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Notes on a new season

"I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution with thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier,
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"I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution with thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics..."

- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

 

I can't help it. Labour Day is barely behind us and already I'm thinking of snow. I suppose it's hardwired in me. Love of winter I mean. Crazy, isn't it? While most others view September rain as the harbinger of something nasty and mean - of a season to endure rather than to enjoy - I get fully charged at this time of the year. And I know I'm not alone.

Memories of great winters come and gone. Powder crystals tickling your nostrils; snowflakes finding their way into hidden crevasses in your clothing. The absolute thrill of shrugging off the chains of everyday life and becoming Icarus-borne. If only for a moment. Free flying downhill with eyes ablaze and reason on hold. Pure existence! Wet and cold and yet lusting for more. Always another descent to be had. One last climb before sunset. One last run before shutting it down for another day.

Can you feel it too?

Permission to be kids. Consent to be silly. Approval even. That's what sliding on snow is all about. The last bastion of the free-born. The first link to the gods. A connection to the mountains of our minds... It's all there.

Winter at Whistler is transformative. Crazy. Wild. Dangerous even. But oh, so seductive. It's changed the lives of countless visitors. Made lifelong addicts of even the most cynical. It's what this town's reputation was built on. It's how its future will be determined. Mountains, you know. Not shops. Not lifts-to-nowhere. And certainly not yapping residents too blind to see their own good fortune.

Told ya this kind of weather gets me going.

Still, I wonder how excited our current decision-makers become at this time of the year. Do they realize just how magical winter really is at Whistler? Or have they become so inured to its unique charms that they've forgotten why they came here in the first place? Sometimes I wonder.

Interesting times at Whistler. With the winter season looming (and economic indicators suggesting things might get REALLY tight in the next few months), it behoves us to take a quick inventory of our blessings and realize just how distinctive (and special) our mountain lifestyle really is. Particularly when the snow flies.

As Romain Gary wrote in his classic '60s novel The Ski Bum: "The ski bums were always better looking, they took bigger risks, they had more glamour, there was an air of adventure about them..."

And that, my friends, pretty much says it all. No matter how hard we push our summer business on potential clients, chances are pretty good that the shekels extracted from folk here in July and August will never come close to the kind of yield we get from our winter market. In fact, unless there's an unholy alliance made between casino interests and Whistler politicians, the off-season here will remain an iffy, weather-dependent offshoot of our mainstream business.

Consider this past summer. Until the sun deigned to show its face on July 6th (and yes, I kept a very close eye on such momentous occasions), visitor numbers at Whistler were dangerously low. Given our rainy Labour Day weekend, and a wet forecast for the coming fall, chances are pretty good that we won't see any dramatic improvements on last year's off-season numbers.

Yet it seems to me that Whistler marketing mavens are still in thrall to the theory that "stuff" is going to transform our summers into economic winners. And they point to it all with great pride. The gondola-to-nowhere, the billion-dollar highway, the left-behind Games legacies - all those ridiculously expensive capital projects, they say, are about to pay dividends. Just watch us.

Wrong.

Let me offer a case in point. A young friend of mine runs a small boutique on Robson Street. He speaks regularly to B.C. visitors who have done the Vancouver-Whistler tour. And what he's learned is sobering. "I get a lot of young families in the store," he says. "And usually they're keen to talk about their Whistler experiences." His observation? "Most of them really enjoyed their trip. But it always surprises me to hear how many of them didn't go up the mountain. They wanted to. But in the end, they decided against it." The reason? "Cost. The price of a lift ticket for them and their kids was just too much."

Now there are some who might argue that WB should make the price of their cafeteria-to-cafeteria gondola ride more accessible to visitors. But that's not my point.

Summer is summer. And winter is winter. Let's just make sure we know how to put the proper emphasis on the right syllable. Know what I mean? I think it's time we got back to what we do best - and that's attracting the most hardcore, steely-eyed, weather-resistant snoweaters to our slopes. Doesn't matter where they come from - Toronto, Boston, Chicago or Sidney, Australia - we've got to get the message out that Whistler is for people who are PASSIONATE about snow and sliding and having fun on mountain slopes.

Remember passionate? It used to be the operative emotion around here. Still is for some.

So why has price-point marketing become the most common form of promotion at Whistler these days? Why is there so little poetry in our ads? Why are we perceived as passé by the Millennials? Easy - because we became lazy. Complacent. Let our reputation for edginess and creativity slip.

And now that's costing us big.

I mean, when was the last time Whistlerites got together to discuss the changing nature of winter snowsliding culture? When was the last time we questioned the future of lift-accessed skiing? I know this is going to get a bunch of people excited (read: "kill the messenger"), but let me ask it anyway: Why is WB still offering a 1980s snowriding experience when we're already well into the second decade of the 21 st century?

For years Whistler businesses were spoiled by a cheap Canadian dollar and a booming economy to the south. So popular had Whistler become with American visitors that we virtually took them for granted. Instead, we started patting ourselves on the back for being such great marketers. We started believing our own hype. From Tourism Whistler to Muni staff, from Whistler Blackcomb to the local real estate association, everyone here was fooled into thinking that our ordure didn't stink.

But it did.

And when the twin towers fell, and borders closed and the economy went down the tubes, Whistler was left with one heck of an ordure pile to clean up.

Please don't get me wrong. I still believe in this place. In fact, it's my contention that we have all sorts of new winter avenues to explore. Hut-to-hut touring; heli-accessed backcountry adventures; mixed-use alpine travel; winter outdoor education even - it's all there for us to plug into. But unless we talk about these as-yet untapped resources - unless we stand up and acknowledge that the old emperor (or empire) has no clothes anymore - we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes that got us into this little rathole in the first place.

Oof. I feel better now. I know I'm gonna get slammed hard by the usual suspects for these opinions, but I think it's time we pulled our heads out of our own derrières and acknowledge that we need some new thinking if we are to get over this existential bump we're facing today. Don't you?

And the timing for this kind of question-making couldn't be better. Last week, I revealed some of my own sentiments in an OCP (official community plan) exercise meant to stimulate our little grey cells (as my literary friend Hercules Poirot likes to say) and get us talking about the future. As I mentioned then, I first came to Whistler for the snow and the slopes - but I stayed for the people.

Maybe you should be asking yourself the same question. Which then leads to others...

When will WB or Tourism Whistler start using people (rather than stuff) to sell their product? When will they underscore their message by using folk who actually "live the mountain-dream?" And not in that faux-California B.C. Tourism - "you gotta be here" - format. That says absolutely nothing.

What I'm suggesting is it's a personality-rich, storytelling style that actually lets people know what the culture here is all about. What if Mike Douglas or Rob Boyd or Ashleigh McIvor or Maëlle Ricker - or for that matter Toulouse Spense or Ornulf Johnson or even Ace Mackay Smith - were used in a story-based ad that let them say in their own words why they love to ride and play in this place? Don't you think that might attract more visitors than telling them about $89 hotel rooms?

But that's just one issue. Whistler is at a crossroads today. The same-ol' same ol' won't work. It's up to all of us to come up with a new vision, a driving story - a conceptual road-map if you will - that will help us navigate these uncertain waters. Back to you my friends. What do you think Whistler should become?