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The Finn tales - Riding the Whistler wave with Saarinen

"I have forty years of Whistler home movies! Just wait 'till I transfer them all onto tape." – Paul (Da Finn) Saarinen He knows where all the skeletons are buried. Or at least most of them.
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"I have forty years of Whistler home movies! Just wait 'till I transfer them all onto tape."

– Paul (Da Finn) Saarinen

He knows where all the skeletons are buried. Or at least most of them. Like the old nursery rhyme 'tinker, tailor, soldier, spy...' Finn Saarinen has auditioned for just about every role you can play on our vast mountain playground. Instructor, pro patroller, guide, photographer-to-the-stars, retailer, ski tuner, even mountain-top ski-bag checker ("I make the best toaster oven pizza above 6,000 feet," he says proudly) — the smiley-faced 60-year-old has been a fixture on Whistler Blackcomb for nearly four decades now. I mean, the guy is full of secrets and lies and myths and legends. In fact, he's probably forgotten more about Whistler than most of us will ever know...

So what to do? I could just go on and provide you with a linear description of his mountain years: his growing friendship with ski-boss Jim McConkey, his marriage to wonder-woman Sue Boyd, the birth of their children Tory and Jenna, the photographic mentorship of Pat Morrow and Rick Clare, Seppo's impact, the lessons he learned from Steve Flynn and Jim Haberl, his sheer, tenacious, stubborn, Finnish will-to-endure... gasp... or I could simply stand back and let him tell you his stories.

I'm going with the latter. Can you blame me? I mean, there are all sorts of Whistler mysteries that I'd like answers to. For example: what's the real story behind the 1981 "Wreck of Number 13?"

"Hah!" he says. "That's a good one. Well, you know, in the old days — we're talking over 30 years ago now — the Whistler Patrol would always make a home movie for April Fool's Day. And each year had to outdo the one before. Well, that particular year, it just so happened that we had this beaten-up Tod Toboggan ready for the junk heap. Old number 13, it was. And we were done with it. So we decided to give it a proper send-off." He stops. Chuckles at the memory. "Well, (patroller) Cathy Jewett went all the way and built a perfect dummy for the sled's last ride. Dressed it up and everything. It looked so-o-o-o real." He lets the suspense mount. And? I know it's not polite to prompt, but..."Simple," he says. "We sent the toboggan and dummy flying off Elwin's Cliff and blew the thing up with dynamite in mid-air... and shot the whole sequence for posterity. It was epic."

Finn's memory sometimes strays on the details. Fortunately he still has the original film. He contacts me a few days later. "On that exploding toboggan story," he says. "After reviewing the home movies, I can say for sure that the wreck of number 13..." And here he pauses dramatically "...happened exactly like I said... but there was no dynamite." My let-down is palpable. I'm sure he feels it. Fortunately the story isn't quite over. "Minutes after the wreck however," he continues, "another fellow patroller, Pat Coulter pulled out an 'old fag bag,' an extremely cheap patroller packsack no one liked. He stuffed a big stick of logger's special dynamite into it and threw it off the same cliff. 'I won't ever have to wear that pack again,' he said with a big laugh. Next year patrol got new packs..."

See? The guy knows how to tell a story. Particularly when there's dynamite involved. I like this old school mountain tale. "This one happened in the winter of 1988," he starts out. "That morning I was doing cornice control with Cathy Jewett — out past Little Whistler on Horseshoe 8. You know, that section of cornices out past Harmony Chair..." He grins. "Being manly, I'm out on the rope setting the charges on the cornice. Little Cathy has me on belay..." The plan is for Finn to place the explosives manually and then climb out of there as quick as he can. Finn's just set the dynamite, he's just about ready to signal to his partner that he's coming back up when... "Suddenly the cornice cracks," he says, his voice deadpan. "There's dynamite under my feet, I can feel the cornice going, and there's nothing I can do." He stops again. "The moment that thing breaks I do the Scheisse-scream... and then 'Cathy — look out!' There's nothing between me and eternity but that tiny little gal holding me on belay..."

And yet she held on. "All I heard was: 'I gotcha!'" recounts Finn. "And that's all I needed to hear. That little Mighty Mouse had me. I was totally safe." And the dynamite? "Oh that — yeah, it blew up 50 feet below me. That was a close one..."

We're on a roll now. I can feel it. So I head into murkier waters. Whatever happened to Dusty's horse, I ask casually. Does Finn know how that moth-eaten relic of Old Whistler ended up involved in a missing person investigation?

More laughter. "We're getting into some good stories now," he chortles. "That was another April Fool's stunt, but I can't exactly remember the year. Anyway — we were all partying down at the Volunteer Cabin in the old Whistler Mountain parking lot. For some reason, I don't remember why, Dusty's Horse ended up in the cabin with us." He pauses for a long breath. "Well, you know, we all know why management got rid of that old nag. What with the ritual of women getting naked and riding the horse in the bar and stuff, it had to go eventually..."

But back to the main story: "Yeah, so there we are, all partying, and Bruce Watt's dog chews the leg right off the horse! That's it — the poor animal is done. So then we decide that someone should take the three-legged thing to the dump." He sighs. He says he can't remember why he was one of the patrollers delegated to do the job. But he was. "So we're running out to the dump with the horse in the back of the truck when we decide that this is not a fitting end for such a noble beast. For some reason — probably visions of Dusty's many rodeo victories spinning through our head — we figured that we'd give it a kind of Viking funeral... but Whistler style." At this point he stops again. Laughs some more. "So that's what we did. Launched it right off the bridge into the Cheakamus River — a 30-foot leap to Valhalla... the horse went out in style. It was beautiful."

That's the end of the story, however. "I guess it was the next day or so," recounts the Finn. "Whatever. This lady is having a picnic on the banks of the Cheakamus when she sees Dusty's Horse floating down the river. She panics of course, and calls the cops. 'Somebody must have died,' she says. 'There's a drowned horse floating down the river...' But they never found a body. I can tell you, we had a good laugh over that one."

Of course, Finn's association with the Boyd family spawned its own legions of legends. Consider the way he and Sue first got together. "We're in the Great Snow, Earth Water race," he begins. "We're the skiers for two different teams and we both come off the snow around the same time. So we kinda pace each other to the finish line. Meanwhile, Seppo is sitting at the Longhorn watching the end of the race. 'You two guys are awesome,' he says. "I'm gonna buy you a drink!' And that's how Sue and I first get to know each other. I mean we were best friends instantly... ski and windsurf and adventure partners from the get-go."

They were married in 1986. By the early 1990s, the relationship was over and Sue had moved away to the East Kootenays — but not without some wild memories for Finn to wax romantic over. "One day in 1987," he begins, "as I was riding from the youth hostel (where we were living) to my on-mountain job, I saw a realtor nailing a 'for sale' sign on Myrtle Philip's old tea house. You know, the one on the lake. Right?" He laughs. "I only had $10 in my pocket. Still, I hopped off my bike and said 'Hey — I'll take it. Here's the down payment: ten bucks.'"

"I was serious," insists Finn. "And I guess the realtor realized that. 'Awesome,' he says. 'Lets do it!' Next thing you know me and Sue had a place on the lake...."

But there was one problem. "I had built a beautiful sauna on two cedar logs at the old cabin at the youth hostel," he tells me. "Claude the friendly manager said 'Congratulations on your new home, kids. Looks like I inherited a true Finnish sauna!' With a wink in my eye, I said enjoy it while you can..."

The next night under a full moon, Finn and a quorum of pro patrol buddies stole onto the property, shoved that sauna right off the hostel grounds and straight into the lake. "Sue was at the helm, steering with an old canoe paddle," he remembers. "And off we went rowing as fast as we could due south to our new cabin." He pauses for a long time. His eyes twinkle with mischief. "That sauna is still the only floating sauna I know of in this neighborhood," he concludes. "Maybe in all of Whistler."

"And you know," he continues, "that same sauna was fired by a 1930s woodstove that my dad Pentti gave us for a honeymoon present as we left the Whispering Pines Resort on Lake Superior in 1986 towing The Witch, a 1949 sailboat I bought for $100 in 1967 from old Uncle George down the beach who..."

Ah, but that's a whole other set of stories.