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Jayson Faulkner - Onboard for the long-term

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.
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"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift."

- Albert Einstein

 

Don't you just love that Einstein quote? It explains Whistler's current economic malaise so well. Meaning? We've forgotten to honour the sacred gift the gods gave us back at the dawn of time... the very thing that makes us such creative and imaginative beings.

Okay, raise your hand those of you who moved to Whistler to get rich. Unless I'm terribly mistaken, "getting rich" was not the principal motivating factor for the majority of current Sea-to-Sky residents. Sure, we all need income to support our lifestyles. But moving to Whistler was never about making millions of dollars. It was about opting out of the urban rat race and investing in a way of life that celebrated health and well-being (however you want to define those terms) rather than wealth and status.

Forget rational arguments for a moment. It's the heart that drove most long-term residents here. Don't you think? Once upon a time, you moved to Whistler because you loved the place. There was no choice. Your heart spoke. And you listened.

So what happened? Why are there so many angry people at Whistler right now? Why does it feel like the community is fast approaching the tipping point beyond which it won't be able to call itself a mountain town anymore?

"I'm afraid Whistler is losing some of its mojo," says longtime resident Jayson Faulkner. "We are struggling to define who we are and what we want to be."

The co-founder and owner of The Escape Route pauses for a breath. Lets out a long sigh. "What we have here is a mountain product dramatically different than anywhere else in the world," he says. Another weighty pause. "Whistler has a unique identity - an enticing blend of people and place. But some in the community seemed to have lost sight of that in recent years. Now it's more about being all things to all people."

There aren't many owner-operated retail stores in Whistler anymore. Commercial rental rates are sky-high, returns on investment are questionable and the dawn-to-dusk time investment is just too demanding for most small entrepreneurs to entertain.

So when a mountaineering-cum-sport-shop like The Escape Route endures for two decades, it behoves us to listen to its owner. "I think what we've done at Whistler with resident housing is amazing," says Faulkner. "But what I've never been able to understand is why we're not doing the same thing for local businesses."

Wow. Radical idea. Almost communistic, right? But think about it for a minute. Even better, listen to the way Faulkner explains his concept.

"I'm a hostage to an absentee landlord," he says, "who doesn't give a damn about the future of Whistler - except for what it does to his bottom line. So what happens to me or The Escape Route is immaterial to his business decisions. Which, no matter how you look at it, is not all that great for the future of Whistler."

Things would be totally different, Faulkner maintains, if the community could devise a formula that would provide real estate to local businesses at a reduced cost in the same way they do for residential properties. "It's one of our most fundamental principles at Whistler: the idea that there's value in having residents able to live, work and raise children here. So why not help locally-owned businesses too?"

The town would be completely transformed, he adds, if more local people owned the land on which they do business. "Know what I'm saying? It would mean, for instance, that my family could be in business in Whistler for many generations to come."

He smiles. But there's not much humour there. "What makes Whistler so appealing," he concludes, "is its unique mix of people, services and businesses. We certainly don't need to re-create the shopping mall ambiance of Anytown, USA..."

Interesting concept. But for Faulkner, that's just the tip of the glacier. "Look," he says, "I deal with customers who come into the store every day - and we're lucky, they're mostly mountain lovers. They want their passion for the mountains - their interest for this place called Whistler - reflected back to them. But from what I'm hearing, we're one of the only businesses in the village who can do that." He shakes his head in mock despair. "Every shop in town should be able to communicate this love of place ."

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to return to his roots. For Faulkner's back-story offers a fascinating look into the last half-century of ski culture on the Wet Coast.

Born in 1959 in Kamloops, B.C., Jayson's introduction to sliding on snow was on the wild-and-woolly slopes of Tod Mountain (long before the resort was gentrified and re-named Sun Peaks).

"My first ski instructor there was Jim McConkey," he recounts. "He was so inspiring. I still remember those days like it was yesterday. The goal of the Tod Cats - the kids' group I skied with - was to get good enough to ride the daunting Burfield Chairlift. If you were allowed to ride that lift, it meant you'd become a good skier."

Jayson was hooked.

By the mid 1960s, the Faulkner family - mom, dad, older sister and Jayson - had pulled up stakes and moved to West Van. "We virtually LIVED on Grouse Mountain," Faulkner says of his teen years on the North Shore. "And given the $99 youth pass, going skiing for most of us was no problem. One of the moms would drop us off after school, and another one would pick us up at 9 when we were done. It was magical."

He laughs. "I grew up looking at Vancouver through the lights of Grouse. Still, everyone I knew back then dreamed of skiing at Whistler..."

A self-proscribed "jack-of-all-sports" - from rugby to baseball to soccer - Jayson never let his love for other activities get in the way of his passion for sliding on snow. "When Friday came around, nobody at school wondered what they'd be doing on the weekend." He laughs. "We were all going to meet on the mountain."

Another happy chuckle. "I remember waking up at 5:30 on Saturday mornings, throwing my ski stuff on and hitchhiking my way up to Whistler (most times standing on the highway in the pouring rain), and then hitchhiking home at the end of the day. It was such a fantastic experience. I'd be totally bagged by the time I got home. But I couldn't wait to do it again on Sunday."

His passion for the mountains knew no limits. He even graduated early from school "so I could move up to Whistler and become a ski bum." Alas, the snow gods didn't co-operate that winter. "It was a horrible year," he tells me. "Even so, this place was home."

But Jayson still had to find a way to make a living here. "That's how I ended up in Toronto in 1979," he says with a self-conscious snigger. "I did a degree in ski area management at Humber College." Jayson admits he hated Toronto, but he loved the opportunity to tour the many ski areas operating on the East Coast. "What an education," he says. "I met incredibly passionate and positive people there."

His heart, however, remained in the west. "I did my practicum at newly opened Blackcomb Mountain," he explains. "It was another terrible year and my job, basically, was to make sure there was enough snow to allow people to ski from Lift 1 to Lift 2. I learned a heck of a lot that year..."

Jayson returned to school to finish his business degree and spent part of the next season working at Grouse. But he already knew that the North Shore wouldn't hold him for long. "I got a call from Mike Hurst one day. The marketing director at Whistler Mountain, Hurst was looking for a new guest relations manager. Was I interested? Absolutely!"

It was a dream job, he says. "There I was, 24 years old and just out of school, working with Dave Murray and 12 high-energy gals. I was so outgunned! Dave was a great mentor though. He was so passionate about this place - and so good at communicating that passion."

Jayson still wasn't done with his education, however. His stint at Whistler Mountain was followed by a six-month tour of European ski resorts and (only slightly incongruously) an extended stay in London, England where he dabbled in high finance and private banking.

"You gotta try new stuff," he says only slightly tongue-in-cheek. "You have to take risks."

It was during his time in England that he became serious about climbing - which opened up all sorts of new doors for the young Canadian. "Near the end of my time in London," explains Jayson, "I had an epiphany while on a mountaineering trip to Chamonix. I realized I was only truly happy when I was in the mountains. That's when I decided I had to find a way to create a life there."

His old friend Tom Duguid was working for a Whistler ski shop at the time. "So I gave Tom a call," says Faulkner. "Out of the blue, I asked him if there was a mountaineering shop at Whistler yet." Silence for a beat. Then he laughs. "Tom's answer was pretty straightforward. 'Heck no,' he told me. 'It's still hard to buy hiking boots around here.' And that's pretty much how The Escape Route came to be born."

The year was 1989. Although they didn't know it at the time, Jayson and Tom were about to embark on the biggest adventure of their young lives. "We've had our ups and downs," admits Faulkner. "But overall, it's been an amazing ride."