose from this week, with more scheduled to open as Pique went to press.
Conditions across those roughly four dozen ski areas vary, of course, but none were reporting a deeper base than Mount Baker in Washington state, which boasted a base depth of up to 208 cm on Nov. 26.
But according to U.S. forecasters, alpine enthusiasts in Utah and Colorado will have much to be thankful for this American Thanksgiving (assuming they have good tires and aren’t travelling too far for the turkey).
Mountains across Utah were under a winter weather advisory through the evening of Nov. 26, with up to 20 cm expected in Park City. Some mountains in Colorado, meanwhile, were expecting up to 36 cm over the Thanksgiving week.
But of course, whether it’s further abroad or here in B.C., heavy snow means more than good skiing.
“We’re particularly worried because we’ll see the most dangerous avalanche conditions we’ve seen so far this season when more people than usual will be getting out to recreate because of the holiday,” Colorado Avalanche Information Director Ethan Greene told the Summit Daily this week.
Wherever you’re skiing, stay safe! n
More than a third of spinal cord injuries from mountain biking happened in Whistler
UBC STUDY FINDS MOUNTAIN BIKING ECLIPSED SPINAL CORD INJURY RATE OF OTHER HIGH-CONTACT SPORTS
BY BRANDON BARRETT
A NEW REPORT looking at the prevalence of spinal cord injuries from mountain biking in B.C. found more than a third of those injuries over a 14-year span occurred in the Whistler Mountain Bike Park.
The findings come from a University of British Columbia (UBC) study, published this month in Neurotrauma Reports, that analyzed 58 spinal cord injuries sustained while mountain biking in the province between 2008 and 2022. Twenty-one individuals, or 36 per cent, were injured in Whistler, the epicentre of downhill biking in B.C., and home to North America’s largest bike park.
In lieu of an interview, Whistler Blackcomb, operators of the local bike park, sent a statement shortly before Pique’s press deadline. “The safety of our guests is our top priority, no matter the season or sport,” it read. “Our Whistler Mountain Bike Park is no exception and our patrol, mountain operations, bike school and trail crews work hard to deliver a world-class experience founded on safety.”
In an email, Dr. Fern von der Porten, emergency physician at the Whistler Health Care Centre, expressed gratitude for the research of lead author Dr. Brian Kwon and his team. “My hope is that we can take this further to provide education to the riders in
PHOTO BY ROBIN O’NEILL / @WHISTLERBIKEPRK
our community and use this opportunity to learn more about how we can reduce risk by studying equipment, trail design, and rider factors such as fatigue,” she added.
The UBC study paints a picture of a growing sport with an extremely high level of inherent risk, especially when compared to other high-contact sports. The injury rate from mountain biking in B.C. is seven times higher than skiing and snowboarding. Over the same 14-year span the researchers studied, there were three spinal cord injuries recorded in B.C. from ice hockey, a sport considerably more popular than mountain biking. In some years, the number of mountain-biking
number of people to be paralyzed from mountain biking?”
Of the 58 injuries recorded, 27 were motor-complete spinal cord injuries, while 31 were incomplete spinal cord injuries in which the individuals maintained some level of motor function.
Beyond the “almost unquantifiable human cost” of these injuries, Kwon said there are significant impacts to B.C.’s healthcare system. Collectively, the injuries cost an estimated $194.5 million, once health-care, rehabilitation, patient expenses, and other costs such as productivity loss were factored in.
Although the study didn’t drill down into
“We saw some very experienced riders. We don’t perceive it’s necessarily people doing big air, 40-foot jumps. There are some of those, but typically it’s people coming down at speed and they hit something and go over their handlebars.”
- BRIAN KWON
injuries in B.C. was comparable to—or higher than—those stemming from amateur football across the entire U.S., a country where more than 1.1 million people play the sport at the high school or college level.
“It’s a high number of spinal cord injuries, and one of the big issues is just how catastrophic these injuries are,” said Kwon, a professor of orthopaedics and Canada research chair in spinal cord injury at UBC. “Given the high number of injuries relative to skiing, ice hockey and American football … the question becomes: what is an acceptable
the specifics of each injury, a majority of them—77.5 per cent—involved the rider going over their handlebars, while 12.1 per cent involved a collision. Another 8.8 per cent were injured by other means. Most riders—86.3 per cent—were wearing a helmet when they were injured, while 9.1 per cent wore both a helmet and body protection. Those injured were overwhelmingly male, at 93 per cent, with an average age of 35.5.
“While we don’t have a lot of granular detail about the context of these accidents, what is clear is it’s a range of expertise,” Kwon
said. “We saw some very experienced riders. We don’t perceive it’s necessarily people doing big air, 40-foot jumps. There are some of those, but typically it’s people coming down at speed and they hit something and go over their handlebars.”
Given the increasing popularity of the sport, Martin Littlejohn, executive director of the Western Canada Mountain Bike Tourism Association, said it’s imperative the biking community have a conversation about personal risk assessment, particularly with the rise of mountain biking influencers on social media.
“Those are all highly trained pro athletes, and I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between them and your average rider who sees those things that look cool and amazing on social media but don’t align with their actual skill level,” he said. “It definitely has to evoke some kind of response from the mountain biking community, or at least organizations like ours that have a chance to get some awareness out there and help people put things in perspective for their own safety’s sake.”
Skill level is of course only one part of the equation. Trail layout, bike design, and protective gear are other possible factors, and ones park managers and bike manufacturers are incentivized to take seriously, Littlejohn said. He is also hopeful new trail standards being developed will lend further consistency to trail ratings across B.C. once rolled out in 2025. “That should help to some degree with safety,” said Littlejohn. “A blue trail in Whistler should reflect a blue trail somewhere in the Okanagan.”
In its statement, Whistler Blackcomb noted how its progressive trail design “caters
MOUNTAIN BIKE MECCA Of the 58 spinal cord injuries from mountain biking recorded in B.C. between 2008 and 2022, 21 happened at the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, a new study finds.
NEWS WHISTLER
RMOW details $38M in capital spending for 2025
DRAFT PROJECTS BUDGET AIMS TO BALANCE SPENDING ON NEW ASSETS WITH MAINTENANCE OF EXISTING ONES
BY BRANDON BARRETT
EVERY HOMEOWNER has a balance to strike when deciding how to spend money on their house. Do you spring for that modern new addition or invest in sprucing up what you already have?
In the case of the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), it’s a bit of Column A, a bit of Column B.
“It is a complex house that we need to keep in order,” said Councillor Arthur De Jong at a Nov. 19 committee of the whole meeting, where staff presented the 2025 draft projects budget review report.
Breaking down the $38.5 million in capital spending for 2025, the report painted a picture of an aging resort that will require major upkeep in the coming years.
“The care and maintenance is not reducing over time. It’s actually increasing,” said municipal CAO Ginny Cullen to elected officials. “We’re constantly balancing. How do we ensure that we are looking after the assets of the community well … and then also staying aware [of] where there may be broadening and unmet needs in the community?”
Instead of categorizing proposed expenditures by department, the RMOW this year divided them into different focus areas. One of those is asset maintenance and capital renewal, which totalled roughly $6,402,199 for 2025, 15 per cent higher than the municipality’s five-year average. The big-ticket projects in this category include $1.29 million for road upgrades, $620,000 for upgrades to municipal hall that will address fire code issues, $490,000 for improvements to Whistler’s public works yard, and $458,749 for infrastructure renewal, upgrades or replacement at various recreation facilities. The projects budget earmarks $44,059,917 for asset maintenance and capital renewal from 2026 through 2029.
In its projects report, the RMOW conceded the money proposed for repair and replacement in 2025 is, for many assets, less than the “healthy amount appropriate to a good long-term outcome, but the proposed work plan makes good use of the existing team’s capacity and the current available funds.” Given that reality, some projects have been put off for 2025, like planned upgrades to
to beginners through advanced riders,” and urged riders to familiarize themselves with its Bike Park Orientation Guide, which includes an ability level guide and a trail progression scale that lays out a recommended route, beyond the standard green circle, blue square, black diamond classifications. WB also has bike guides stationed in different areas to offer guidance to guests on the appropriate trails for their ability.
“Over the years, we’ve worked hard to improve the riding experience for our guests, making safety enhancements annually,” the
the Meadow Park Sports Centre.
“Meadow Park [Sports Centre] isn’t listed as a big key project in 2025, but it is a substantial part of the cost in future years, because we know there is some work to be done there,” said GM of infrastructure services James Hallisey.
The budgetary balancing act the RMOW is trying to strike will likely mean increasing contributions to its reserves in the coming years. Contributions to both its general capital and transportation works reserve fund are proposed to increase from just below $8 million last year, to more than $12 million in 2029.
The report described reserve contributions being designed along a “middle path,” so that, by 2029, funding will equal the anticipated cost of asset degradation but won’t be enough to offset expenditures between 2024 and ’28.
Because reserve contributions and project spending don’t have to match in a given year, municipalities have the flexibility to spend on assets as needed without major impacts on tax rates. Project spending can increase, with little effect on taxes, while reserve contributions remain stable.
“This behaviour can continue for years before the effect on reserve balances becomes evident,” explained chief financial officer Carlee Price. “It also means there must necessarily be periods of correction where the contribution increases with no accompanying increase in the number of new goodies, and this is where we find ourselves today.”
In October, municipal staff floated a 9.5-percent property tax increase for next year.
The RMOW slated a similar amount for new amenities and meaningful upgrades in 2025— $6,427,815—as it did for asset maintenance and capital renewal. Almost a third of that amount, $4,480,000, is proposed for the redevelopment of Whistler’s public safety building, which will increase capacity for Whistler RCMP and the local fire department.
Another $18,385,922 has been proposed for utilities renewal and upgrades in 2025, and more than $80 million for 2026 through ’29. The wastewater treatment plant makes up a large chunk of expenditures in this category, with nine different projects planned in 2025 totalling $6.8 million. The largest single spend for next year,
statement continued.
Kwon said the study should galvanize the biking community and wider industry in B.C.
“This wasn’t meant to say, ‘Oh, people shouldn’t be mountain biking.’ I don’t think that’s a message that would be effective,” he said. “We need to have the people who are really close to the knowledge—the mountain bike community, the people at bike parks, the people in government—to be at the table.
“If B.C. is going to be the mecca of mountain biking, then we should also be known for promoting the best practices for safety.”
Two Whistlerites honoured by CASI
GREG DANIELLS AND YUKIKO KAWADA TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF SNOWBOARD INSTRUCTORS HALL OF FAME
BY LIZ MCDONALD
TWO WHISTLERITES are about to be inducted into the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors (CASI) Hall of Fame.
Greg Daniells and Yukiko Kawada have devoted decades of their lives to instructing the next generation of snowboarders and instructors. They come to the distinction with different paths but carry the same passionate pursuit for education and representing Canada’s first national snowboard instructor association. A ceremony for Kawada and Daniells is slated for Dec. 4 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Whistler Brewing Co.
THE ‘RELENTLESS’ GREG DANIELLS
Greg Daniells has been with CASI since the organization’s early days, joining in 1994 as B.C.’s regional coordinator when the scrappy association first opened membership. It’s a position he’s held until this year, a testament to his commitment to the sport and the organization.
Along with his storied career with CASI, Daniells has owned his own summer snowboard camps, is a published author in household names like Transworld
Snowboarding and Snowboarder Magazine, and he wrote the first ever snowboard instructional book.
If that wasn’t enough, he also holds the distinction of being the first of two snowboard instructors hired by Whistler Mountain way back in 1989.
But to get to where he is now, we have to go back to the beginning. Daniells knew he wanted to make a full-time living out of a seasonal job, and he worked “relentlessly” to make that happen.
“I wanted to make a living, and because I love the sport, I wanted to work full-time. It would allow me to not just make a living, but give back to the sport and make it as good as I can,” he said.
RMOW PROJECTS
SEND IT Yukiko Kawada has taught snowboarding at Whistler Blackcomb since 1996, and she’s being honoured for her contribution to the sport by the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors.
FROM PAGE 13
$4,345,922, was proposed for water pump station upgrades meant to enhance corrosion protection and water-use efficiency. Next on the list was $2,525,000 for sewer system repairs and upgrades.
Fleet and equipment expenditures for 2025 total $2,664,766, the bulk of which— $2.28 million—is slated for fleet replacement, including two new fire trucks.
Climate mitigation and adaptation accounts for $2,414,216 in project spending, of which the biggest line items are $875,000 for Fitzsimmons
Creek flood protection, and $677,182 for wildfire mitigation, which includes fuel-thinning and updating the RMOW’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
For technology infrastructure and modernization, the municipality has proposed $1,280,065 in spending, with $267,565 to upgrade RMOW software applications, $254,900 for computer systems replacement, and $251,000 for maintenance and replacement of network equipment.
“I was relentless. The hard part about the ski business and snowboard business is it’s seasonal, [but] I was 100-per-cent committed to having a year-round job.
“If you want to work in the snowboard business year-round … you have to be a little bit creative. Maybe you have a separate side business, or maybe your business is such that it’s big enough that it is year-round.”
His writing career, which formed part of his income, was well-matched with his value of sharing knowledge that’s useful for wide audiences.
“I’ve always wanted to share the information with people, whether it was
Staff proposed $600,000 for strategies, studies and policy development, with nearly half of that going to planning initiatives, including housing initiatives, the Creek West Neighbourhood Plan, and updates to the Official Community Plan.
Going to smart tourism and community engagement, staff proposed spending $367,000, with the biggest ticket item the $100,000 slated for the maintenance and development of the RMOW’s website. n
PHOTO COURTESY OF YUKIKO KAWADA
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Image by Oisin McHugh
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RMOW agrees to pay $95K over bike crash lawsuit
MUNICIPALITY WAS SUED OVER 2021 CYCLING ACCIDENT AT LOST LAKE PARK
BY BRANDON BARRETT
THE RESORT MUNICIPALITY of Whistler (RMOW) has agreed to pay more than $95,000 to two parties involved in a civil suit over a 2021 bike accident in Lost Lake Park, according to court records.
Vancouver lawyer Gerald Cuttler filed a civil claim against the municipality in 2022 after he was allegedly injured the prior summer. The suit said Cuttler was riding his bike on Lost Lake Road on or about July 25, 2021 when he approached a crosswalk and collided with a thin, unmarked rope strung to a sandwich board and was thrown off his bike.
Among other injuries, the suit said Cuttler suffered a broken left clavicle that required surgery; stiffness and restriction of his left shoulder and arm; and bruised and painful ribs.
He sought both general and special damages, as well as health-care and other costs.
In its initial response, the RMOW denied
CASI
any negligence or breach of duty, arguing the roadway was “reasonably safe” and did not constitute a dangerous condition or unusual danger.
Things took a turn when the RMOW filed an application to be granted leave from the case and add a third party, Whistler resident Liz Barrett, as a defendant. As part of a service agreement, Barrett was contracted by the RMOW to work at the site where trails are closed every summer to allow for the migration of thousands of small Western toads. Barrett’s duties included informing the public of all closures and detour routes and supervising toad-moving activities.
In its application, the RMOW argued Barrett “owed a duty of care to post reasonable warning signs of the Rope and Obstacle that was placed across Lost Lake Road.”
In a mutual release agreement filed this month, the RMOW agreed to pay Cuttler $90,095.91 and Barrett $5,032.85. A mutual release, a legal document used to settle disputes, is not an admission of liability. n
INDUCTEES FROM PAGE 14
a snowboard tip article, whether it was a feature article, or whether it was an interview with just explaining the sport in some way, representing it in a positive way,” Daniells said. “So, print media was a way to reach more people and promote the sport.”
A CROSS-CULTURAL TEACHER, YUKIKO KAWADA
For Yukiko Kawada, her relationship to Whistler echoes many others who first set eyes on the ski town. She moved here in 1996-97 from Japan to spend a season.
“Of course, I decided to stay. Typical,” she said.
While on her working visa, she wanted to work for the mountain but couldn’t afford a ski pass. By happenstance, she already had her CASI level 1, having taken the course the year before when she first visited Whistler. The resort was hiring, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Kawada has worked as a snowboard instructor and trainer for the resort since 1996.
“I really liked the idea of meeting people from all over the world. And I liked snowboarding,” she said. “I noticed I was good at teaching it and I really enjoyed it. It was a good challenge at first because of my language skills, but also the social aspect of meeting people and learning about their cultures helped me keep going.”
Kawada can teach in Japanese, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, and she’s travelled to Chile, Argentina, France, Austria and Japan to impart her knowledge.
In 2016, she was Trainer of the Year at Whistler Blackcomb.
She said the induction caught her off guard.
“I was quite surprised. I know people who
are inducted into CASI Hall of Fame, [like] Greg Daniells is a legend,” she said.
THIRTY YEARS OF CASI
This year, CASI celebrates its 30th anniversary. Jeff Chandler, executive director for the association, said it’s an achievement.
“We’re a snowboard-only organization, which is pretty unique in the world of teaching bodies, because most snowboard instructor certification systems [are] under the umbrella of a ski-instructor certification. So, we’re really proud of the 30 years that we’ve had of continuous improvement,” Chandler said.
The organization has grown along with the sport itself.
“Back in the early ‘90s, when snowboarding started, there was always the comments like, ‘How long is it going to be around? Is it a trend?’” Chandler said. “It hasn’t been a fad or a trend. Here we are, 30 years later and stronger than ever.”
Choosing members for CASI’s Hall of Fame comes down to the impact they’ve had on the association and the industry as a whole, according to Chandler.
“Greg Daniells was our regional coordinator for British Columbia for 30 years, and was also the original snowboard instructor at Whistler Blackcomb, which is pretty incredible … he was the first one of thousands to follow after him,” he said.
“Yuki as well, she’s been a Whistler Blackcomb employee for [almost three decades] and has been really impactful within CASI in terms of driving our course content and providing feedback and input into training and certification courses.”
Read more at casi-acms.com/hall-of-fame. n
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ParticipatingWhistlerbusinesseswillgive5%of theirgrosssales to theWhistlerCommunity Foundation’s Community Fund.Gifts to the Community Fundsupportflexiblegrantingthat addresses evolving communityneeds by supportingcharitiesmakingapresent-day impact.
make a shoppingplan
More than 10K Whistlerites now attached to a family doctor
WHISTLER 360’S PRIMARY CARE MODEL A BOON FOR RECRUITING DOCTORS AND NURSE PRACTITIONERS
BY BRANDON BARRETT
A NEW REPORT from Whistler 360 Health shows how the shift to a primary care model has paid dividends for a resort community that has struggled for years to connect patients with family doctors.
As of May 31, Whistler 360 counted more than 10,000 local patients attached to care, up from about 6,000 when the society first launched.
“We keep pushing to see if there are more people that want it, and we now have the provincial registry and our own list as well,” said Carol Leacy, board chair of Whistler 360 and 2024 Citizen of the Year.
“We’ve worked our way through most of the people who have come directly to us and we’re still taking on patients, but certainly the big rush has stemmed.”
Emerging out of a Primary Care Task Force formed in 2019 to assess the impacts of Whistler’s family doctor shortage, Whistler 360 has completely transformed how primary care is delivered in the community. Ultimately landing on a non-profit model that took the day-to-day administration of a traditional family practice out of the hands of physicians so they could spend more time on patient care, Whistler 360 merged with the resort’s
sole remaining family practice, the Whistler Medical Clinic, on Jan. 1, 2023.
“One of the things we hear from the doctors is it used to be very stressful and there was a lot of saying no to people. ‘No, we don’t have any appointments,’ or, ‘We’re not taking on new patients,’ and it’s tiresome to have to always say no. So, the fact they can attach new patients and fit people in makes a world of
last year. It also employs 10 administrative staff. That’s on top of the 5.25 full-time-equivalent physicians employed at Creekside Health, with another slated to join the clinic in April. That will bring Whistler’s total number of full-timeequivalent physicians and nurse practitioners to 17, one more than the number the task force deemed was necessary to meet the community’s needs when it was formed in 2019.
as many doctors and nurse practitioners as we have.”
- CAROL LEACY
difference,” Leacy said.
With the new model, as well as expanded space, both at the Whistler Medical Clinic (renamed the Whistler 360 Health Primary Care Clinic), and its satellite location on Main Street, the society has been able to recruit and retain several new primary care practitioners to the resort. Currently, Whistler 360 counts 10.75 full-time-equivalent physicians and nurse practitioners, up from 8.5
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Even against the society’s ambitious goals, the recruitment efforts have exceeded expectations.
“It’s just coming up on two years in January and I don’t think any of us expected we would be able to add as many doctors and nurse practitioners as we have,” said Leacy. “When we look back at our original projections, we were hopeful to get to this number in five years, not in two.”
Another core tenet of Whistler 360’s mission that has helped in recruitment efforts is its team-based longitudinal care model that brings different care providers under one roof.
“Everyone seems very happy. Judging it by how the doctors and nurse practitioners are doing, we’ve had very positive feedback from them,” said Leacy, who added Whistler 360 hasn’t seen any staff turnover in its two years of operations.
The society’s model is freeing up space at Whistler’s urgent care centre as well. A study last year found that roughly 1,600 fewer patients had sought acute care at the Whistler Health Care Centre over a 12-month period because they can now access primary care through Whistler 360. That resulted in an estimated $650,000 in savings to the province.
Currently, the society is exploring the option of adding a registered nurse in practice to the team, which would “expand doctors’ capacity so they can see more people,” Leacy said.
Whistler 360 continues to push for additional space, whether within the Whistler Health Care Centre or in a standalone building. Leacy said the society has assurances from Vancouver Coastal Health that Whistler 360 will be considered in its future expansion plans as the regional health authority continues work on its long-term master plan for the corridor, expected late next year. n
SLRD receives funding for disaster monitoring at Mount Meager
THE FUNDS WILL PROVIDE A NETWORK OF TECHNOLOGY TO TRACK AN IMPENDING NATURAL DISASTER
BY LIZ MCDONALD
LANDSLIDE MONITORING at Mount Meager (Q ’ welq ’ welústen) is getting a helping hand thanks to a grant from the Union of BC Municipalities.
Mount Meager is a dormant volcano that is geologically active and prone to landslides. In 2010, an estimated 50 million cubic metres of debris flowed down to Capricorn Creek and the Lillooet River Valley when the southern peak broke off. At least 13 people were evacuated, and 1,500 residents were under an evacuation alert from the Meadows and Mount Currie. The funding will provide seismometers, infrasound acoustic sensors and cameras for day and nighttime, creating a network that can “track seismic activity, slope instability and weather conditions,” according to a release from the SquamishLillooet Regional District (SLRD).
That network provides real-time data and eventually will help governments warn communities downstream. The project is led by the SLRD and supported by the Lil’wat Nation, the Village of Pemberton, Pemberton Valley Diking District (PVDD), Innergex and Simon Fraser University (SFU).
“This project moves us towards the creation of an early warning system and
helps fulfil our goals of reducing disaster risk and advancing climate adaptation through collaboration and data-driven decisionmaking,” said SLRD CAO, Heather Paul. “The volatility of Q ’ welq ’ welústen/Mount Meager, combined with limited monitoring outside of academic research, presents a clear need for this initiative to support community safety and resilience, protect provincial infrastructure, and guide future planning and emergency management.”
Other ongoing work at Mount Meager
includes landscape restoration to reduce flooding, funded by B.C’s Community Emergency Preparedness Fund.
Once built, PVDD and SFU will receive information from the network using Innergex’s (a renewable energy company) internet and power infrastructure.
Glyn Williams-Jones, a professor at SFU’s Department of Earth Sciences and co-director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research, said in the release the work is necessary partly because climate change is further
destabilizing the slope.
“Q ’ welq ’ welústen/Mount Meager’s slopes have become increasingly unstable, partly due to climate change, underscoring the importance of this enhanced monitoring,” he said.
Data will also be transmitted to the Canadian Natural Hazards Knowledge Portal, a website SFU is developing that provides resources for public, corporate and government officials.
“On behalf of the Líl’wat Nation, I am very much in support of an early warning system located in the area of Q ’ welq ’ welústen (Mount Meager). This early warning system is vital for the monitoring of ongoing natural actions that continue in the upper valley,” said Lil’wat Chief Dean Nelson.
“We only have to remember the Capricorn slide to realize the extent and potential of similar occurrences. The early warning system is of vital importance to all our well-being. We look forward and support the collaboration with Innergex, Simon Fraser University, Village of Pemberton and Pemberton Valley Diking District.”
Nods for the program also came from Jen Ford, chair of the SLRD, Kevin Clark, manager of the Pemberton Valley Diking District, Pemberton Mayor Mike Richman and Eric Ayotte, operations and maintenance manager of hydroelectric energy at Innergex. n
WARNING SIGNS The Mount Meager landslide in 2010 caused significant debris flow down Capricorn Creek.
PHOTO BY FRANK BAUMAN
Naturespeak: The rise and fall of the Coast Mountains
BY STEPHEN CARNEY
THERE ARE LOTS of fascinating landslides along the Sea to Sky corridor, each with their own geological history and characteristics, and it’s a great place to see them. Landslides have always been part of life in the Coast Mountains, and are included in First Nations oral history and place names, such as Mount Currie near Pemberton, known as Ts’zil, or “slides on the mountain” in the Lillooet language. There are literally hundreds of documented landslides sometimes causing devastating property damage and loss of life, with more than a hundred fatalities in the past 170 years.
Landslides are not an abstract to Sea to Sky residents; there seems to be a large one every few years. Landslides usually occur due to a combination of factors such as steep, unstable mountain slopes or weak rocks which are then triggered by an event like an earthquake or heavy rainfall that pushes the slope over the edge causing it to fail, like the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” This knowledge is not very reassuring as you drive up Highway 99 past Porteau Cove, as rain cascades in torrents over massive granite blocks held in place by tiny steel anchors.
In southern B.C. some of the factors causing landslides can be directly attributed
to the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a dynamic and destructive plate boundary located just west of Vancouver Island, that produces lots of ground-shaking earthquakes that can initiate landslides. This plate boundary has also forced the Coast Mountain rocks upwards, creating a steep, mountainous terrain prone to landslides. There are also about 30 volcanoes, including Mount Garibaldi, Cayley and Meager, which occasionally blow their tops, and have steep slopes formed from weak
rocks that have historically produced massive, dangerous landslides.
Glaciation has dramatically changed the Coast Mountains, leaving us with very steep mountain bowls and U-shaped valleys prone to failure and thick piles of sediment ground out by Ice Age glaciers. Southern B.C. is also wet, with about 1,500 millimetres of precipitation annually—which can promote slippage, loosen or dislodge rocks, and saturate the earth triggering soils or debris flows.
Humans can also cause landslides as we change the landscape to fit our needs. This human intervention is responsible for a spate of landslides, especially around Porteau Cove and Lions Bay during the building booms in the 1950s, ’80s and ’90s. Thankfully much of the risk is now largely mitigated. Logging activities, which remove forest cover and increase water runoff, also commonly produce mud/debris slides.
In recent years there is also a growing concern about the effects of climate change on mountain stability. In the Whistler area the permafrost level has historically been about 1,800m above sea level, but due to global warming the permafrost is starting to melt, reducing cohesion, weakening outcrops, and releasing water promoting failure. There have been multiple examples of this in recent years, including the Joffre Peak rock avalanche in 2019 that sent 6 million cubic metres of debris into the valley.
Sir Isaac Newton famously commented whilst sitting under an apple tree, “what goes up must come down.” Whether it’s an apple or a pile of rocks that could fill BC Place, gravity prevails, and the Coast Mountains are collapsing. I wonder if global warming will increase the frequency and rate of collapse? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Naturespeak is prepared by the Whistler Naturalists. To learn more about Whistler’s natural world, go to whistlernaturalists.ca. n
DUST IN THE WIND Dust plumes rise over two massive rock avalanches at Joffre Peak north of Pemberton in May 2019, resulting from glacial retreat and degraded permafrost due to global warming.
PHOTO BY STEPHEN CARNEY
Tales from the trail: Whistler seniors build new hiking route
NAMED EAST GREEN TRAIL, THE BUILDERS ENVISION THE PATH EVENTUALLY CONNECTING OVER NAIRN FALLS
BY LIZ MCDONALD
WHEN DOUG WYLIE dreamed up a final stretch of the Sea to Sky Trail between Whistler and Pemberton, he and a group of likeminded adventurers sought a path that was both scenic and easy to use for the average person.
Over countless trips, the group of seniors crisscrossed the landscape on the east side of Highway 99 between Gord’s Garden and Nairn Falls, finding stretches of forest service roads, marshy ground and mossy rock. Eventually, they found a path following abandoned logging roads at the base of Mount Currie, going up and down a hill that reached the side of Green River. From there, the trail meanders along the river and eventually approaches Nairn Falls.
Finding a route for the trail provided a proof of concept, and so Wylie and other members of a group called Citizens for Sea to Sky proposed the route to the SquamishLillooet Regional District (SLRD) in the fall of 2022.
However, there was one problem. The SLRD already had a trail in mind for the final stretch of the Sea to Sky Trail, on the west side of Highway 99. While Citizens for Sea to Sky argued their route was less industrial than the one proposed by the SLRD, which comes close to Highway 99, the CN Rail line, a gun range and Sea to Sky
Soils, ultimately, the district was too far along in consultation to switch to a new route.
Staff for the SLRD noted at an Oct. 26, 2022 meeting Wylie’s proposal could be built as an addition to the Sea to Sky Trail in the future.
“Route B alignment, as suggested by the Citizens for Sea to Sky group, [can] be retained for consideration of a future addition to the Sea to Sky Trail as funding permits,” according to the meeting notes.
With that note in mind, Wylie and fellow Citizens decided to build the trail anyway, hoping funding would come. They presented
50 per cent of hiking terrain was already ready, thanks to old FSRs, forming linkages and reducing the overall work required by trail builders.
“We didn’t have to build anything except clear limbs out of the way,” Wylie said.
The route is 7.2 km long and follows close enough to Green River that it’s either within sight or earshot the whole way, which Wylie said not only provides a natural beauty but also makes the trail easy to follow.
“You are either within sight of the river or you can hear it, and you don’t really need
“Eight or nine of us were working on this for two years. The average age was probably 75...”
- DOUG WYLIE
their work to the Mature Action Community (MAC) at the Whistler Public Library Oct. 9.
“Eight or nine of us were working on this for two years. The average age was probably 75, and there was a couple of people who behave like they’re only 65,” Wylie said jokingly of the work crew.
Using hand tools, they left minimal impact on the land. The first 600 metres passes over muddy terrain, and to improve the walking experience, the crew used dead cedar, building a floating boardwalk. About
a map to follow it at all. I’ve taken down a lot of flagging because it’s pretty self-evident,” he said.
The trail is approachable for hikers who want an easier day outside exploring nature, and the builders took care to create ample seating for rest stops along the way.
They’ve even created a log love seat that fits two hikers side by side with views of Green River.
Don Armour, a member of MAC who helped build the trail, said a big appeal comes
down to the easy walk for all ages.
“The trail is fairly level a long way out. So, an older person that can’t walk a long way could go quite a way in and enjoy the river view,” Armour said. “It’s not one of these alpine trails where you have to hike all the way up the mountain or anything.”
What the trail still lacks is a connection bridge from the senior-built east section to the SLRD-built west sections.
Wylie, Armour and others involved in the build hope the SLRD will take over the trail and build the bridge. To do this, they would need approval from BC Parks, and Wylie said a government body like the SLRD would need to apply.
In their last decision in 2022, the SLRD board motioned that “staff engage BC Parks on the potential for the Sea to Sky Trail to enter Nairn Falls Park as a future extension.”
When asked for an update on the trail’s status, the SLRD referred Pique to the previous decision and motions and thanked Citizens for Sea to Sky.
“The SLRD thanks the Citizens for Sea to Sky for their dedicated commitment to the Sea to Sky Trail, and we encourage their continued involvement with the SLRD on future trail development. The SLRD will look to the alternate route once the current gaps in the trail are connected, as a potential add-on to the route,” SLRD communications official Patricia Westerholm wrote in an email.
To get to the newly built trail, head 18 km north from the stoplight at Rainbow. The trail starts where the Gord’s Garden section of the Sea to Sky Trail ends. n
HAPPY TRAILS The trail follows along Green River, providing ample opportunity for time by the water.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUG WYLIE
SLRD leasing Seton firehall to Tsal’alh Fire Department
THE MOVE IS UNWELCOME NEWS TO THE CURRENT TENANTS, SETON VALLEY VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER SOCIETY
BY LIZ MCDONALD
THE SQUAMISH-LILLOOET Regional
District (SLRD) is entering a new tenancy agreement for Seton’s firehall with Tsal’alh Seton Lake Fire Department (Tsal’alh).
By Dec. 1, 2024, the current tenants, Seton Valley Volunteer Firefighter Society, must vacate the SLRD-owned premise. Currently, they use the space to store equipment and share the space with BC Ambulance Services.
SETON’S RECENT FIREPROTECTION HISTORY
Since 2019, Tsal’alh has provided fire protection services to Seton. They were contracted to take over the services from Seton Valley Volunteer Firefighter Society (SVVFS), which operated the Seton Valley Volunteer Firefighter Department (SVVFD). The SLRD said it ended SVVFS’ contract in 2019 because they were not compliant with upgraded fire protection regulations required by the Office of the Fire Commissioner (OFC).
According to a release by the SLRD in September 2019, the district began reviewing fire services in the SLRD in 2013 to ensure they are compliant with provincial standards mandated under the OFC and WorkSafeBC.
According to the release, the requirements resulted in “significant impacts” for SVVFD. “Standards for training, occupational health and safety, equipment and deployment have become much more stringent over the years, which has made the operation of volunteer fire departments more difficult, demanding and expensive than in the past,” the release said.
By July 2019, SVVFD was still noncompliant, and their fire chief, along with the SLRD, ended the service until they met upgraded standards. Then, the SLRD entered into an agreement with Tsal’alh.
LOSS OF TENANCY
In response to losing its tenancy for the fire hall this fall, on Nov. 10, SVVFS held a demonstration at the fire hall to protest. In communications with Pique, their secretary, who is a longstanding member, expressed frustrations over the loss of the fire hall and regulatory requirements perceived as inequitable.
Secretary for the SVVFS, Eugene Duruisseau, said the newer standards from the OFC and WorkSafeBC didn’t adequately consider volunteer firefighter perspectives, despite representing a large proportion of the province’s fire response.
“I’m looking for a voice in the volunteer side of the sector, and it’s not there,” he said.
According to the SLRD, volunteer firefighters represent more than 70 per cent of fire services in Canada. All firefighting in the SLRD is volunteer-based. The other volunteer fire departments are also required to adhere to upgraded compliance regulations.
However, Duruisseau argued that adhering to administrative labour and maintenance for volunteer services under the provincial mandate is impossible.
“The elephant in the room is that all of the authorities are saying there’s no difference
between professionals and volunteers, and you have to meet those standards,” he said. “But how you’re supposed to do that without the resources and on a volunteer basis, it’s just absurdity.”
SLRD’S REASONING
In a statement, the SLRD said it has engaged in community consultation with Seton residents about the change, holding a meeting Nov. 10 at Highline Pub & Restaurant.
“The service has been provided, uninterrupted, by Tsal’alh, through a series of successive short-term agreements, since September 2019,” the SLRD said. “Prior to that, the service had been provided by the SVVFS.
“The Society was not able to continue as the fire protection service provider, because they were found to be non-compliant with regulatory and legislative requirements for operating a volunteer fire department and they could not deliver structure firefighting service or meet the criteria required to maintain the best Fire Underwriters Survey (FUS) grading,” according to the SLRD.
Meeting FUS grading criteria means fire insurance costs for taxpayers are reduced by 40 to 60 per cent, according to the SLRD.
Another question posed by Duruisseau SEE PAGE 30 >>
SAFETY FIRST The Seton Valley Volunteer Firefighter Society displaying its equipment on Nov. 10. PHOTO COURTESY OF EUGENE DURUISSEAU
Pemberton council eyes new accessibility plan
COUNCIL BRIEFS: REVISED PARKING AND TRAFFIC BYLAW GETS FIRST READINGS
BY LIZ MCDONALD
PEMBERTON’S MAYOR and council received their first look at the Village’s Accessibility and Inclusion Plan during a committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 19.
The plan aligns with the Accessible British Columbia Act, which establishes a framework for municipalities to “identify, remove, and prevent barriers to accessibility.” Barriers obstruct “full and equal participation” and can come from “environments, attitudes, practices, policies, information, communications or technology.”
The first order of business in the plan relates to education training for internal biases held by staff and issues with municipal structures. The main floor of the municipality’s office space isn’t accessible, which creates a barrier to employing those with mobility devices or trouble using stairs.
Input from the community so far includes advice to make physical infrastructure and the municipality’s website accessible.
The plan was developed by the Recreation Department and a consultant for the plan is funded by a grant from the Disability Alliance of BC (DABC). It will apply to the Village of Pemberton and Pemberton and District Library, and an accessibility and inclusion
committee made up of people with lived experiences informs the policies.
Feedback for the plan is welcome on the Village’s website or by emailing pemrecinfo@ pemberton.ca.
The plan will be a living document that evolves over the years, and depending on chosen priorities, the budget will fluctuate. It will impact all parts of the village, from the built environment to hiring practices.
PARKING, HOUSING BYLAWS GET FIRST READINGS
Council also gave first three readings to a parking and traffic control amendment bylaw on Nov. 19. The amendment came to the table because snow clearing is challenging under the bylaw as it currently stands. The revised bylaw could put winter parking restrictions in effect for 24 hours per day along the side of the road with even-numbered addresses.
The original bylaw restricted winter parking from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m., seven days a week from Nov. 15 to March 31 on the side of the road with even-numbered addresses. However, snow clearing often carries on past the start of the workday, and with many people working from home, more people are leaving their vehicles parked on the street.
Council also gave first three readings for zoning amendments needed for housing projects
created through the Housing Accelerator Fund. The zoning amendments focused on details impacting small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH), increasing density and permitting housing on public lands, as well as changes to off-street parking and parking area design.
SSMUH discussion centred around concerns that increasing density would impact the “character” of some neighbourhoods, increase parking needs and potentially reduce green space. To ensure neighbourhoods don’t end up with little green space left on lots, units can only
take up 40 per cent of the lot. Staff’s analysis showed most lots could have additional units built and still stay within 40 per cent coverage.
Discussion about housing on public lands centred around concerns over potentially losing green space. However, council would still have input should an owner of public lands, like a school district, decide to develop part of the space for housing.
Lastly, zoning for off-street parking could be reduced and so too will the size of parking spaces which can create “barriers to housing development,” according to the planning report. n
SETON FIRE HALL FROM PAGE 28
related to whether Tsal’alh is required to be publicly accountable.
Tsal’alh’s volunteer fire department reports with Tsal’alh Nation, and the SLRD said as a public sector entity, they are required to adhere to Canadian Public Sector Accounting practices.
“The SLRD has complete confidence in the reporting responsibilities of the Tsal’alh and the Tsal’alh Seton Lake Volunteer Fire Department,” the district said.
Despite the change in tenants for the fire hall, and throughout the last five years of Tsal’alh providing fire services to Seton, SVVFS members also volunteer as firefighters
with Tsal’alh, and other Seton community members are welcome to join.
The SLRD thanked SVVFS for its years of service and expressed gratitude to Tsal’alh for stepping into the role.
“We consider ourselves extremely fortunate that Tsal’alh has been ready, willing and able, over the past five years, to provide this important service,” the SLRD said. “Our goal is to enter into a long-term agreement with Tsal’alh as the service provider, as well as entering into a lease agreement for the SLRD-owned Seton Firehall, ensuring that it continues to be a valuable emergency response resource for the community.” n
Th oughtfully re no va te dc on d op er fe ct fo ra full-time re sidence, we eken dg etaw ay,o rf lexibl er ental.
www.whistlerrealestate.ca
GeordieRaymond LansdellPuttonen
January3,1984 – November17, 2024
Itiswith a heavyheartthatweannounce the suddenand tragicdeath ofGeordie - sontoJane(Glenn),grandsontoPat, brothertoDeanna(Johan),nephewto Cathy(Don)andClaire (Tony),close cousintoKippy(Scott)an d Serafina ( Je ff ),cousintoKelly(Rachel) , uncle toLuca,andfathertoAllyandRiley, thelovesofhislife.Alsoleftbehindto mourn him are numerousfamilymembers ofhis latefatherRay. Nowsomewhere else,weliketoimagineGeord is reunited withlovedoneslost – hugginghisothermum Barbara,his grandpaJohn,andhisdad TrapperRay, andjokingaround withhisbelovedbuddiesHaywoodandJunger.
Geordiewas a kind-hearted,unique individual, relentlessly pursuingadventureandthrillsinspiredbythemountainsand thenaturalworld.Hismanypassionsincludedskiing,fishing, mountai n biking,and , abov e all,being a fathertohistwo daughters.Hediedintheoutdoorsdoingwhathelovedwith a buddy:somecrazy-assactivitywith no thought tohissafety His9livessadlyranoutwhennatureclaimedhimintheend. BorntheFt.NelsonNew Year’s Babyof1984,heacquired hisloveofadventure andthebushwithhisDadaroundthe LiardRiver ValleyinNorthernBC.Hespentmostofhisadult yearsinSquamish.
GeordiewasanavidCanucksfanandhockeyaficionado.He learnedtoplayonhome-madeiceandperfectedhisskillsby watchingVHStapesofCanucks’gamesoverandoveragain. HeandGlenn, a devoted Hawksfan,developeda friendly rivalryovertheyearsandsharedapassionforhockeycards.
Geord wasproudtoserveas a paramedicfor most ofhis workinglife.Hewillbesorelymissedbyhisfriendsand family RIPG,loveyoualways.
Inlieuofflowers,pleaseconsideradonationto“Together We Can”,twcrecoverylife.org,oracharityofyourchoice.
A celebrationoflifewilltakeplaceonJanuary3rd, 2025 at2 PMatGleneaglesGolfClub,6190MarineDr, We st Vancouver,BCV7W2S3.
To write a condolen ce tothefamily,p leasevisit www.squamishfuneralchapel.com.
GST exemption delivers raw deal for British Columbians
British Columbia doesn’t have a Harmonized Sales Tax.
That’s not a sentence you’ll hear said very often in this province, given the political graves dug by those who supported an HST here (briefly) in 2009. But it’s true—especially after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his new two-month GST exemption last week.
People who live in provinces with an HST—Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island—are going to get a better deal, with fewer administrative headaches, under the federal affordability measures, which runs Dec. 14 to Feb. 15.
That includes an up to 15 per cent total tax holiday on major items, under Ottawa’s affordability package.
That’s because when Ottawa drops the federal tax within an HST, the provincial sales tax disappears alongside it.
It’s not quite the same in British Columbia.
The province already doesn’t charge PST on many of the items Ottawa chose to exempt from the GST, including restaurant meals, groceries, children’s clothing, child car seats and books, and puzzles.
But children’s toys, board games, dolls
There’s no word yet from Premier David Eby if he plans to exempt alcohol, children’s toys and Christmas trees from the PST, to match up with the federal GST cut.
But it’s unlikely. The B.C. government won’t want to look like it’s making a conscious decision to encourage alcohol consumption during the holidays (even though, let’s be honest, that’s how most of us survive the holidays).
Plus, during a year in which the government expects to run a record deficit of $8.9 billion, the province doesn’t have the fiscal room to start fiddling with the PST, which at $16.6 billion is the single largest source of revenue to the treasury. Provinces with the HST, however, are expected to get Ottawa to repay their lost provincial revenue.
It would also be a heck of a lot easier on small businesses if the B.C. government matched the federal exemptions.
The Retail Council of Canada called on B.C., Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec to drop their PSTs, alongside provincial business groups who say it’s going to be a logistical headache to have to go through entire inventories and reclassify items as temporarily exempt from one tax but not the other for only two months.
For example, B.C.’s private liquor stores will have to examine every type of beer for its alcohol content—because only those
and video game consoles are subject to B.C.’s seven per cent PST. So are Christmas trees. And the provincial tax rises to 10 per cent on alcohol.
That means an Ontario resident who buys a $450 Nintendo Switch for their kids for Christmas will go through the till taxfree, but a British Columbian will have to pay $481.50 due to the PST.
A bottle of Quails Gate Chardonnay, from Kelowna, will cost a Torontonian $26.95 at the LCBO, despite being shipped all the way across the country, but $29.69 back in Kelowna at the BC Liquor store.
A $49.98 Christmas tree at Home Depot in Mississauga goes for the sticker price exactly, but will run a Surrey resident $53.48 for the same tree, from the same chain.
It’s kind of a raw deal.
under seven per cent alcohol are exempt by Ottawa from the GST. Then, two months later, they have to do it all over again. That’s kind of ridiculous.
We’ve fought long political wars in this province over the HST. And maybe because of that, we’ll never admit it’s a more efficient tax system. But the federal rebate is another reminder, there are costs—mainly borne by ordinary consumers—to keeping a separate provincial sales tax.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.rob@ robshawnews.com n
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THIS MORNING a funny thing happened. Having dutifully ridden first gondola up from Creekside with the usual rabid local crew, we’d scrambled out, clicked into our boards, and slid over to Red Chair only to find it… closed. Maybe not closed like the day before when a Sword-of-Damacles icicle—hanging from the bullwheel housing directly above where skiers would pass—had to be knocked down
BY LESLIE ANTHONY
before loading could commence. More like not functioning, as in the automatic gates that typically swing open to allow skiers and boarders through simply wouldn’t. The young girl manning the lift solo did her best— pushing buttons, twisting dials, and fiddling with everything she could fiddle with—but the gates remained shut. Phone consultation with a more knowledgeable echelon advised her to push, twist and fiddle some more. Nothing.
By now a Kentucky Snow Derby with hundreds of eager horses had accrued. There was loud grumbling in the back, but up front, where the gate’s dysfunction was clear, there was naught but laughter, jokes and good vibes. I was glad to be in that particular flow when, eventually, a maintenance dude from the nearby gondie office re-pushed, re-twisted,
re-fiddled and declared the gate officially Out of Order. The short-term remedy for such a choke is to swing the gate out of the way to let the hordes through, but the hinge was frozen and it was difficult to get moving. That’s when our chair-to-be happily joined the lifties and, with eight of us pulling, moved the gate 90 degrees so we could all go skiing five minutes later than we might have. Problem solved.
These kinds of minor inconveniences happen at ski areas, particularly early season when bugs are being shaken out of a ton of moving parts, procedures and people, each of which is subject to forecasted weather and unforecasted mechanical whims. But here
change more frequently. I’ve had a few, so here’s some advice on how to cope: First, no matter how bad the snow is where you are, it’s worse—but also much better—elsewhere. Thus, employ mobility when possible to take the edge (haha) off your despair. Second, be patient. Sometimes snow comes early, other times late; only rarely does it fail to materialize and, in that event, see previous point. Third, trust your home resort to do everything in its power to make things work. Last winter was a case study in all three.
October has become weird here. Instead of the long-term pattern of rain down low and snow up high, we’ve had everything
Sometimes it feels like we should all take a deep breath and check our privilege. And not just in good snow years...
we were on a glorious day with the best start to the season in years and people were still finding reasons to complain about something that couldn’t have been foreseen and, in the event, was quickly rectified.
Sometimes it feels like we should all take a deep breath and check our privilege. And not just in good snow years, because the instacomplaining reminded me of the unjustified hubbub during last season’s somewhat different start.
Whether in whole or part, a “bad” winter is a bugbear that snow lovers around the globe must endure at some point—and with climate
from heavy-but-short-lived valley snow, to preternatural warmth (a monthly average a full 10 C above normal) and drought that fooled trees and shrubs into retaining their leaves well into the new year, causing severe damage when the snow finally came. October 2023 saw rain but higher-than-usual freezing levels expected with El Niño, but unhelpful given the shit-ton of snow required to fill in the Whistler alpine’s boulder gardens.
November 2023’s metre of snowfall, still with high freezing levels, was half the average and far below the 2009-10 record of five metres when the mountains opened top-to-bottom
weeks ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, the latter is the kind of memory that sticks in hopeful human minds not as the anomaly it represents, but the way it always was and should be. Thus, for those grousing about early conditions, park your expectations. The Pacific Ocean makes its own decisions and, in an age of rapidly warming climate and off-thechart ocean temperatures, the only thing to expect is the unexpected.
Regardless, WB’s seasoned mountain-ops crew took it all in stride, making snow when they could and keeping the alpine faith when they couldn’t. Limited as it was, opening day was great; we were on snow and making turns—what more could you want? The next day was better. And so on after that as the mountain magicians worked their asses off to open new runs and terrain.
Snow-wise, December 2023 was 40 cm below average but most of it came late, so the season was truly on by January and most angst erased—despite below-average snowfall through February. March and April, however, were above average, with May also chiming in some boot-top pow. Ultimately, 2023-24 saw a not-too-shabby 10.2 metres of snow against the long-term annual average of 10.8—a number with far more stability than the monthly totals contributing to it. Thus, spring skiing in 2024 was spectacular. As indeed it was in 2023—almost exclusively due to the fastidious work of WB’s snowmakers, groomers and mountain ops.
Attitude is what makes a season. And if you commit to enjoying every day on its own terms no matter what, you’ll never have a bad one of either.
Leslie Anthony is a Whistler-based author, editor, biologist and bon vivant who has never met a mountain he didn’t like. n
WHITE GOLD Great snow conditions aside, attitude is what makes a season.
PHOTO BY IZZIE LARTER / COURTESY OF WHISTLER BLACKCOMB
When there were fish
Yukon River communities
fight to maintain their salmon fishing tradition
By Julia O’Malley // High Country News
Katie Kangas’ salmon memories live in her body. They are the ache of the knife in her hand after hours of cutting fish in summertime. The heft of a wooden pole loaded with scored fillets. The smell of cottonwood smouldering in her corrugated metal smokehouse.
Kangas is a grandmother now. Her ancestors, Koyukon Athabascans, harvested fish for thousands of years on this stretch of the Yukon River, 322 kilometres west of Fairbanks, Alaska, by small plane.
Here, in the village of Ruby, children have always learned how to handle fish by watching and repeating. Teaching them kept elders vital. To her children and grandchildren, Kangas passed on bits of language and details about the natural world, like the way the cottonwood trees tell you the chinook salmon are coming by letting their downy seeds float on the wind. Knowing how to catch, cut, dry, smoke and can salmon is how a person knows they are from here. The chew of a halfdry salmon morsel, oil and phenols lingering, tastes like this place. Or at least this is how it was.
Chinook are better known in Alaska as king salmon. The massive, fat-rich fish that people in this predominantly Indigenous village always relied on to fill their freezers and caches for winter have dwindled alarmingly over the past two decades. Scientists link the decline to water temperature increases related to human-caused climate change, and there are also concerns about salmon incidentally caught in the ocean by large operations trawling for bottom fish. In the late 1990s, chinook numbers became so paltry that managers began restricting fishing, including subsistence—fishing by locals for their food supplies. A major crash in 2008 nearly curtailed the commercial fishery, and it never recovered. Managers closed the river to almost all fishing in 2021. Still, there has been little improvement.
People adapted. Ruby, a village of 150 that’s only accessible by boat or plane, kept up the rhythm of summer processing, working with smaller, leaner chum salmon, which they had previously caught and dried mostly to feed their sled dogs. But those chum runs, once relatively reliable pulses in the spring and fall, began failing in 2020, taking scientists and residents by surprise. In response, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game limited and then closed both the Yukon chinook and chum fisheries. For the last few summers, for maybe the first time in more than 10,000 years, there was almost no fishing for either species allowed on the Yukon River at all. Without fishing, the practice of going to fish camp with family, an essential Alaska Native tradition that brings relatives from urban centres to the villages and enables the passage of knowledge about culture and the land from one generation to the next, couldn’t happen. Its absence left a hollowed-out, idle anxiety, Kangas said.
“What am I going to do?” she asked in July, looking out her kitchen window toward the river. “There’s a big empty river out there.”
DOWN A BRUSHY BLUFF, Kangas can see the Yukon, a kilometre or more across, granite-coloured, swirling. It is pure force, born of glacial melt and rain, grinding boulders to silt, dragging blades of springtime ice over the bank, shaving white spruce and trembling aspen to nothing. The third-longest river in North America, it drives 3,200 kilometres from Canada to the Bering Sea. The salmon runs have always been a counterforce, muscling upriver, part of the longest salmon migration in the world.
Until very recently, people along the river relied mainly on chinook—Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, the largest of the salmon species. Historically iconic fish that could weigh as much as 100 pounds, their flesh was heavy with oil to fuel them as they pushed upriver. Chinook have the longest life cycle, generally seven years or so, during which they spend time in the ocean eating and growing, before returning to the Yukon to spawn. Over time, for reasons scientists are still studying, the average size of chinook salmon across the species’ range, from California to the Yukon, has decreased and more fish have been returning earlier to spawn. Chum, also called keta or dog salmon, have also always been plentiful in the river. They have a life cycle of three to six years, and their large coral eggs, prized in the Asian market, were harvested commercially for years. The river also has a small run of silver or coho salmon, which have recently had some of their lowest runs on record.
There used to be so many fish, everyone caught enough to eat it all winter and to share. One big chinook brought so much meat, people could fish commercially and support their families. Last year, Kangas began writing down the things she missed about the way fishing used to be:
First task, clean out the smokehouse, scrub the buckets, poles and totes. Have salt and smoke wood ready. Next, send out the fishermen and women and wait. Who would be that lucky one to get that first king? The first king was a celebration! The fish was deeply admired before decisions were made on how to prepare it and how to share it with family and elders. Soon anyone who tried was successful. I fished with a partner for many years and as soon as we got our first king I would buy her a six-pack to celebrate the return of our happiness. Later when our daughters were fishing I’d buy them candy to celebrate. Decades of skills were passed from the generation of my mother-in-law to mine, to my daughters to their children, and then, suddenly, it stopped.
Government fish managers are studying the causes and trying to stem the decline. In April, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game signed a seven-year agreement with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, which some people are calling a moratorium, pausing chinook fishing for the length of a full life cycle in hopes of helping the fish recover. If the run shows signs of recovery, the entities agreed, chinook fishing could be permitted again before that. Chum fishing, which is managed separately and re-evaluated yearly, was also limited, pending improvement.
The pause on chinook fishing in particular requires deep sacrifice on the part of Yukon River villages. Many on the river, including Kangas, are angry that while their fishing has been curtailed, large commercial trawlers, fishing the bottom of the Bering Sea with massive nets for pollock, cod and other fish, are still allowed to incidentally catch some salmon that would otherwise return to the rivers. The incidental catch, called bycatch, is made up of non-target species. There is also worry about overfishing in general in the sea, and what the large nets that are dragged across the bottom might be doing to the ecosystem. Bottom trawling has been linked to fishery collapse in other parts of the world.
According to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, fewer than 20,000 chinook salmon were caught as bycatch in 2023. Genetic sampling suggests that less than one per cent of those were headed to the middle and upper Yukon River. More than 100,000 chum salmon were caught as bycatch that year; most of those came from hatcheries in Asia, but a little more than two per cent were
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returning to the upper and middle Yukon. The council is considering management changes to further limit bycatch of chum.
Scientists say that climate change is a larger factor than bycatch in the disappearance of the fish. Many Alaska Native people living in villages along the river agree that climate is a factor, but also believe that the government should regulate the trawling industry to further limit the catching of salmon. Alaska Native leaders argue that tribes should have more say in the management process, where they say Indigenous people don’t have meaningful influence, while commercial fishing interests—with paid lobbying organizations—have considerable sway. Meanwhile, as they face years to come without chinook salmon, Indigenous river communities are looking at ways to hold on to the traditions and flavours that have brought families together every year.
In Ruby and more than 40 other villages, home to 12,000 mostly Indigenous people, there’s a crisis not just to do with nutrition and economics—salmon is a major food source that offsets the high cost of flown-in groceries—but with culture. With a seven-year pause, a generation of children is growing up without an opportunity to practice the skills that sit at the centre of their identity, Kangas said. It’s one more example of how climate disruptions in Alaska, parts of which are warming almost four times faster than the rest of the world, are also cultural disruptions.
Several years have come and gone with no salmon. The vast Yukon is empty. Sometimes fishing disaster checks arrive. Happiness for a day. $800 can buy one load of groceries from Fairbanks including handling and freight and it is enough for a few weeks.
By the time they were eight years old, the oldest among Kangas’ 14 grandchildren and five step grandchildren knew how to help when their parents were pulling in the net. They knew how to drive a boat. They could hold a knife and feed a smokehouse fire, their hair and clothes absorbing the smell, an essential scent of summertime. And, they knew the tastes of things. They teethed on salmon strips as infants. They ate dinner as a family, with a meal of baked fish and beets to mark the start of the season. But Kangas’ youngest grandchildren won’t grow
silver or coho salmon also had historically low numbers.
Salmon bodies carry memories, evidence of the lives they lived in the oceans and rivers, stresses from heat and poor nutrition. Recent science has shown that the chinook face a number of obstacles related to the river’s temperature. In the Arctic region, air temperatures have increased by more than 2 C over the last 100 years. The northern part of the planet is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world. Temperatures higher than 18 C have been measured most years in the river since the 1990s.
Warmer water makes it harder for fish to reach their spawning grounds. It increases their metabolic rate and their heart’s demand for oxygen, but it also holds less oxygen. It may also make fish more vulnerable to a parasite called Ichthyophonus, which infects their organs, especially the heart.
Vanessa von Biela, an Anchorage-based fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, conducted a study with other scientists in 2016 and 2017, looking for evidence of heat stress— basically the fish version of heat stroke—among Yukon salmon.
“Overall, it was 50 per cent of the chinook salmon we sampled had evidence of heat stress,” she said.
In the years after that study, the water got even warmer. In 2019, record high temperatures and drought caused multi-species salmon die-offs across the state because in-river temperatures exceeded about 21 C, the threshold at which it becomes hard for fish to survive.
Next, von Biela and Kathrine Howard, a scientist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, studied how heat stress was impacting fish offspring.
“We found that, indeed, there is a strong relationship between the river conditions that parents face and how many offspring come out in the next generation when they’re counted in the ocean,” von Biela said. “In years where the parents faced warmer migration temperatures, especially when those temperatures were warm early in the season, they produced fewer juveniles on average.”
The scientists also theorize that warmer water may be changing the prey available to fish in the ocean, while also increasing their metabolisms. Some fish are deficient in thiamine, another sign of a change in their diets, which causes developmental problems, Howard said.
The story of the recent chum decline is also connected to warmer water, though the picture is not as grim. Ed Farley, a Juneau-based fish biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recently completed a study with other scientists that looked at chum salmon in the ocean. They found that over a couple extremely warm years, between 2017 and 2019, the juvenile chum diet changed. In cooler years, scientists found
up with that same knowledge.
This summer, Kangas found a jar of king salmon in her cache, forgotten and spoiled. It must have been at least five years old, from before they knew how bad things could get, before every jar of fish became impossibly precious. The meat was a pale pink, the rendered oil filled the jar to the top. It brought a wave of grief, knowing she’d let the jar go to waste.
One of the questions Indian Health Services asks is, “Are you depressed?” Standard question. Standard answer is always no. I don’t think that is true anymore for all of us who harvested king salmon. When our source of salmon disappeared, it was a weird depression that could not be explained in a clinical setting but there were signs. What do you do now in mid-June and July?
BEFORE THE CHINOOK population began to slide, in the early 1990s, the river was home to a robust commercial fishery that reached all the way to Canada and buoyed village economies. People fished with fish wheels, which operate like watermills, powered by the current, outfitted with wire baskets that scoop fish from the current and deliver them to a holding tub. Then they’d process the fish onshore, heading and gutting them.
In the smokehouses, the heavy fillets, scored and hanging from poles over a smouldering fire, dripped with oil. Commercial fishing on the river fell off as the chinook runs did. Subsistence harvests began to fall as well. Fewer and fewer chinook salmon made it all the way across the international border to the Yukon Territory to spawn.
Fisheries managers’ goal is for 71,000 chinook to make it to Canada, but that’s a long way off. In 2023, the sonar fish count in the lower river, at Pilot Station, recorded the second-lowest chinook count ever, with 58,500 fish. (The lowest was in 2022.) About 28,000 of the fish that entered the river there were of the type that was headed to Canada, but only about 15,000 made it. By September 2024, about 64,500 fish had been counted at the mouth of the river, though only 24,000 made it across the Canadian border, again far short of the goal.
The situation is more mixed for the chum, which have two runs, in the summer and the fall. In 2023, the summer run was projected to be between 280,000 to 900,000. A healthy 846,000 passed the Pilot Station sonar. But in the fall, as many as 602,000 fish were projected to pass into the river. Only about 290,000 made it, short of the number needed to open the river to fishing. Just over 22,000 of those fish passed the Eagle sonar station at the Canadian border, less than one-fifth of the average fall run. The 2024 summer run again showed signs of improvement, with approximately 758,000 fish passing into the river by mid-July. The fall run, however, was estimated at 200,000, compared to a historical average of 900,000 salmon. A smaller run of
more Oikopleura, a marine invertebrate, in their stomachs. But in warmer years, the fish relied on less-nutritious jellyfish, and so they went into their first winters at sea with low body fat. The ocean remained warm over the winter. Returns in the subsequent years were low.
“We’ve seen chum salmon respond negatively to these events, and, you know, had really poor returns,” Farley said. “However, if you’ve been monitoring what’s going on in the Yukon recently, you know the numbers of (summer) chum salmon are starting to come back.”
Even as chum recover, the risk of warmer water and record warm years remains. To the extent that river temperatures correlate with air temperatures, there will likely be more years like 2019, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the International Arctic Research Center at University of Alaska Fairbanks. The river’s volume, which is connected to snowmelt, also matters. Years with less snow may mean the river is more likely to warm with the air temperatures, he said.
In the Bering Sea, where the fish go to eat and grow, the long-term trend is for earlier spring sea ice melts, allowing the sea to absorb more of the sun’s heat when the sun is high in the sky.
“So, in the future, the combination of events like 2019, with very early sea ice loss and hot early to mid-summer will remain episodic but occur more often in the next few decades,” he wrote in an email.
Chinook salmon runs—disrupted in part by human-caused problems like dams and pollution as well as climate-related flooding and droughts—are faltering all along the West Coast, from the Sacramento River through to Canada. There are many reasons Alaska should be one of the last places on earth where salmon are thriving; the state has few dams and its salmon habitat is perhaps the most pristine in the world. The Yukon River is at the northernmost extent of the salmon’s range, von Biela said.
“If it’s already too warm here, it’s such a sobering thought,” she said.
THE VILLAGE OF RUBY sits on a hillside that slopes toward the river. Metal-roofed single-story houses nestle along its few roads, their grassy yards surrounded by tall trees, most with a smokehouse outside. On the wooded edges of town are the weathered remnants of old houses and businesses and derelict fish wheels. Ruby started out as a turn-of-the-century gold mining town, staked at a time when white prospectors were coming from the Lower 48
BREAKFAS T
by steamship, traversing the White Pass or Chilkoot trails and then heading northwest on the Yukon River into the interior of Alaska.
Prospectors—many European by birth—found and developed several productive gold mines near Ruby, and by the early 1900s the area had drawn thousands of residents. Soon after, the population declined, census numbers show. Men left to fight in the First World War, and a fire and flood tore through the village. In the post-war era, residents from Kokrines, a longtime Athabascan trading village nearby, moved to Ruby, taking advantage of the opportunity to go to school. Many Alaska Native people living in the village now have white prospectors and miners in their family trees.
Patrick McCarty, 71, the First Chief of the Village of Ruby, grew up going to a fish camp five kilometres out of town, heading there right after school got out every spring. When he was young, a single chinook could be as big as a child in your arms. Fish of that size are long gone now.
“All summer, getting kings,” he said. “We had two wheels going back then to fish, with one above the camp and one below.”
Back then, people like miners and mail carriers still travelled a lot using dog teams, he said. His family boarded their dogs in the summer. They used to dry the chum salmon or “dog fish” and stack them in bales.
“They were like about 50-55 pounds per bale, and we sold them to the local trading post,” he said. “That offset the cost of, you know, living.”
When he grew up, he invested in a big fish wheel for commercial fishing, but even in the early 1980s, he noticed that the runs were getting smaller and more variable. Soon it didn’t seem
He found other work and fished only for subsistence, even as commercial fishing continued on the river. Looking back, he thinks that everyone took too much—the commercial interests and the residents.
“One year when the fish first crashed, (in the early 2000s) when the salmon crashed, I caught two king salmon,” he said. “My wife and I, we made do with that. We made steaks and had enough for boiling. We didn’t eat it all the time, we ate chicken or beef or pork chops.”
There is no doubt that the warming water is harming the fish, he said, but the state should have managed the fishery more conservatively.
fish and rebuild runs. “But what’s upsetting is to know that elders have passed on and did not get their traditional cultural food that they have grown up on, that they have harvested and that they have eaten,” she said.
In the village, there’s a rhythm to things, she said. Moose hunting in the fall, and in the winter she works on crafts with salmon skin and bones. Summer rolls around and everybody gears up to fish. Fishing is at the centre of summer activities.
“So it’s like a cycle,” she said. “And now the cycle is broken.”
And, given the unstable climate and the continued bycatch waste in the ocean, there’s no knowing if things will ever return to how they were.
“We don’t have the certainty that yes, in seven years, there’s going to be the salmon for our kids to take upon themselves to learn that tradition and culture and value and that food security. It’s tough,” she said.
Diloola Erickson is tribal resource stewardship division director with Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of the 42 Indigenous villages of Interior Alaska, many of them along the Yukon River. People know that climate change is contributing to what is happening with the fish, and they have for many years observed the chinook salmon getting smaller. Some tribal members, though, object to how both fish and trawling are managed.
“I think there’s mixed feelings about (the fishing pause). I think there’s a lot of people that agree with it, and there’s a lot of people that don’t agree with the way that it was done,” she said. “It was … a moratorium placed on our people and our fish without our input or consent. And I think that the process of it coming about was not an equitable process or an inclusive process.”
KATE KANGAS REMEMBERS
“The state did wrong by allowing us to overharvest, where our every meal was salmon,” he said.
He used to always take a picture of himself with his catch, standing in the doorway of the cabin on his boat. Over time, compared to the doorway, the fish started getting smaller. He really noticed it in 2019, he said. They also felt different in the net.
“I noticed then, they weren’t even fighting as hard,” he told me.
He, too, was concerned about the bycatch in the open ocean, the mile-long nets and the many huge ships. Even if communities along the river had taken less, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, he said.
For his part, he tries to guide his grandson to the river and teach him about not taking too much. The last time they were able to fish together for chinook, he said, his grandson was nine or 10. His grandson learned how to untangle the net when it got caught up, and McCarty showed him how to keep the catch cool and bring it home.
“My grandson, he would wash the fish, I’d split them, and my late wife did the rest,” McCarty said.
They got a few extra, and McCarty was able to show his grandson the act of bringing fish to relatives who didn’t have any, an essential cultural value.
“He participated in that. He learned sharing, giving,” he said. “I was fortunate to have him with me when there were still fish.”
IN MIDSUMMER, just upriver from Ruby on Straight Island, the village holds a culture camp for children to learn about how their family members lived off the land. This past year, Rachael Kangas Madros, Katie Kangas’ daughter, ran the camp for about 30 kids. Halfway through the second day, the children gathered under a massive tarp around a small fire in the pouring rain. The kids, who ranged in age from toddlers to high schoolers, had already learned to build fire and shelter. Now it was time to talk with those older than them.
Kangas Madros and Serena “Cuucitcuar” Fitka laid out the complicated way the government manages fish—a mix of federal and state rules. Both women work for the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association, a non-profit that advocates for village interests with government managers. They also talked about the controversial plan, put forward for study last year by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, R, to supplement the river’s salmon with hatchery fish. Historically, hatcheries have had mixed results elsewhere, sometimes leading to declines among wild fish.
“Where’s the salmon eggs gonna come from? Are they gonna come from our rivers, or are they gonna come from other streams?” Fitka, the executive director of the association, asked.
She said that the fishing closure is something people are just trying to get used to.
“People are still having to struggle with not being at fish camp, because it is so ingrained in our system,” she said. “People get the whole family involved, there are people that you always see then, the communities would come back and be together. And that’s not happening anymore.”
The kids at culture camp would learn about cutting and smoking with a few fish, she said. But they wouldn’t be chinook salmon; they’d be donated fish from another part of the state. And the kids wouldn’t be able to experience how it felt to catch them, or to cut so many their hands automatically knew how to navigate the blade along the spine and slice along the rib bones, without any waste.
“We still need to teach them what we still know or remember about fishing, even though there’s no fish,” she said.
Kangas Madros understood that the seven-year agreement was an effort to conserve the
the nights when fishing began after midnight, when Kangas Madros and her husband, Ryan Madros, would ride out on the aluminum skiff under the all-night sun. They’d unfurl a net and let it soak while they drifted downriver with the current. When they pulled it in, they’d pick out the fish and cast out again, until the boat held 20 or 30 silver bodies. They’d ride home in the early morning and head to bed while Katie and her husband, Ivan, took over.
It had been a custom for the family to fish in the second week of June, when the mosquitoes run thick and the potatoes and beets are just starting to fill in the garden. In the backyard, they always set up a little plastic pool for the grandchildren and let them play on their own. Ivan removed the fish heads and gutted them. Katie took each fish from him, washed it, split the body, and hung it to dry. She chose some fish to brine before hanging them up again, the ever-present breeze forming what’s called a pellicle, a tacky outer layer that holds in moisture and can absorb smoke. She’d have to watch carefully that the flies didn’t get in them. She knew by smell when they were drying right or not.
What happened next was directed by Kangas Madros. Rachael would cut the strips of smoked fish so they’d fit into a jar. She’d add a teaspoon of brown sugar, fresh jalapeños, and chopped garlic, and put batches of 36 into the pressure canner for 90 minutes. You could wrap your hands around each one when it was done and cooled, the weight of a jar a particular kind of wealth people know on the river.
Fishing in Alaska right now is a story of haves and have-nots. Red salmon in places like Bristol Bay and the Kenai Peninsula are having record years, while other runs, like chums and chinook on the Yukon, are failing. Over the last few years, Tanana Chiefs Conference has distributed frozen red salmon to the communities on the river that couldn’t fish. The fish from the tribe were from Bristol Bay, 640 kilometres south.
They were meant to keep people fed, but receiving them underscored the grief people felt over not being able to do the work of fishing. The work is as important as the food. Ivan Kangas called them “charity fish.” They were not a species Kangas was used to processing or eating, but she decided to try to put them up anyway. She got 10 fish, and her relatives had received donated fish as well, so they decided to pool them and fire up the smokehouse. Once the fish thawed, she eyed their bodies. Did she need to remove the scales? She called around. Nobody knew.
“I know nothing about these fish,” she said.
6 a.m. and coffee. All hands on deck. Grandkids were sent to gather birch bark. There were surprised shouts from the woods. “Gramma! Look, berries.” Gathering birch bark was always a fun task for the young ones and soon bags were full of the papery shreds of the tree. Mason asked me why we needed birch bark. I reminded him that Grampa needs it to make fire in the smokehouse to smoke the fish.
“I no remember,” he said, handing me the bag.
Mason, who we nicknamed “the otter” because he loved salmon strips from the time he cut his first tooth. Would he see long strips of smoked king salmon again, enjoy the organized chaos of cousins running free while Gramma, Mom and Aunties worked all day in the smokehouse? Would he help carry poles of dried strips to dump on the table and ask for one long uncut strip to proudly munch on?
Kangas split and scored the red salmon, making vertical cuts in each fillet, leaving them attached near the tail. Then she hung them over poles, climbed the ladder and hooked them up high in the smokehouse. The work, the smell of smoke, brought comfort. She took down some when they were “half-smoked,” finished on the outside, but still soft on the inside, a delicacy the elders miss most.
“The scored red fish looked beautiful hanging on the rack. We fired up the grill and enjoyed our traditional first taste of salmon with rice, pickled beets and pilot bread. It is a small lean type of salmon, but we savour every bite.”
This article appeared in the November 2024 print edition of High Country News. n
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Canada wins all 12 ladies’ bobsleigh medals in Whistler; Taylor Austin undefeated among men
THE NORTH AMERICAN CUP SWITCHES TO SKELETON ON NOV. 28 AND 29
BY DAVID SONG
SUPREMACY. DOMINATION. Complete command. These are words which may be used to describe Canada’s overall performance across four days of North American Cup (NAC) racing in Whistler— especially on the women’s side.
Bianca Ribi and Niamh Haughey needed one minute and 47.24 seconds to nail both runs on Nov. 26 and win their second gold medal in as many days. Erica Voss hit the podium in all four races she entered, clinching another silver with Eden Wilson (+0.42). That left bronze around the necks of Kristen Bujnowski and Charlotte Ross (+0.54).
What does that all add up to? Twelve out of 12 ladies’ medals going to the Maple Leaf.
Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) coach and four-time Olympian Justin Kripps is understandably over the moon about it.
“It’s awesome to see that our women’s team is really deep right now, with a lot of the younger drivers coming up strong,” Kripps said. “They really showed out at these races.”
Don’t forget about Taylor Austin, who leaves the Sea to Sky with four home-ice victories to his name. Once again it was Shane Ohrt, Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson and Mark Zanette propelling him to triumph (1:43.83).
Edson Luques Bindilatti, Rafael Souza Da Silva, Erick Jeronimo and Edson Ricardo
Martins gave Brazil reason to cheer in second place (+0.83), with Canucks Jay Dearborn, Kenny M’Pindou, Brandon Loewen and Tobi Ade finishing third (+1.34). In fact, two out of three teams on every men’s podium this week have been Canadian.
“This is a difficult track,” remarked Kripps. “[The boys] handled it well for the most part. Really good progress … and I’m excited to see what else they can do.”
COMMITTED TO THE CAUSE
BCS hasn’t just been filling up the ladies’ top three as of late. National two-woman queen Mackenzie Stewart slid to consecutive fourthplace results: initially with Leah Walkeden on Monday and then with Morgan Ramsay 24 hours later. Team Canada has great depth, but that wouldn’t exist without dedication from its members.
Ribi, for instance, flew to Calgary Tuesday night so she could report for duty as a firefighter on Wednesday at 7 a.m. Mountain Time. It’s a schedule that would make most folks balk, but not her.
“Bobsledding allows me to do my lifelong passion, which is to compete,” explained Ribi, a former Dartmouth College soccer star. “There’s nothing better than getting to wear the Maple Leaf at the start line with [my friend] Niamh. It’s a really special privilege to represent my country, and then on the firefighting side to represent my city. I’m very fortunate and wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Likewise, Bujnowski has paid her dues. The London, Ont. native joined BCS seven years ago and pushed Christine de Bruin to fifth place at the 2022 Beijing Olympics
before transitioning into a pilot’s role. Bujnowski’s driving skills haven’t always matched her power off the start line, but her trajectory is pointed upward with two bronze medals in Whistler.
“I’m really excited, especially after these last few days because … I showed I can drive similarly well to these other girls who are doing really well,” she remarked. “Looking forward to the next race series.”
Ross isn’t even done with her psychology degree or rugby career at Carleton University, but allowed her interest in niche sports to pull her into bobsledding. She does not regret her decision.
Perhaps Haughey summed it up best when she said: “You come into the sport of bobsled wanting to achieve your goals. It’s a lot of fun.”
‘IT’S ALL ABOUT RAISING THE FLOOR’
Several Canadians like Zanette, EskrickParkinson, Loewen and Ade got their first taste of international competition this week. Their pilots thus had the opportunity and challenge of mentoring them on the fly.
“Anytime we can win a race in Whistler, it’s a good day,” said Austin. “The boys came out, competed well and we progressed through the week. We’ve learned a lot being here and we’re going to try and refine it a little bit in Park City [during our next race].”
From his perspective, Dearborn added: “We focused on being really technical, getting that load sequence down and getting the push technique right. I’d say it was a pretty successful two days for us as a team.”
Experienced leadership was particularly
important on Tuesday, with multiple crashes and mechanical issues resulting in delays on track.
Loewen probably spoke for all of his fellow rookies when he discussed looking to BCS veterans for guidance on how to manage stress, maintain composure and react to the unexpected. Ade followed up by describing Dearborn as “a great leader” who confidently introduces bobsled to newcomers.
Of course, leaders don’t succeed alone and credit should be given to the roster’s unsung heroes.
Take Chris Ashley, who was forced to bow out of the week’s events due to an undisclosed injury. Regardless, Austin praised the stricken brakeman for “carrying literally the whole team.”
Kripps agrees. “It takes a village in this sport,” he said. “Morgan and Chris especially, they’ve been absolutely crucial in keeping the attitude positive. Chris has been making sure everybody’s sleds get to the line. Such good teammates, both of them. I love to see Morgan get her shot racing and I’m sure Chris is going to get a shot soon.
“Everybody’s learning how to perform when they’re not feeling their best. Our athletes start to get to a high level and their ceilings become quite high, but it’s all about raising the floor. Their bad days are still pretty good. Resilience is what separates the people who stand on the podium from the people who don’t.”
Full results from the bobsled component of the 2024 Whistler NAC can be viewed at ibsf.org/en/races-and-results.
Be sure to revisit the Whistler Sliding Centre Nov. 29 as the skeleton racers get their turn to engage. n
PODIUM SWEEP The Whistler North American Cup two-woman bobsled top six on Nov. 26, 2024.
PHOTO BY DAVID SONG
Ribi and Haughey prevail as Canadian ladies dominate third bobsleigh podium in Whistler
TEAM AUSTIN, TEAM GRAY FINISH FIRST AND SECOND RESPECTIVELY IN FOUR-MAN RACE
BY DAVID SONG
IT WAS ANOTHER Maple Leaf bobsled sweep at the North American Cup at the Whistler Sliding Centre Nov. 25, with Bianca Ribi and Niamh Haughey’s time of one minute and 47.54 seconds vaulting them to success. Erica Voss managed her third podium of the week in the runner-up spot with Eden Wilson on board (+0.26). Kristen Bujnowski and rookie back-seater Charlotte Ross achieved third (+0.43).
About Canada’s continuing victories, Ribi said: “It’s super exciting. It shows how strong our program is. [Niamh and I’s] win today didn’t come easy. I had to drive well, Niamh had to push us well, and without those two things we wouldn’t have won because our fellow Canadians are so strong.
“It comes as no surprise that we’re sweeping the podium race after race.”
Not to be outdone, Taylor Austin clinched his third straight gold medal as a driver with Mark Zanette, Shane Ohrt and Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson pushing his four-man sled (1:43.92). Silver went to Cyrus Gray, Shaquille Murray-Lawrence, Davidson de Souza and Chris Holmstead (+0.54), while Brazil’s Edson Luques Bindilatti piloted Rafael Souza Da Silva, Erick Jeronimo and Edson Ricardo Martins to bronze (+0.57).
The Australian units led by Cam Scott and Rhys Peters finished at the bottom of the table—eighth and ninth, respectively— but they’re celebrating their own meaningful milestone. Nov. 25 was the first time in 15 years Australia deployed a pair of four-man sleds into any international race.
‘WE WILL WIN ANYWAYS’
Many of Canada’s two-woman pairings have been shuffled up going into this year, but Ribi and Haughey are entering their third campaign together. Such familiarity helped them pull out the fastest women’s push time of the day: 5.26 seconds.
“It’s a lot more fun to push with friends, so I’m really happy that I could have Niamh in the sled with me,” commented Ribi. “A nice change to have the fastest push in the field, so that definitely gives me a little bit more margin for error.
“Routine’s really important. Niamh’s going to keep the sled running the way I like. It gives me so much peace of mind from that end, and I can just fully focus on the drive. We really show up on race day and I can always expect that out of us.”
Haughey added: “I respect Ribi entirely. As a brakeman, you’re very disposable—in a polite way, I guess you could say. Luckily for Ribi and I: we get along off the ice just as much as on the ice. I have full [trust] that she’s going to keep me safe. We’ve been in a
little bit of a financial deficit this year, but … there’s a quote that gets passed around: ‘we will win anyways.’”
Recent weather conditions presented a bit of a hurdle to Voss and Wilson, but it was nothing they couldn’t address.
“In our first run, there were a few nerves,” admitted Voss. “We knew [the ice] was going to be faster and harder than what we’ve seen in training … and I was overthinking and overdriving a little bit. For the second run, I was like: ‘I know what I’m doing. The track is still the same.’”
Wilson’s unusual career trajectory bears mentioning here. A former equestrian athlete, she gained experience in the pilot’s seat before reverting again to brakewoman—which many pilots don’t do. Yet the Calgarian’s faith in her teammate influenced her decision.
“As a show jumper-turned bobsledder, I came in here with eyes wide open,” said Wilson. “I’m one of the very few who’s [returned to the backseat after driving], but it’s because I believe in Erica. I think she’s going to go to the next Olympics and I would love to be with her.”
‘WE
FOUND OUR SOULS’
Gray’s gang represents a bit of an emerging subplot among Canadian men. They’re typically vigorous off the start line, but were hungry for better results after an underwhelming National Championship performance in mid-November.
The quartet ripped off two sub-five second pushes on Nov. 25 (4.94 and 4.92), with only the Brazilians equalling that feat. Having said that, they were in fifth after run No. 1 and needed a dominant follow-up outing.
“I felt like we didn’t put our all into [the first run], but we found our souls on that next one,” remarked Murray-Lawrence, alluding to the fact his crew improved on their first-run time by two-tenths of a second.
Likewise, Gray puts pressure on himself. “The mindset today was trying to get my guys on the podium, one way or the other. The guys were going to give it all they had, and I just needed to put the driving together.”
One of the team’s bigger personalities is de Souza, who is known for hyping up his compatriots and exhorting them to perform. The Sao Paulo native worked hard to leave the favela of his youth, and that same ambition makes him want the best for the people in his orbit.
“Cheering for my teammates is my job … one thing I have deep inside me,” explained de Souza. “If I elevate everybody, that’s how I can elevate myself, and getting a medal today was just the beginning of the game. I’m happy, but not content. We have to keep believing we can be the best ones out there. I don’t think I would ever be satisfied until we go to the Olympics and actually get something meaningful.” n
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Onhis ownasarefugeefromHungar yat13.
Clear SkiesSteve
Withsadnessbutnoregrets,wewanttosharethat SteveMozespassedawayMonday, November18, 2024,surrounded,asalways, by hisfamilySheila, Sandy, Scott,Claire, Seth,and Scarlette.
Although Steveisgone, hewillliveinourhearts forever.Hewas amanwhomadememorieshappen. Helivedwithunabashedpassionforlife. Hislifewasoften astruggle,buthealwaysledus alongontheadventure:
LearningEnglish,makingfriendsand fosteringonBacher’sfarmduringhighschoolatCayuga Secondar yand working at aTerrebroodt’sgarage.
Embraced by Sheila’s MacDonaldclan, Cayugafriendsandthe group at Peninsula Air, theantics continued.
ReunitingwithhisfamilyleftinBudapestandbondingourfamilytieswithhisbrother Motiand son Aron.
As ahighlyaccomplishedflyingcareer tookoffbecoming acaptainwithNordairinthe Arctic and Montreal,transitioning to Canadian Pacific,thenCanadian Airlinesandfinally AirCanadain Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.
Steve’spride grewguiding hissons Scottand Sandy,buildinglifelongfriendshipsandtraipsing usaroundthe worldwithhim.SheilablamestheirbehaviorandspellingentirelyonSteve.The Mozes’home wasalwaysopenandwelcoming to alland we hadsuchfunandshenanigans. Thoseare such wonderfulsharedmemories forall.
TheMozesfamilyshiftedwest to Whistlerintheearly90’s, continuing communitysport and mountainlife. Stevehated retiringfromflyingat60,butthatdidn’t slow himdown. Hislaughter, and relentlessspirit,continuedashe workedonwith Bear Creek Strata, Whistler Mountain Kids SkiCamp, and at NickNorthgolf course. It kepthim foreveryoung;andoutofthehousefor Sheila’s sanity.Hefoughtbackfromhisdisablingstrokein2012, to walkagainandspeedhis scooterall over Whistlerand Florence, Oregon,makingfriendswhereverhe went.Hefoughtto give us12moreyears together to enjoythe greatfamily ScottandClairehaveraised, know and love his grandkidsandsee Sandyadvanceinhisownflyingcareer.
Ashishear tgaveoutbutnotin,hestruggled righttotheend, to know wewere alllovedand cared for. This worldandever yone Stevetouchedare richer forit. Hiswas alifewell-livedandon hisabsoluteterms.
As per Steve’swisheshehasbeencremated,andno formalservicewillbeheld. Mostappreciated,wouldbejust reachingout to theMozesfamily to shareyourstoriesandmemories.
Sheila, Scottand Sandyinviteany of youtodrop-in tocelebrate Steve’slifebackin Cayuga, at LittleDingsSportsBar,Saturday, November30,5pmandafter. Raise aglass to Steve. As Steve alwayssaid“What canIget youtodrink.Ididn’t askif youwanted to drink”
Wethankall forthe wonderfulcarehewas givenatWhistlerHealth Care Centre andintheICUat Lion’sGateHospital.Theycheeredwithhim righttotheend.
In lieuofflowers,pleasemakedonations to Intensive Care UnitthroughtheLions Gate Hospital Foundationlghfoundation.com/tribute- donationor SMozesScholarship Fund at Cayuga Secondar ysupporting continuationinpost-secondary sport-relatededucationthrough Christine.kononiuk@granderie.ca
Squamish Nation chef’s travelling kitchen meant to inspire pride in Indigenous cuisine
PAUL
NATRALL’S LITTLE SPIRIT MOON POP-UP WILL TEACH TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUES AT SCHOOLS AND OFFICES ACROSS
B.C.
BY BRANDON BARRETT
IT’S BEEN A DECADE and a half since award-winning Squamish Nation chef Paul Natrall enrolled in an Indigenous cooking course at Vancouver Community College. All these years later, it’s a pair of field trips he and his fellow students took that still vividly sticks out in his mind.
“They brought us to Musqueam [territory] to see some of their traditional smoke houses. That was huge to be able to see some of those things still being practiced. We also went up to Mount Currie on special occasions when they would prepare wind-dried salmon,” he said.
Now, instead of students going to the knowledge source, Natrall wants to bring it to them. The man behind Mr. Bannock, Vancouver’s first Indigenous food truck, is taking his wealth of experience on the road with a new venture called Little Spirit Moon. Named after the 13 moons in the lunar calendar recognized by many Indigenous cultures, the project is a travelling classroom of sorts. Outfitting a trailer with a dehydrator, freeze
dryer, and smoker, alongside equipment for canning and pickling, Natrall plans to visit schools, offices, and organizations interested in learning traditional and contemporary Indigenous culinary techniques. That will include recipes for his trademark bannock, dried meats, homemade jams, salsas, and spice rubs.
From 1885 to 1951, the potlatch, a traditional ceremony involving feasts, dancing and singing that was integral to the social hierarchy and governance of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples, particularly on the Northwest Coast, was banned by the federal government, who saw it as un-Christian and a barrier to assimilation. Settlers took
“The whole goal is to be able to share the knowledge and experience I gained from the last 15 years within our community...”
- PAUL NATRALL
“It’s super exciting,” he said. “The whole goal is to be able to share the knowledge and experience I gained from the last 15 years within our community, hoping to connect with people that aren’t connected to their communities, who can’t go to their homelands and learn from their families and knowledge keepers there.”
Like so many aspects of Indigenous culture in Canada, colonization severed First Nations from their culinary traditions.
control of salmon distribution on the West Coast. Buffalo were nearly wiped off the Prairies, Ottawa’s attempt at starving the First Nations that relied on them.
The disconnection manifested in smaller, but no less damaging ways, as well. Traditional food knowledge was lost along the way. Teachings about wild plants. Family recipes long forgotten.
“There’s a huge gap between Indigenous food ways and all the other cuisines from
around the world,” said Natrall. “There was a lot that was lost with the trauma. I’m just super happy to be a part of the Indigenous culinary world that is rebuilding the food culture. I see a lot of successful Indigenous chefs across the country and I talk to a lot of them and really just cheer them on. We are stepping up and taking our place in the culinary world.”
With only two brick-and-mortar Indigenous restaurants across the entire Lower Mainland—Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro in Vancouver and Tradish’s The Ancestor Café in Langley—there are few opportunities for the average diner to sample First Nations food, let alone know how to cook it. Through his Mr. Bannock food truck and catering service, as well as his role as chair of the Indigenous Culinary of Associated Nations, Natrall is well positioned to change that. And he’s fully aware it’s going to take more than just food to do so.
“It’s not just cooking. You have to be able to tell stories and have a bigger presence on social media, too. When I go travel and talk with people, there are a lot of great cooks out there, but if they can’t share stories, communicate and talk, that’s not enough,” he said. “You have to have the hustle and drive, and hopefully I can show people, if I can do it, they can too.”
Learn more at mrbannock.com/littlespirit-moon. n
THAT’S THE SPIRIT Little Spirit Moon is a pop-up travelling kitchen that teaches traditional and contemporary Indigenous culinary techniques.
PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL NATRALL
MEADOW PARK SPORTS CENTRE SWIM • SKATE • SWEAT • SQUASH
‘The music piece really resonates’ FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 25 YEARS,
BY DAVID SONG
BEHIND MANY GREAT movies are great soundtracks.
Legendary composers such as John Williams, Hans Zimmer and Howard Shore have made indelible marks upon filmmaking, not unlike other titans in the acting and directing realm. The adventures of valiant Jedi Knights, enigmatic Fremen and intrepid Hobbits would not be the same without the motifs that call them to our minds.
Some films are created for the express purpose of documenting bands, whether real (U2: Rattle and Hum) or fictional (This Is Spinal Tap). The lives of iconic artists also spawn biographical productions like Rocketman, Bob Marley: One Love or Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
Then there’s a franchise like Transformers, which—despite its failure to impress critics—brought us five breathtaking and pulse-pounding music scores courtesy of Steve Jablonsky.
As a result, the 2024 Whistler Film Festival (WFF) intends to pay tribute to the musical side of cinema during its quarter-century anniversary.
“Before the pandemic and quite a ways in the past, we used to have a music showcase where we would bring bands in,” recounts WFF executive director Angela Heck. “We haven’t done that for a number of years … but this is really the first year where we’re focusing on music on screen.”
THE WHISTLER FILM
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
FESTIVAL
INTENTIONALLY CELEBRATES THE ART OF MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS
One of the imminent WFF’s best causes is its “Rock the Fest FUN’Raiser,” presented in conjunction with RE/MAX. It will be a Dec. 7 showdown in the Whistler Conference Centre between two famed keyboard warriors: Mick Dalla-Vee of Randy Bachman Band fame and Andrew Johns, who is known for riding shotgun with Alice Cooper.
Fans are strongly encouraged to wear their favourite band apparel and come loaded
leader in the community. She’s been with us for many years and we’re very lucky to have her. The FUN’Raiser is accessible for anybody in Whistler at the time, whether you’re living here or coming up for the weekend.”
Meanwhile, country rock royalty in this nation shall be celebrated at the Dec. 6 debut and Dec. 8 encore of Blue Rodeo: Lost Together. Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor narrate this new documentary chronicling four decades of their band, which is recognized with dozens of Juno nominations, a Governor
“We’re coming up on our 25th year, and we’re asking the community to come out and help us celebrate.”
- ANGELA HECK
with all kinds of song requests. Taylor Swift, Queen, Nirvana, the Tragically Hip… virtually everything is fair game.
Proceeds from this event will go towards the Whistler Film Festival Society (WFFS) and its 13 Talent Development Programs, as well as the WFF and associated Content Summit.
“The music piece really resonates throughout the festival, and no more so than at the FUN’Raiser, which is our duelling pianos,” says Heck. “We’ve got two incredible musicians. We also have a silent auction that will be online just before the festival starts with over $40,000—possibly even $50,000—worth of prizing, but all [items] are really accessible.
“This whole thing is the brainchild of one of our board members, Ann Chiasson, who’s a
General’s Performing Arts Award and a berth in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Cuddy says in a press release: “We couldn’t imagine a better place to premiere our documentary than at the site of one of our top three most memorable gigs: the concert in the square after Sidney Crosby’s golden goal at the 2010 Olympic Games. We’re thrilled to share our story with the incredible people of Whistler and can’t wait to take in that beautiful mountain air once again.”
A SEA TO SKY LANGUAGE IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY
Most of you reading this are probably familiar with Star Wars: A New Hope and the enduring global phenomenon it kick-started. On Dec.
7, you’ll have the opportunity to know it by another name: Anangong Miigaading
This unique project is a remake of the very first Star Wars movie in the Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) First Nations tongue. Originally brought to life as a language revitalization vehicle by former Manitoba MLA Dougald Lamont, it is produced by Michael Kohn with Ellyn Stern Epcar in the director’s chair.
Disney/Lucasfilm was involved with the production, as were the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), University of Manitoba and Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council (DOTC). The team behind Anangong Miigaading is scheduled to speak about their unprecedented initiative as part of WFF’s Content Summit.
Dubbing a film into a niche language isn’t music, but it’s an equally important kind of soundtrack, and the Ojibwe dialogue promises to complement Williams’ famed score.
“Maybe Star Wars should never have been in English,” quips Heck. “[Would they really] be speaking English on Tatooine?”
Another notable part of the Content Summit is named “Creating the Music Doc: Rights, Clearances & Creativity.”
This session features Blue Rodeo manager Susan de Cartier, top film agent Matthew Safran, entertainment lawyer Byron Pascoe and John Ritchie, who owns his own production company. Together they’ll discuss the nuanced challenges, legal obstacles and decisions facing those who wish to make music documentaries.
Heck encourages anyone and everyone to make some time between Dec. 4 and Dec. 8 to visit or revisit the WFF.
“We’re coming up on our 25th year, and we’re asking the community to come out and help us celebrate,” she says.
For tickets and more information, head to whistlerfilmfestival.com. n
John Clinton presents Dec. 7 at Four Seasons Whistler
THE ACCOMPLISHED SCULPTOR IS PARTNERING WITH THE WHISTLER CONTEMPORARY GALLERY
BY DAVID SONG
THE WHISTLER Contemporary Gallery’s (WCG) next speaking event features artist John Clinton.
A Canadian sculptor, Clinton’s approach is marked by abstraction, shape and form. Despite having received a measure of formal training in Toronto, he is largely self-taught with experience in various mediums. Regardless of what substance he deals with, he tends to draw inspiration from West Coast environments.
“I gravitate towards strong shapes and lines that occur in nature,” Clinton explains. “From the sea is a cacophony of shapes and images. At one glance, you can see the fluid lines of a conch shell. At another, the shape that clams make in the sand from where they breathe. The textures can feel like tortoise shells or resemble whale skin.
“Throughout [my] work, you see long, fluid lines that have a calming effect like the ocean itself. Combined with strong—almost unsubtle—patinas, I want the shapes, lines and texture to challenge you not to notice.”
Clinton formerly worked in advertising, publishing and public relations, and the narrative skills he developed in these fields is valuable for any artist to have. Beginning his exhibition career in 1985 as a wood carver, he later became proficient with papier mâché and the utilization of colour.
Next, Clinton attended bronze art classes at Central Tech. These experiences helped him acquire a bevy of figurative sculpting skills and the niche art of wax casting. In recent years he has focused on using wood and bronze.
‘A SENSE OF CONTINUOUS MOTION’
If you look at one of Clinton’s sculptures, you may notice it appears to freeze a moving object in time.
“I think movement in sculpture helps hold a viewer’s interest. It makes one want
to engage,” he says. “For example, I found a piece of styrofoam in the ocean. It had a beautiful shape and texture from getting bashed around on the rocks. I wanted to create a dynamic bronze out of it without screwing up what attracted me to it in the first place.”
Clinton then reveals he put a hole in the top of this particular piece. Its exterior is sharp and polished, but peer through the hole and you’ll see a “hot, molten mess” not unlike choppy waves in a rough sea. The artist elaborates that making distinct outside and inside parts of a sculpture leads to “a sense of continuous motion.”
That said, Clinton does not attempt to bottle any particular feeling in his creative method. He just hopes viewers feel something when they behold one of his pieces, and that said emotion might change over time.
“I collect art as well as make it, and I always ask myself, ‘can I lie on the couch and stare at this over the next 10 years and see new things? Or [will it] remind me of something I want to be reminded of?’” he says.
One of the Torontonian’s most personal projects is dubbed “Street Corner Serenade” and it was inspired by a unique moment in his daughter’s life. She’d been busking in downtown Montreal when actor Cary Elwes (known best for portraying Westley in The Princess Bride) stopped by to listen.
After about 30 minutes, Elwes dropped a $20 bill in the young lady’s guitar case and thanked her for making him smile.
“I wanted to capture that sense of wonderment and joy you have when you are unexpectedly entertained,” remarks Clinton. “If this sculpture were to talk to you, it would say: ‘Hey dude. Slow down and spend some time with us, we’re going to entertain you.’”
People who show up to Clinton’s upcoming talk are likely to be entertained as well. It is to be held on Dec. 7 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Four Seasons Resort Whistler, involving both a meet-and-greet and a Q&A component. Reservations are required. Find out more at whistlerart.com/show/ whistler-contemporary-gallery-john-clintonin-whistler. n
MAN IN MOTION Sculptor John Clinton speaks Dec. 7 in Whistler. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHISTLER CONTEMPORARY GALLERY
Please emailWVHS.info@gmail.com forZoomcallin information,a copy oftheagendaandtheproposed Bylaws to beadopted at the AGM. What: Notice ofAnnualGeneralMeeting
TheWhistler ValleyHousingSocietyisanot-for-profit establishedin1983andthe ownerofTheNest,a30-unit rentalhousingprojectas wellasthe ownerofWhistler Creek Court,a20-unit rentalhousingproject.Our tenantsareClientsofSocialServiceAgencies,Essential Service WorkersandotherWhistleremployees.
OurVision
To provide,andadvocate for, abroaderspectrumof housingopportunities fortheWhistler community.
ARTS SCENE
PIQUE’S
WHISTLER WINTERLIGHT
WHISTLER WINTERLIGHT
Kick off the winter season at Whistler Winterlight! For one night only, Whistler Olympic Plaza comes alive with vibrant light installations, a live DJ and immersive activities. Take a spin on the ferris wheel for a bird’seye view of the festive lights on the Village Stroll, glide on the ice skating rink and enjoy warming treats.
Gather with friends and family to celebrate the start of winter at this fresh new event!
The ferris wheel will also spin Nov. 30 from noon to 7 p.m. (rides cost $5).
Nov. 29, 6 to 8 p.m.
Whistler Olympic Plaza
Free
ARTS WHISTLER HOLIDAY MARKET
Back for its 33rd year with two days of handbaked, handmade goodness, this holiday market features more than 65 curated vendors and youth entrepreneurs. Discover artisanal food and drink, fine art, handcrafted jewelry, ceramics, apparel, accessories and more. There’s everything you need for a magical holiday season.
Nov. 30 to Dec. 1, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Westin Resort and Spa
$5
BRATZ BIZ YOUTH ARTISAN MARKET
Bratz Biz showcases the talent of more than 40 young artists at its annual craft fair. This event fuels the entrepreneurial spirit and artistic passions of young artisans by providing a space for selling crafts and a meeting place for like-minded individuals to share new ideas and learn the business side of marketing arts and crafts.
Nov. 30 to Dec. 1, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Westin Resort and Spa
Free with Holiday Market admission
SHOP LOCAL: THE MOM MARKET
Don’t miss out on the vibrant Creekside Village market. Enjoy a delightful day of shopping, food, and community vibes. Explore local businesses, indulge in delicious treats, and soak up the vibrant Christmas atmosphere.
Dec. 1, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Creekside
Free
THE IMPROV BATTLE
Featuring the cast of Laugh Out LIVE! with legendary DJs Foxy Moron and Vinyl Ritchie. Two teams of quickwitted, sharp-tongued improvisers take your wildest suggestions and turn them into side-splitting scenes, ridiculous characters and unpredictable hilarity while battling for improv supremacy. No scripts, no safety nets, just pure, unfiltered comedy chaos!
Dec. 3, 7:15 p.m.
Garibaldi Lift Co.
$20 for general admission
WHISTLER FILM FESTIVAL
This year marks the Whistler Film Festival’s 24th edition of “Canada’s Coolest Film Festival” with live and virtual events to connect audiences, filmmakers and industry. Events include film premieres, industry summits, talent programs, celebrations and special guest appearances by actors and directors. From the hottest indies to award-season fare, WFF offers a hotbed of discovery and talent, an essential destination for the industry to connect, and a festive cinematic celebration for film fans and filmmakers alike.
Dec. 4 to Dec. 8
Whistler Conference Centre Ticket and package prices vary
MOUNTAIN FM & WESTIN CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST
The Mountain FM & Westin Resort & Spa Whistler Christmas Breakfast is making its return for its 18th year, and needs your help more than ever! Simply tap your credit or debit card to make a donation, or bring a new toy or non-perishable food items for the Whistler, Pemberton and Lil’wat foodbanks. In return, you’ll receive a delicious breakfast for doing your part to support the less fortunate in our community this holiday season. Be a part of the giving tradition, supported in part by Pique Newsmagazine and Advanced Parking.
Dec. 5, 6 to 9 a.m.
Westin Resort & Spa Donations encouraged
InRemembranceof MichaelSad ler
MichaelpassedawayNovember9th,2024
Hesuffereda longbattlewithcancer.
Iinvitethosewhoselives were touchedbyMichael toholdhiminyourhearts,inprayer,andin remembrance as we honorhisbeautifuljourney
Mayheliveinourhearts forever.
ACelebrationofLife will be heldat TH EN ITALAKELODGE
December 7 th,2024 •3pm
Between (ski) friends
BY ALLYN PRINGLE
IN THE WINTER of 1987-88, a new group of uniformed skiers could be found on Whistler Mountain helping to create positive experiences for skiers on the hill. Known as Ski Friends, the program was modelled largely on the volunteer Ski Friends program at Lake Louise, even borrowing the name.
In February 1987, Mary Read, who with her husband Preston was an original investor in Whistler Mountain, asked her sister-inlaw in Calgary for information about the Ski Friends program as Whistler was looking to form something similar. A Ski Friend herself, Dorothy “Dee” Read (member of the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame and mother of Crazy Canuck Ken Read) obliged by sending Mary a copy of the 1985-86 Ski Friends reference manual, a daily roster sheet, a Skiing Louise trail map, and a copy of “Amongst Friends,” the Ski Friends newsletter. These documents, along with Whistler Mountain Ski Friends manuals that belonged to Mary, were donated to the Whistler Museum and Archives in the 1990s and together clearly show the similarities of the two programs.
The Skiing Louise Ski Friends was founded in 1977-78 by the wives of ski patrol members who wanted to contribute to the resort. By 1985, Lake Louise had up to 90 members “of both genders, all ages and from numerous walks of life.” The stated aim of the Ski Friends was “to enhance the enjoyment of the skiing public at Lake Louise,” and they did this by conducting free guided tours of the ski area, providing skiers with information such as directions and trail maps, and generally being a positive presence and friendly faces on the ski hill.
While Ski Friends had various responsibilities around the ski area, it appears the guided tours were one of the most important parts of being a Ski Friend. Tours met at the Ski Friends sign multiple times each day and Ski Friends would take groups
of eight to 10 skiers, most of whom were new to the area. According to the manual, “A new area is overwhelming to first-timers, so the tour should be designed to show participants where to ski when they’re eventually on their own.” Ski Friends also pointed out facilities and provided additional information on the area and its history, much of which was outlined in the manual.
The Ski Friends program at Whistler Mountain, as outlined in its 1987-88 manual, included many of the same responsibilities and expectations as the Lake Louise program, though it also involved being a bit of a salesperson. According to the official job summary, “The Whistler Ski Friend is expected to sell to the public the services, programs, benefits and qualities of Whistler Mountain; and to ensure, by dispensing accurate information and generous assistance, that the guest has the best ski experience possible.”
Looking through the 1987-88 manual, some familiar names show up as Ski Friends, including Mary Read, Isobel MacLaurin (who acted as a “float”), and BJ Godson, who led the program before leaving Whistler in the late 1980s.
Like in Lake Louise, Whistler Ski Friends led tours of the ski area. They also helped with crowd control in lift lines, handed out maps and brochures, assisted with on-hill races and picnics, and generally worked to make guests’ ski days more pleasant by assisting in any way they could (the manual pointed out the map at the Alpine Lightboard was “a good place to find confused and lost skiers”). Ski Friends were provided with up-to-date information on grooming, events, and weather conditions, as well as historical and general information about the resort and the mountain.
Today, there are still friendly uniformed faces on Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains who lead tours and offer information, though the program is now known as the Mountain Hosts. The Ski Friends program at Lake Louise is still going strong, offering tours and information to visiting skiers and snowboarders. n
A FRIEND INDEED The Ski Friends program was not entirely dissimilar to that of the Whistler Mountain hostesses, which had been a position with the lift company for more than a decade.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Renowned composer Mozart had a sister nicknamed Nannerl. During their childhoods, she was as much a musical prodigy as he. They toured Europe doing performances together, playing harpsichord and piano. Some critics regarded her as the superior talent. But her parents ultimately decided it was unseemly for her, as a female, to continue her development as a genius. She was forcibly retired so she could learn housekeeping and prepare for marriage. Is there a part of your destiny, Aries, that resembles Nannerl’s? Has some of your brilliance been suppressed or denied? The coming months will be an excellent time to recover and revive it.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Do you know if you have any doppelgangers, Taurus? I bet you will meet one in the coming weeks. How about soul friends, alter egos, or evil twins? If there’s no one like that in your life right now, they may arrive soon. And if you already know such people, I suspect your relationships will grow richer. Mirror magic and shadow vision are in the works! I’m guessing you will experience the best, most healing kind of double trouble. Substitutes and stand-ins will have useful offers and tempting alternatives. Parallel realities may come leaking through into your reality. Opportunities for symbiosis and synergy will be at an all-time high. Sounds like wild fun!
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Humans have been eating a wide range of oranges since ancient times. Among the most popular type in modern times is the navel orange. It’s large, seedless, sweet, juicy, and easy to peel. But it didn’t exist until the 1820s, when a genetic mutation on a single tree in Brazil spawned this new variety. Eventually, the navel became a revolutionary addition to the orange family. I foresee a metaphorically comparable development in your life during the coming months, Gemini. An odd tweak or interesting glitch could lead to a highly favourable expansion of possibilities. Be alert for it.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian, you are a finalist for our “Most Resourceful and Successful Survivor of the Year” trophy. And if you take a brief trip to hell in the next two weeks, you could assure your victory. But wait! Let me be more exact: “Hell” is an incorrect terminology; I just used it for shock effect. The fact is that “hell” is a religious invention that mischaracterizes the true nature of the realm of mystery, shadows, and fertile darkness. In reality, the nether regions can be quite entertaining and enriching if you cultivate righteous attitudes. And what are those attitudes? A frisky curiosity to learn truths you have been ignorant about; a brave resolve to unearth repressed feelings and hidden yearnings; and a drive to rouse spiritual epiphanies that aren’t available when you’re in the trance of everyday consciousness.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In my astrological opinion, you need and deserve big doses of fun, play, pleasure, and love. Amusement and enchantment, too. As well as excitement, hilarity, and delight. I trust you will schedule a series of encounters and adventures that provide you with a surplus of these necessary resources. Can you afford a new toy or two? Or a romantic getaway to a sanctuary of adoration? Or a smart gamble that will attract into your vicinity a stream of rosy luck? I suggest that you be audacious in seeking the sweet, rich feelings you require.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): December will be Home Enhancement Month for you Virgos. Get started immediately! I’ll offer tips for how to proceed and ask you to dream up your own ideas. 1. Phase out décor or accessories that no longer embody the style of who you have become. 2. Add new décor and accessories that will inspire outbreaks of domestic bliss. 3. Encourage everyone in your household to contribute creative ideas to generate mutual enhancement. 4. Do a blessing ritual that will raise the spiritual vibes. 5. Invite your favourite people over and ask them to shower your abode with blessings.
ROB BREZSNY
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran songwriter and producer Kevin MacLeod has composed more than 2,000 pieces of music—and given all of them away for free. That’s why his work is so widespread. It has been featured in thousands of films and millions of YouTube videos. His composition “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” has been played on TikTok more than 31 billion times. (PS: He has plenty of money, in part because so many appreciative people give him free-will donations through his Patreon page.) I propose we make him your inspirational role model in the coming weeks and months, Libra. How could you parlay your generosity and gifts into huge benefits for yourself?
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): According to my grandmother, I have such a mellifluous voice I should have pursued a career as a newscaster or DJ on the radio. In eighth grade, my science teacher admired my work and urged me to become a professional biologist. When I attended Duke University, my religious studies professor advised me to follow his path. Over the years, many others have offered their opinions about who I should be. As much as I appreciated their suggestions, I have always trusted one authority: my muses. In the coming weeks and months, Scorpio, you may, too, receive abundant advice about your best possible path. You may be pressured to live up to others’ expectations. But I encourage you to do as I have done. Trust your inner advisors.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I invite you to get a head start on formulating your New Year’s resolutions. Jan. 1 is a good time to instigate robust new approaches to living your life, but the coming weeks will be an even better time for you Sagittarians. To get yourself in the mood, imagine you have arrived at Day Zero, Year One. Simulate the feeling of being empty and open and fertile. Imagine that nothing binds you or inhibits you. Assume that the whole world is eager to know what you want. Act as if you have nothing to prove to anyone and everything to gain by being audacious and adventurous.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There was a long period when many popular songs didn’t come to a distinct end. Instead, they faded out. The volume would gradually diminish as a catchy riff repeated over and over again. As you approach a natural climax to one of your cycles, Capricorn, I recommend that you borrow the fade-out as a metaphorical strategy. In my astrological opinion, it’s best not to finish abruptly. See if you can create a slow, artful ebb or a gradual, graceful dissolution.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): When he was young, Aquarian musician and sound engineer Norio Ohga wrote a critical letter to the electronics company now known as Sony. He complained in detail about the failings of their products. Instead of being defensive, executives at the company heeded Ohga’s suggestions for improvement. They even hired him as an employee and ultimately made him president of the company at age 40. He went on to have a stellar career as an innovator. In the spirit of the Sony executives, I recommend that you seek feedback and advice from potential helpers who are the caliber of Norio Ohga. The information you gather in the coming weeks could prove to be highly beneficial.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): What would your paradise look and feel like? If you could remake the world to suit your precise needs for maximum freedom, well-being, and inspiration, what changes would you instigate? Now is an excellent time to ponder these possibilities, Pisces. You have more ability than usual to shape and influence the environments where you hang out. And a good way to rouse this power is to imagine your ideal conditions. Be bold and vivid. Amuse yourself with extravagant and ebullient fantasies as you envision your perfect world.
Homework: What do you really want but think you shouldn’t want it? Can you find a loophole? Newsletter. FreeWillAstrology.com
In addition to this column, Rob Brezsny creates
In-depth weekly forecasts designed to inspire and uplift you. To buy access, phone 1-888-499-4425. Once you’ve chosen the Block of Time you like, call 1-888-682-8777 to hear Rob’s forecasts. www.freewillastrology.com
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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)
Carpenters Helpers /Apprentices 1st to 4th year ($25 - $35 hourly)
Experienced Carpenters ($30 - $45 hourly)
Carpenter Foremen ($40 - $50 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!
Community NOTICES
LEGAL/PUBLIC NOTICES
Warehouse Lien Act Whereas the following registered owners are indebted to Cooper’s Towing Ltd. for unpaid towing and storage fees plus any related charges that may accrue.
Notice is hereby given that on December 14, 2024, at noon or thereafter the goods will be seized and sold.
1. Olivia McLean 1992 Toyota Tercel VIN: JT2EL43DXN0161538 $3297.00
2. Wilson Jazz Alexandra 1997 Chevrolet S10 Vin: 1GCCS1948V8124528 $3234.00
The vehicles are currently being stored at Cooper’s Towing Ltd 8065 Nesters Road Whistler, BC, V8E 0G4
For more information, please call Cooper’s Towing Ltd. @ 604-902-1930
JOB POSTING
Men's Health Assistant Salary: $53 000-$60 000
Position Overview: The Men's Health Assistant supports and fosters health and healing among Stl'atl'imx men by creating a supportive environment for storytelling, mentoring leadership development, and building peer support networks that promote culturally safe healing and wellness.
Key Responsibilities:*
• Supports the facilitation and management of the Men's Health Program
• Support men's activities (traditional harvesting, outdoor skills, etc.).
• Create culturally safe spaces for men to gather, share perspectives, and build consensus.
• Mentor volunteer leaders, provide nutritious meals, and ensure participant safety.
• Maintain records, drive participants to events (using SSHS vehicles), and uphold confidentiality.
• building group consensus regarding men's group activities
See full job posting on the careers page/website: sshs.ca/careers/ Apply now by sending your resume and cover letter via email: julia.schneider@sshs.ca
Qualifications & Skills:
• Excellent verbal communication
• Knowledge of Stl'at'imx cultural/traditional practices (Uwalmicwts language is an asset)
• Experience working with Stl'at'imx communities (construction/building experience an asset)
• Consensus-building, conflict management, and teamwork skills.
Special:
• This position is requires travel to indigenous communities served by SSHS, accessed by Forest Service Road
• SSHS offers a competitive benefits and employment package to full time employees
Ullus Community Centre
• Executive Assistant to the GM Community Services
($38,038 to $53,599 per year)
Child & Family Services
• Transition House Support Worker
($20.90 to $29.45 per hour)
Lil’wat Health & Healing + Pqusnalhcw Health Centre
• Custodian ($17.40 to $20.90 per hour)
• Program Manager ($57,330 to $64,610.00 per year)
• Early Childhood Educator ($20.90 to $29.45 per hour)
• Operations Manager ($59,878.00 to $73,564.40 per year)
• Family Mentor ($38,038 to $53,599 per year)
Xet’òlacw Community School
• 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)
Community Development
• Cultural Camp Supervisor ($46,683.00 to $63,973.00 per year)
Company Overview
Bella Coola Heli Sports operates in the glaciated wilderness of BC’s central coast. We provide world-class skiing in the winter, and connect our guests with incredible wilderness adventures in the summer. Our enthusiastic team is dedicated to perfecting the travel experience through the highest standards of hospitality. With our central office located in Whistler, our Sales and Reservations team works hard to support the operations and our team out in the field. The Sales and Reservations Coordinator will be responsible for providing guests and travel agents with the highest level of customer service and creating a personalized experience throughout the reservation and pre-trip planning process. Exceptional communication skills, strong organizational skills and effective time management are a must for this position.
About the Role
• Full time position is 40 hours per week with potential flexibility in scheduling once training is completed to enjoy Whistler’s winter and summer activities.
• Access to extended health benefits. Fun, team-oriented office environment.
• Potential for heli-skiing trips and summer visits to the lodge.
Essential Job Functions
• Reservations: Guest communications, booking schedule management, and Webrez Pro.
• Sales: Responding to Travel Trade inquiries, achieving sales targets, and driving bookings.
• Guest Invoicing: Billing and Flywire invoicing.
• Guest Services: Guest communications, lodge coordination, and post trip-follow-up.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
HEAVY
Employee Health & Wellness Plan available
HYDROVAC OPERATOR – Valid Class 1 or Class 3 with air brakes required. Manual transmission. Ground Disturbance II. 2 years operating hydro excavation equipment preferred. $35-$40.45 per hour.
Class 1 or 3 air brakes preferred. 4x10 or 5x8 schedule. Red Seal certi ed receive $200/month tool allowance. $39.70- $47.90 per hour. 5% premium on hourly wage for Lead Hand position.
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.
SNOWPLOW OPERATOR, Whistler – Valid Class 5 BC Driver’s Licence required. Must be available from November 15 through March 31. On-the-job training provided. Wage depending on experience. $28-35.02 per hour.
Lawyers advise; clients decide... and pay
I AM NOT among those who believe lawyers are a lower life form. Au contraire I’ll concede some lawyers are clearly a lower life form. Rudy Giuliani springs immediately to mind, but even he did some good things before casting his fate with the once and future prez of the U.S.
BY G.D. MAXWELL
But most of us enjoy the gifts lawyers laboured hard to win for their clients. Pyjamas that don’t burn like flash paper, steering columns that don’t impale us in a frontal crash, drugs that are generally safe to take appropriately, myriad defences for speeding tickets, among others.
I don’t say this as a recovering lawyer myself. Not wanting to test my specious 1-H draft deferral, along with Richard Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s inability to hammer out “peace with honour” with Vietnam, was my primary motivation for enrolling in law school.
But one of the lessons I learned during those three years was this: Lawyers advise; clients decide.
Lawyers are trained to be risk averse. They’re also trained to cast as large a net as possible to spread blame far and wide, away from their client. One of the lessons of Tort 101 was this: When your client is being sued for negligence, find anyone you can with deep— or otherwise—pockets and add them to the case as co-defendants.
In non-legal terms, it’s a lot like trying to blame your sibling or friend, imaginary or otherwise, when your mother discovered the “art” you drew on your bedroom wall with crayons you’d been told repeatedly not to use on the walls. “It’s not my fault! Or if it is, he/ she made me do it. They did it first.”
In the adult world, a lawyer will advise a client being sued for negligence to add a third—fourth, fifth, ∞—party to a lawsuit if any argument, regardless of how specious, could be contrived to share the pain and possible monetary judgment.
But remember, lawyers advise, clients decide.
One way to get a glimpse of what hell is like is to get yourself involved, as a plaintiff or defendant, in a wrongful injury lawsuit. Regardless of the outcome, regardless of whether you were the injured or the allegedly negligent, if you’re personally caught in this web, it’s hell.
It’s even worse if you’re really not the party responsible for causing injuries but one of the potential pockets caught in the secondary web cast by defence lawyers.
Lookin’ at you, Liz Barrett.
Liz is a well-known volunteer around Whistler. A photographer, active with AWARE, quick to do the kind of work so prevalent in town—unpaid work. She had been active in the Great Lost Lake Toad Migration and
enjoyed putting in the hours to make sure more of the little amphibians got across the trails to see what was on the other side.
To that end, barriers were erected across trails. In a confusing litany, the Resort Municipality of Whistler thought they’d contracted with a third party to do the work but eventually the third party left standing was Liz. Who was paid a couple hundred bucks to do work she’d have probably done for free. Hey, who can’t use a couple hundred bucks?
She might not have paid as close attention as she should have to whatever document the muni had her sign but the long and short of it was someone rode their bike into the barrier and was injured. They sued. The muni’s
just laughably expensive, not the sole haunt of the one per cent. Had a mortgage, paid it down. Stitched together life as a freelancer and undoubtedly with Whistler jobs.
Liz was a pocket. Not a deep one. She pissed away her savings spending thousands on a very necessary lawyer to defend her against a very unnecessary claim while the wheels of justice ground slowly.
A chance meeting with someone interested in her photography, around the time her resources were running out, led to a break. A request to a friend with a high-profile firm to have a look. The firm was willing to take Liz’s case pro bono
If you’re ever sued, pro bono will be the best
At the end of the day, this will be another faux pas our elected officials will wear.
lawyer(s) discovered a third-party contractor was involved. Well, actually, Liz was involved. They added her to the suit.
Upon discovering she was now potentially on the hook for untold damages, Liz lawyered up. For those who have never had the privilege, lawyering up is an expensive undertaking, regardless of how understanding the lawyer is.
Liz is one of those people we all know. Been here long enough to have had the opportunity to buy a home in Whistler when homes were
Latin words you’ve ever heard. And the least likely. It means free. It means the lawyer will work without charging you.
Before you get all pedantic on me, it actually means “for the public good.”
The lawyer and firm who took this work on decided adding Liz to the suit was definitely not in the public good. It was a wrong they decided they had to right.
And so they did.
As though scripted for a Hallmark
Christmas movie, the judge hearing the case recently decided the claim against Liz wasn’t in the public good. Wasn’t valid at all. Decided in favour of Liz. But wait; there’s more. Awarded Liz costs. She’ll get the money back she paid to defend this action that wasn’t in the public good.
Guess who will pay?
Lawyers advise; clients decide... and pay. I don’t think the judge’s decision included an apology from the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) for enabling Liz to glimpse hell for the past several years. I can’t imagine she even wants one. There is a part of me who wishes the judge would have tacked on punitive damages.
But I’d kinda like one. I’d also like to know who at the RMOW thought this was a good idea. Won’t know that either. I can’t see muni hall right now but I’m pretty sure the gates have been barred.
At the end of the day, this will be another faux pas our elected officials will wear. I’d be surprised to find out they made the decision. I’d even be surprised to find out they were aware of the decision.
But someone did. If not council, staff. When the lawyers said, “Hey, look, someone we can go after,” someone at the hall said or thought, “Good idea.” The alternative, of course, is they didn’t think at all. They just blindly accepted the lawyer’s advice— notwithstanding the RMOW has received terrible legal advice over the years—without considering how distasteful it might be to go after someone who has laboured for free over the years to make this a better place to live.
I’m sure the cone of silence will fall on this sad affair. Pity. n
