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Standing up for the community

She embarked on her political journey over two decades ago as a one-issue candidate. In retrospect, her issue seems a minor one. But it was just enough of an anti-community move to get Nancy Wilhelm-Morden all riled up.
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She embarked on her political journey over two decades ago as a one-issue candidate. In retrospect, her issue seems a minor one. But it was just enough of an anti-community move to get Nancy Wilhelm-Morden all riled up. “It seems kind of trivial now,” admits the grand dame of Whistler politics. “But the reason I ran for office in 1984 was because I was so cross with the municipality’s decision to start charging skiers for access to the Lost Lake cross-country trails that I decided to do something about it.”

Nancy won the election. But she lost the argument. “It certainly wouldn’t be the last time I’d find myself on the losing side of a council vote,” she says with a laugh. “But that never stopped me from voting according to my conscience.”

Maybe that’s because Nancy was quick to realize just how big a role municipal politicians could play in people’s day-to-day lives. “Once you start sitting on council,” she says, “you soon appreciate how much of a direct impact your decisions have on the community.”

Another laugh. For one of the things she wasn’t prepared for was the instant accountability that came with the job. “If somebody doesn’t like the position you’ve taken, you hear about it the next day,” she says. “I never realized how many people were engaged in the political process in Whistler. And that just gave me more reason for standing up for what I believe.”

Indeed. Whistler squatter, mother of two daughters, successful lawyer and multi-term councillor, Wilhelm-Morden has built something of a reputation over the last 23 years for refusing to take the easy path and folding before the powers-that-be. “I see my job as standing up for the needs of the Whistler community — not for Fortress, nor Intrawest nor the IOC nor any other outsider,” she says. “Whatever their agenda may be, I’m fine with it. But my responsibility lies with the people who call Whistler home…”

Just recently, she again challenged her peers by being one of only two councillors to vote against the decision to help out Fortress and their Peak-to-Peak tram project with across-the-board tax concessions. And she still gets incensed when the subject comes up. “This was our first official interaction with Fortress,” she says, shaking her head in frustration. “We had an opportunity to set a standard — to show the new Whistler-Blackcomb owners where we stood as a community. But we didn’t do that.”

She sighs. “It just doesn’t make sense to me to give a tax break to a deep-pocketed corporation that really doesn’t need our contributions to make the project happen. It was clear that Fortress simply wanted us to add to their bottom-line. And that’s just not good enough for me.” In discussions with council members, she expressed her fear that “this decision would start things off on the wrong foot.” As far as she’s concerned, that’s exactly how it turned out. “This whole business about Fortress being our ‘partners’ — that’s bunk. They’re not,” she says emphatically. “And the sooner Whistlerites get their heads around this fact, the better it will be for the community…”

She says this is the reason that she’s still in local politics. “Somebody has got to stand up for the community’s needs. Especially now with so many big issues on the horizon.”

Consider the Peak-to-Peak project, for one. “We’re being told we need this multi-million dollar lift to fill rooms in the valley,” she says. “But we have too many rooms to fill in this valley because we overbuilt in the first place. And what about the visual pollution? How much is this new tram going to impact one of our most iconic views?”

She takes a deep breath. Considers for a moment how best to proceed. The lawyer in her is cautiously weighing the alternatives. But in the end, she has to follow her heart. “There is a disturbing pattern to all these decisions,” she says. And then cites two glaring examples of community-changing moments: the B.C. government’s undue haste in selling off the Village North lands, and Intrawest’s insistence on packaging the Creekside/Kadenwood/Spring Creek projects into one deal in the late 1990s (both of which she strenuously campaigned against).

“Whistlerites have been consistently saddled with decisions that are not in the best interests of the community,” she contends. “At some point, we’ve got to get the stars out of our eyes and start thinking critically about what is really being asked of us. Until then, people are just going to come here and take what they want…”

Like so many other Whistler baby boomers, Nancy’s first encounter with the Coast Mountains came on a two-week holiday back in 1973. “My high school sweetheart had come out west to work as a logger. He’d ended up in Whistler so I decided to join him for a few weeks of skiing.”

She never went home. “I called my parents and told them: ‘I think I’m going to stay in Alta Lake for a while.’” She laughs. “In those days there were 600 people living in this valley. And probably 599 of them were under 25 years of age! It was so different from anything I’d experienced before.”

The pristine environment, the mystique of the West Coast, the outdoor lifestyle — it was all extremely seductive to an 18 year old from Ontario. “You have to remember — those were the early days of the environmental movement,” she explains. “Things like pollution and limits to growth, and learning to live responsibly — these things were all being discussed at the time. And the Whistler Valley seemed like such a beautiful and clean place. You see — for me, it’s not just about the ski experience. It’s also about the absolute beauty of our natural surroundings.” And that beauty, she adds, is something we should keep in the front of our minds every time someone comes up with a new “bigger-and-better” development proposal.

Wilhelm-Morden knows of what she speaks. Together with her high school sweetheart Ted (who later became her husband and life companion), she set up home in a little creek-side squatter’s shack in what is now the Brio subdivision. They had no electricity, no telephone and their only water came from the nearby stream. But she says they lived like kings. “It was all about camaraderie,” she explains. “The social network during those years was really strong in Whistler. Good wine, good food, good conversation — it was all about living well. It’s kind of funny that way. People today will still remind me of the gourmet dinners they had in our humble squatter’s cabin 30 years ago…”

Ted and Nancy lived this way for four years — long enough to afford to put Nancy through university and still have enough for a down payment on a lot in Alpine Meadows. “People talk about how hard it is for young people to rent at Whistler today,” she says. “But back in the ’70s it wasn’t much easier.”

They moved into their new home in 1980 and three years later, Wilhelm-Morden had been called to the bar and was articling for a big law firm in Vancouver. That’s when she decided to run for Whistler council. “It was never part of my plan,” she says, trying to suppress a grin. But once she got elected she threw herself into council work like a woman possessed. “In those days, we were moving into the uncharted terrain of becoming a resort community,” she says. “But pretty much everybody on council had the same goals in mind. We were, by and large, all on the same team.”

The next 15 years flew by. Between setting up a law practice in Whistler, mothering two daughters and serving on three different municipal councils, Wilhelm-Morden definitely had her hands full. But she seemed to be holding it all together. That is, until her partner at Race & Company, Bob McIntosh, was killed in a bizarre New Years’ altercation in 1997. “That was really tough on me,” she admits. “It was a real emotional roller-coaster.” When the 1999 elections came around, she decided she’d rather focus her energies on her law firm and her two adolescent daughters.

Fortunately for Whistler, she was enticed back to politics in time for the 2005 vote. “I was not a supporter of the Olympic bid,” she explains. “But once we got it, I thought it was really important to get experienced people on council.”

According to Wilhelm-Morden, one of the biggest challenges facing Whistler is the greying of the baby boom generation. “The heart and soul of this town are its community members,” she says. “But a lot of these people are approaching retirement age. They’re in their 50s and 60s and they’ve been living here for 15, 20 — even 30 years. We want to retain these people!”

It would be a real tragedy, she adds, if all these people decided to sell their homes and businesses and move away after 2010. “The community would really lose its essence.”

And then she goes one step further. “We’ve never been multi-generational in our outlook here. But it’s now more important than ever. Why? Because these aging baby boomers are the keepers of the Whistler story. They’re the ones who have the memories of how the town was, how it evolved.” Another pause. Another big sigh. “Maybe it’s my age, but I’ve really noticed of late: whenever an older person moves out of town, you really feel the loss…”