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Her Story

Four women of influence in the Sea to Sky corridor talk about their lives and work this International Women's Day

It is 101 years since Whistler icon Myrtle Philip trekked from her home in East Vancouver to the Whistler region with her husband Alex. The couple, galvanized by a tipsy miner's tales of the natural wonders of the area, came north in 1911 with the idea of building a guest lodge.

The result was Rainbow Lodge on the north-west side of Alta Lake, with easy access to nearby rail lines. Rainbow Lodge was a relatively diminutive log guesthouse that was very much in keeping with the great holiday lodges of the day like the Banff Springs Hotel, appealing to city folk wanting an escape, with easy access to rail transportation.

The lodge stood 63 years, from 1914 to 1977. It didn't outlive Myrtle. 

Whistler's resident historian Florence Petersen is frequently sought out for her stories and reminisces from Whistler's earliest days. She remembers that when she first arrived in 1958, the total year-round female population totalled six, including Philip.

Now 83, Petersen overflows with stories about women of the Valley including Philip, her next-door neighbour of 30 years. Philip, Petersen recalls, was a builder at heart, becoming the region's first school board trustee in the days when attending a meeting meant a three-day round-trip overland to Squamish. As more people settled here, as skiing carved out a permanent alpine presence, Philip helped in her own way, establishing numerous community groups.

"She was a great community person, a very positive person," Petersen says. "Myrtle welcomed the change (when more people came to the region)... she was progressive in her thinking."

Eventually Philip, who died in 1986, was named the first freeman of the Whistler municipality.

"She's definitely the icon here of what a woman could do and did do," says Petersen, clearly proud of her friend. "It wasn't all talk with her, she was a great raconteur but she dug in and worked if there was a chore to be done. A real pioneer, a real pioneer."

In 1911, the very year Myrtle and Alex made their move from their home near the Burrard Inlet, the first International Women's Day was being marked by tens of thousands in Europe.

Established around human rights issues of the day such as allowing women the right to vote and the right to hold public office, the March 8 celebration has developed and expanded with women's rights and feminism over the years and means different things in different parts of the world. In many countries, including Afghanistan, it is a national holiday.

In Canada, there will be many rallies, walks and social events; in Whistler and Squamish the play The Vagina Monologues will be performed. The play has actors speaking out about episodes, good and bad, peaceful and not, from the lives of women from around the world. Originally based on interviews with 200 women, it has proved hugely popular since the playwright Eve Ensler first performed it off-Broadway in 1996.

Some of the ticket proceeds from the play will go to the Howe Sound Women's Centre and some will go to V-Day, the international non-profit group that has raised $75 million from performances staged around the globe to support anti-violence groups.

The Sea to Sky corridor is not short of interesting women doing their bit to make this region an even better one in which to live, whether in politics, business or community service. Many, like Whistler mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, who first came to Whistler and loved it so much she claimed her stake here as a local squatter before going to law school, are well known and frequently written about in these pages.

For International Women's Day 2012, Pique wanted to introduce four women of influence in the region who might be a little less well known, but who are having no less an impact in shaping Sea to Sky country than Myrtle Philip did in her day.

Kirsten Clausen, Britannia Beach

Over the last 11 years, Kirsten Clausen has had the great fortune of transforming the B.C. Mining Museum at Britannia Beach from the almost abandoned shell that was once the British Empire's largest producer of copper to a national historic site with a certain amount of magnificence to it.

The museum lords it over a sweet spot on Howe Sound on Highway 99 south of Squamish, with its restored eight-storey mill building gleaming white against the rock face at sea level, towering high over 22 other buildings that make up the site.

When Clausen first set her eyes on the place it was a wreck.

For a museum professional it was a chance to build something, or rather rebuild something, from the ground up. It hit Clausen even before the job was offered to her in 2000, as she walked around the rusting hulks of buildings and machines for the first time.

"When I walked into the mill building I remember being so excited, thinking, 'I want this job!' so I told friends about the monumental task at hand. A few of them rolled their eyes and said 'do you really want that job? You're crazy!' But it just felt right."

Clausen, now 49, grew up in Edmonton and studied her craft at the University of Alberta. Her first professional break came when she was hired as director at the local museum in the town of Peace River, 486 kilometres north-west of Edmonton.

There, she was a one-woman band with a lot of unpaid support.

"It was isolated for a city girl, I was 24-25 and I knew nobody; it was a tiny, little museum. The first women I met in town were all members of the Women's Institute, all around my mom's age. They were involved in International Women's Day, so every year I think of them when it rolls around."

Clausen called the time she spent in Peace River "remarkable" and left after five years to become the arts educator for the Township of Langley in 1992. There she was responsible for a core of 100 volunteers, the vast majority of whom were women. They delivered school programs to close to 10,000 students annually.

She was in the Langley job for 10 years, revelling in running a municipal museum with a large number of staff, until her fateful walk around the mill building in Britannia Beach lured her north to her biggest challenge yet.

"A wonderful new world opened up for me. I'd always been a museum person but this is about mining," she says.

Her new board of directors included many from the industry, who wanted to take care to return Britannia Beach to its former glory. For Clausen, they were valuable new allies.

"I got to know miners in (terms of) their temperament and their commitment to community," she says.

"Miners have a long horizon line. They know that sometimes things take a long time to achieve. I, personally, have benefitted from that perspective, but I also know for a fact that the museum has benefitted. They don't get panicked when things don't happen fast. They bring good business sense and vision and you get where you'll want to be."

The B.C. Mining Museum is in Area D of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. It has no municipal budget and Clausen and her team have needed to work extremely hard to raise the funds for the mine's resurrection.

The authenticity of the site has helped, she says. In 11 years the museum has raised $5 million for the mill building rehabilitation, including Windows on Howe Sound, a project to encourage ordinary visitors to replace broken windows in the building, which raised $110,000, one hundred dollars at time.

"I was very proud of that. It meant we had connected with people who, in their hearts, connected with this place," says Clausen.

Other grants and donations raised $14 million, $7 million in federal government and other government funding and $7 million in fundraising from corporate and other sponsors, for reconstruction work and new out-buildings. This construction just ended, Clausen says.

"To be where we are now compared with where we were then, it certainly feels like it came from nothing."

Looking forward, Clausen says they have just developed a $17-million plan for the next decade.

"It's quite exciting. Components include a membership project, events plazas, rehabilitation of historic homes, and a sound and light show in the mill building," she says.

"We will probably do this over three or four chunks. The fundraising committee is very intent on the mill show, which we are hoping will come in 2013."

They also want to increase visits from 2011 numbers of 60,000 to 72,000 people in 2012. This is not impossible, Clausen says, because the museum was able to double visitor numbers from 30,000 in 2010. The mine's renewal, where families can enter a section of the old mine shaft or pan for gold, has aided this.

"We have to rely on our admissions for our revenues, it's about 85 per cent. As you grow, you need to be able to be business-like as well as being not-for-profit. That tension that comes from not-for-profit and for-profit values of business at all costs is always an interesting dynamic."

Clausen says that tension makes her museum unique.

"There's always lively discussions on that and there is always worry about how we get ourselves to that sustainable point," she says.

But on a personal level, the hard work has led to more security within.

"The last few years it has really gelled, the career, the home life, what I value," Clausen says.

"Maybe I'm a late bloomer but you spend so much time career building, but when you start to focus not so much on that as on doing and being who you are within the career then it feels different."

Chief Lucinda Phillips, Mt. Currie

Halfway through her two-year term as chief of the Lil'wat Nation at Mount Currie, Chief Lucinda Phillips was in Ottawa at the end of January to take part in the Crown-First Nations Summit with hundreds of other chiefs, meeting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The scandal of dangerous housing in Attawapiskat, Ontario, and other examples of extreme poverty and the failures of federal investment on reserves was at the heart of the meeting, and for Phillips it was a first-hand opportunity to tell the Harper government about the challenges for her own community.

"Building these relationships takes time," Phillips says. "I am very new in this political position, some of these chiefs have been in their positions for years... I need to stay positive and be optimistic — I was pleased with the turnout. Yeah, we didn't hear any commitment from Mr. Harper or from the provincial government about the Indian Act, but it's not going to hold me back in any way." 

Phillips, 41, is the second woman to lead the Lil'wat, after Kathy Wallace in the 1990s. The Lil'wat Nation is fourth largest aboriginal community in B.C., with over 2,000 members, 1,600 of those living on reserve at Mt. Currie.

A mother of two, aged 16 and 23, Phillips says the support of her husband makes it possible to carry out her responsibilities.

"My husband took a big role in staying home and raising the kids," she says.

"I've always just loved to work. I put 110 per cent into anything and everything I've done, gone over and above what my job description was because I've always been one to want to learn, to see change. I'm kind of a risk taker, I want to try something to see if it will succeed or fail and then learn from it."

That fascination with the process has been evident throughout her career at Mt. Currie, where she has held positions in every department over the years. Phillips says she found her niche when appointed as director of land and resources, a position she held for four years prior to becoming chief.

"I grew up on my reserve and knowing only my reserve. When I took the (position of) director of land and resources, I had no knowledge or information or history of territory, the names within the territory, the mountaintops, everything. Being director of lands was a huge learning curve for me."

The Lil'wat launched an important land use plan in 2005, collecting a huge amount of oral information from the community; Phillips says it was necessary in order to learn why certain areas needed protection.

"Forty or 50 years ago, we had very active traplines and today they're still registered but we haven't been actively using them enough. So we checked out all the traplines and we were looking at at least two generations of elders who had passed on, but the traplines were still in their names, so we had to follow the family tree to find out, 'right, so this is your grandfather's and would you like to put it in your name?' and they were just honoured and had no idea."

Registering the traplines also got people back on the land because they were told they needed "to get out there and take care of it, go do hunting or just walk and take care of the trapline."

The watershed system was another essential area where usage of the rivers and streams went beyond cultural use and into political necessity.

"We had broken it down to 13 watersheds within our territory and we were again trying to get all the stories pertaining to each watershed, (whether) the Brokenhead watershed or the Soo watershed. We got families stepping up that said they had done this and this in this watershed. Again, it was another chance at reviving families going back to these watersheds and hearing the stories and hearing the passion they had for those watersheds and living off the land."

The land use process did more than organize Lil'wat claims in the region. It was history and culture, something that had been long under attack.

And with this in mind are young Lil'wat people learning more about their culture these days?

"I think information is slowly getting out there. One of the things that I had really dedicated my time to in that position was getting information to the people. Any and all projects that were being proposed or any and all new provincial parts or conservancies, everything. Every three months we would go to the people and tell them everything we had in land and resources."

As chief, Phillips says she likes to stay close to home and be available for the community.

"I told them from the beginning that my door would always be open and they can drop by any time they want. My cell phone has been the same since 2000, so whether you're my friend or my family, work-wise or chief-wise, my phone is a public phone. So people can text, they can Facebook me, they could come and see me in the office or they can come to my house."

And the community has kept her to her promise.

"People do utilize those avenues," she says, laughing.

Louise Godard, Squamish

A staccato speaker whose love of what she does is obvious in the rapid-fire way she describes it, Louise Godard is carrying out a major study of housing for women leaving abusive relationships. The study could not just set out a new system for supporting these women in the Sea to Sky region, but could also be used in other rural communities.

A research-project coordinator with ties to the Woman Abuse Response program at the BC Women's Hospital in Vancouver, Godard has been brought in by the Howe Sound Women's Centre (HSWC), which received funding from Status of Women Canada for a one-year Blueprint Project in 2011.

Blueprint Projects help community-based organizations address three priority issues: ending violence against women; increasing women's economic security and prosperity; and encouraging women's leadership and democratic participation. HSWC got funding for the first area, ending violence against women.

"We're looking at ways to provide second-stage housing in rural communities, so when the HSWC got funding for that they contacted me," she says.

"How can I summarize what I do? It's complicated. We are looking at what second-stage housing needs are in the corridor. The corridor is so diverse, geographically as well as the population... we've talked to over 40 service providers serving women who experience violence, as well as doing focus groups with women in each communities, except the Lower Lake Communities, but we hope to get to them in early March."

Godard says she and the co-lead on the study, Margaret Forbes, want to know if women who leave violence receive the housing support they need.

"What we are looking at is other ways this can be and needs to be defined, because there is such a lack of affordable, safe housing for women and their children in the corridor," she says.

Funding goes until the end of this year.

"It's a really tight timeline and we're working our butts off.

"It's where women have longer-term housing and receive support. We're unique because we are looking at rural, isolated communities and diverse populations.

And it's something that could be used in Kamloops or Prince George.

"That's the idea. Once we've come up with the model, we will give it back to Status (of) Women Canada and that can be disseminated to any community that wants to develop second stage housing. It's really going to be a blueprint that people can adapt."

What brought her into this work?

"I'm a woman," Godard says in a bemused tone and then bursts out laughing. "You're sensitive to the media, to how you're treated. I don't know a single woman who hasn't experienced gender-based violence in their life. So... I got pissed off!

"I was fortunate to be able to make this a career and have those choices. The more you do it, the more you see, the more women you talk to, the more barriers you face — and it's getting worse — it drives me to do more and work harder.

"The more you do the work, the more you can't walk away from it..."

Born in the U.K., Godard's family emmigrated to Canada when she was six, and then lived in a small town called Kincardine in Ontario. Godard spent some time tooing and froing, spending time as an adult in London before returning to Canada and settling on the west coast. She moved to Squamish four years ago.

In her desire to learn more macro, large-scale ideas to chip away at systemic problems she took a master's degree in community policy, programming and community development from Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Part of the program included Godard going to India to work in the red light district of Mumbai.

"I was working for an Indian NGO there that worked with young girls who had been trafficked for the sex trade, girls between the ages of 12 and 18. They were literally in cages, raped a couple of times a day for the price of a cup of chai," she says quietly.

Godard's NGO rescued these young girls and tried to repatriate them to their communities, all over India and Nepal.

"What I saw when I was there were the interconnections with women's experience with violence and how it impacted mental health. I came back and wanted to do more work around that, the intersections between mental health and addictions and violence. Poverty, ethnicity, all those different pieces."

Sue Adams, Whistler

Whistler got entrepreneur Sue Adams because in the late 60s she found out she could be paid more while working in Canada than she would have been had she gone to Earl's Court in London, that U.K. mecca for Australians who travel the world.

Raised on a sheep farm in New South Wales and shipped off to boarding school in Sydney at the age of 11, Adams got into food — the lifelong theme of her entrepreneurial flair — when she moved on to college, also in Sydney.

"My mother was a wonderful cook, but in boarding school all meals were made for us," she says.

"When I went to live in Sydney, she helped me buy all the food I need and then she was gone. I thought, 'My God, who was going to cook for me?' and and decided I was going to do it for myself!"

Adams eventually graduated from university as an occupational therapist.

"(It was) fabulous training but when you graduate you think 'I've got to be one of those! What does that mean?'"

She worked briefly in the profession in Australia and then, like so many others, she decided to travel the world, in 1967.

"Vancouver was my first stop, and I took an amazing job in mental health with the provincial government and at the same time met my future husband," she says.

After seven years, she and her husband Bob decided to become restaurateurs in the city, opening The Amorous Oyster and The Contented Soul, which they continued for almost 20 years.

"The early 1970s was great time to go into the restaurant industry. Vancouver was so far behind, and with my entrepreneurial passion and food passion it all came together very easily," she says.

Culinary Capers Catering, which Adams still runs, opened just before the Vancouver Expo in 1986.

"We opened our restaurants just as the British Columbia food and wine scene was coming together, a wonderfully exciting time. We continued to look for ways to be entrepreneurial."

Having built a home in Whistler in the late 1970s, the couple decided to move here full time almost 30 years ago and were looking for a professional anchor when the opportunity came purchase the Whistler Grocery Store in 1988. They later opened the Pemberton Valley Supermarket, and became well and truly committed to the region.

Community involvement followed for Adams.

"There were opportunities to get involved in public service. Tourism BC, I think, asked me to participate in some of their campaigns in California, cooking demonstrations and stuff like that. The City of Vancouver would ask me to be a spokesperson for independent business."

Adams recognizes that she has always been interested in nourishing people. The requests for in input meant she started to build her awareness of her community, she added.

"You start to think, 'What else?' I needed something else, and by that I mean I think I needed nourishment myself. The biggest step I took was joining a women's business group in Vancouver in 1985. It opened my eyes about being involved."

That group, the Western Businesswomen's Association, eventually had Adams at the helm. She saw the need for opening a branch in Whistler, which she started with then Chamber of Commerce president, Thelma Johnston, a woman Adams calls a "great mentor."

Those were the first stepping stones, leading to places on the boards of the North Shore Credit Union, the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company, and the Vancouver Wine Festival, and a place on the Women of Distinction committee at YWCA. Today, Adams says her involvements mainly start with the letter W.

"Women of Whistler, Whistler Arts Council, Whistler Chamber of Commerce, the Women's Enterprise Centre... and I sit on the Small Business Roundtable for the provincial government, and I've just joined a business partners advisory committee for the University of Canada West," she says.

She also currently chairs the Indulge Gala and Auction, raising funds for the Whistler Health Care Foundation, and sits on the Cultural Tourism Taskforce.

It's a dizzying list and Adams says she had tried to bring her business experience to them to help them succeed.

"I love to try new things and want to make things work, and work towards positive change, and I love to see people succeed," she says.

"I obviously have some leadership skills in that area and it is very satisfying to work with likeminded people."

She is proud to have been a part of the integration of the Maurice Young Millennium Place Society and the Whistler Arts Council in 2010, when many said it couldn't happen.

"It worked fantastically. I think there was so much overlap between the two organizations and they weren't working together well," Adams says.

"They were both working towards the same goals for the community, so coming together with the building and everything that had to offer and the arts council programming, it has just been amazing. We kept our eye on the goal and got there."

Adams has been involved in Women In Whistler and previous incarnations for 15 out of the last 20 years. The organization, which became an operational committee of the chamber of commerce in 2011, invited Adams — who had left — to return.

"Women in Whistler is a great voice for women and for small business in general, particularly for young people," she says.

Because of this, she can pass on her experience and support to the next generation of female entrepreneurs, which suits her just fine.



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