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Scott Paxton — Staying true to the dream

by Michel Beaudry

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Scott Paxton

Page 3 of 4

Anyone who spent the winter of 1978-79 in Whistler will never forget the dismal nature of that season. "It was terrible," moans Scott. "The mountain opened for a week in December and then promptly closed down again. There was no work, no money and no fun." He sighs. "Fortunately, we'd already paid for our lodging and our skiing. So we endured..." It was tough, he admits. A hand-to-mouth existence. "But everyone pulled together," he says. And when the snow finally did come in mid-January, Scott and his buddies took full advantage of it. "I don't think I missed a day until the mountain closed on May 24th."

But another decision was looming. "I remember the manager at the Keg asking me what I planned to do that summer. And I told him I'd probably head back to the city. 'That's a shame,' he said. 'Summers up here are pretty cool. You should stay.'"

That was good enough for Scooby. "What the heck, I figured. I'm here. Might as well check out the summer. So I went halfers on a Windsurfer One-Design, kept my cook's job at the Keg and just took it day-to-day." Like so many others of that era, Scott was soon to discover just how magical summers could be at Whistler.

"It was a lot of fun," he admits. "In those days, the Summer Ski Camp crew all ate at the Keg. So I got to meet the whole gang, you know, Wayne Wong, Floyd Wilkie, Greg Lee..." Scott must have made a good impression. For it wasn't long before the young cook was invited up to the Whistler Glacier to check out the scene. "That was very cool," he says. "I could definitely see the attraction of working up there." Little did he know just how much that Glacier scene would come to mean to him...

The years passed. In 1982, Scott became a volunteer with the Whistler Mountain race department. "I worked on the ski machine on the Orange Chair," he tells me. "And in those days everybody raced." He laughs. "And I mean everybody. So it was a really busy place."

But it was the next year — when downhill maestro Dave Murray retired and became Whistler Mountain's Director of Skiing — that life cranked up another notch for young Scooby. "I started off as a volunteer with the Murray camps," he explains. And laughs. "In those days, the Atomic rep would pack up a whole mountain of skis to the race hill. Well, one day Mur just said 'Heh, that's something Scott can help out with." More laughter. "And that's how I became tech rep/gatesetter/starter for Atomic..."

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