By Nicole Fitzgerald
At first glance the Canadian Swimwear Model of the Year finals, held last month at Tonic in Vancouver, seem to unroll like any other amateur swimsuit competition. The lineup of bikini-clad beauties are Kitsilano Beach poster girls. The pretty and pretentious parade of fashion magazine photocopies sport silicone breasts and gym-hardened or diet-driven figures perfected in a tanning booth.
Browned and blonde, the figures lining the stage are as undefined as the replicated Malibu Barbie.
But out of the swimwear lineup, steps a new model — one set apart from the others by the length of the Sea to Sky Highway, and who requires no gym membership.
Amongst soft curves, Whistler’s Virginia Croy steps forward, embodying the spirit of the mountain town she represents, with her ripped 124 pound, 5’8” tall frame cut to goddess proportions from a life devoted to the great outdoors.
She is a stuntwoman, dancer and cowgirl by trade; an extreme kayaker, snowmobiler and skier by sport; an artist and Whistler devotee at heart; and a true beauty both in body and soul who is not hindered by conventional ideals or lifestyle — the secret to her success.
For Croy, the swimsuit competition ran more than skin deep. The event was an opportunity to showcase what a Whistler woman’s beauty is all about. Her mother, traveling from the Sunshine Coast to Vancouver, watched on with glowing pride at her daughter’s success.
“It was really cool to go down and represent Whistler,” Croy says during one of those rare moments when she is home at her condo in Whistler. “It was nice to come down as a Whistler chick. I have a muscular body and flat chest. It just showed the more athletic kind of woman; the kind of girl you find in Whistler. There is nothing fake about her. You don’t have to go to the gym to work out because we do so much outside. It is cool to be different, but I wasn’t what they were looking for.”
The model industry ideal never quite fit Croy. Even as a child model, she was forced to step off the runway by sweet 16. Her weekends spent skiing with her family in Whistler took an athletic toll on her body.
An unconventional girl up against a conventional world, Croy refuses to be categorized or labeled.
The Whistler resident of 13 years now dons four-inch stilettos by night, as one of Whistler’s longest running go-go dancers, and then a Stetson cowboy hat as a farrier (horse-shoer) by day.
“I really enjoy having different hats I can put on,” she says. “People can’t believe I put shoes on a horse or can load a sled and take it into the backcountry on my own. It’s the go-go thing I guess. I get looked at like the bimbo thing.”
It’s 6 a.m. at Rohan Stables in Pemberton and a new identity rises with the sun.
Croy’s raven-black long tresses once tossed around freely the night before are now tied away from her face. She dons jeans and a worn tank top. Make up gone, her inner radiance glows naturally as she smoothes the shank of her seven-year-old thoroughbred-Clydesdale cross called D’artagnan before picking up one of his hooves to place it between her knees.
The cost of shoeing her four
horses every six weeks at $100 apiece was expensive, so she became a credited
farrier and now does the work herself. D’artagnan was the first horse Croy
purchased, four years ago, when she worked for a Whistler trail riding company
at the Edgewater Lodge. He visits show jumping school in Vancouver this fall. She
talks about him like a mother sending her child to private school.
“It’s hard to let him go,” she explains. “He is at an age where he needs to start doing something.”
The same doesn’t apply to D’artagnan’s owner. She worked as a cowgirl sorting 650 cattle horseback at a Cache Creek Ranch, and led trail rides and purchased horses for Whistler and Pemberton trail riding companies. She barrel races and equestrian jumps at local horse shows, most recently Equifest, taking home a third-place ribbon in the Keyhole category. She is a professional picture framer, an aspiring painter, bartender, dancer and stuntwoman.
No Stairmaster or weights are required to keep the Alberta-native in shape, although she admits to swearing-off chocolate a month before the swimsuit competition. Her fore arms ripple in a long stream of taut muscle throughout the two-hour shoeing process, where she stoops to nail, fit and trim the horse’s feet. She needs to be home by 5 p.m., giving her time to put on her make up for a bartending shift at the Amsterdam pub, then go-go dancing at Tommy Africa’s nightclub. The 31-year-old woman who had danced to crowds of barely-legal kids for more than 11 years is a testament to her ageless beauty.
“It’s a great way to exercise,” she says. “I’m over 30 now and it’s hard to keep the pounds off. I am not in my 20s anymore. It’s nice not to have to go to the gym. At the bar, I get to socialize, wear fun outfits, listen to good music and visit my Tommy family every week. I’ll keep doing it until I break something or have a child.”
Her children right now consist of her five-month-old colt Little Jae and two-year-old horse Comet.
Croy started her own breeding
program two years ago, but the venture was too costly to sustain.
Horses remain
her top priority with stunt work and sports falling into her free time.
Flipping through a Croy photo album, images illustrate her falling from a 20-foot-high
waterfall in her kayak, slicing through virgin
powder on her snowmobile, tearing up the Whistler mountain bike park and teeing
off at a local golf course. Modeling photos mingle in between.
All of these skill sets
culminated in a part-time career as a stuntwoman. Whistler-based Action Talent
has represented Croy for the past six years, resulting in North America-wide
commercial, television and film work.
“I love doing it,” Croy says.
“It really makes you push your boundaries and what you think your limits are….
The commercial industry is awesome: you are in and out. I couldn’t imagine
being on a movie set for months at a time, not being near the animals.”
Her five-year-old
malamute-arctic wolf Greg is never far from her side. You’ll see him clamouring
behind Croy and the other love of her life Brenton Smith riding to the Pony
Espresso in Pemberton at twilight for a late super. The two tie their reigns to
a hitching post stationed outside. She is a cowgirl in a real country town
situated 25 minutes away from her other life of nightclubs, tourism and an
extreme-sport film industry.
“It’s a delicate balance,”
Croy says of her interests, laughing. “I am sure some people look at me and say
it’s pretty taxing. But for me, I love to be busy. I think at this point of my
life I am most at peace. I think the horses have a lot to do with that. I find
them really grounding… They’ve really taught me a lot about myself.”
She lays her bikes and golf
clubs to rest this fall, picking up her much neglected paint brushes before the
snow falls. It’s an overwhelming task, the idea of sitting still inside with
the outdoors beckoning her out. Very little muscle is needed for a brush
stroke, instead she exercises her creativity, painting a hissing cat in green
and yellow — the only colour tubes she had around the house.
“I think that is my biggest
goal to discipline myself a bit more,” she says.
We should all have such a lack of discipline.
