Museum Musings

Whistler has a history of re-using buildings. You may remember from a previous column that before today's museum buildings were the museum they were the post office, and then the library.

With Whistler Village now firmly established at the base of Whistler Mountain it's hard to imagine the town centre anywhere else.

You wouldn't expect a pulp mill, a pop-rock band and 20th-century settlers to have a lot in common, but in the Sea to Sky corridor, you can find the unlikeliest of connections.

Throughout B.C. we are blessed with an abundance of mighty rivers from which we get almost 90 per cent of our electricity. Here in Whistler we're surrounded by hydro-generating stations of all sizes, notably the IPP on Fitzsimmons Creek.

For most of the year floatplanes overhead are a common sight (and sound) above Whistler. Today, these planes land and take off from Green Lake—an everyday occurance. But in the 1920s floatplanes were an adventurous way to arrive at Alta Lake.

In Alta Lake's early days, there were no grocery stores or farmers' markets. Shipping fresh food up from Vancouver was expensive and unreliable, so Alta Lake residents procured as much food locally as possible.

Historically, in the month of March, Whistler would be hosting a World Cup Downhill event. Up to 500 weasel workers would be working 12-hour days preparing the racecourse, installing safety nets and removing and moving snow throughout the course.

In September 1988 an article written by Joanna MacDonald about a performance by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) appeared in The Vancouver Sun .

You might not have heard of it, but this Monday, March 19 is a holiday unique to Whistler. On March 10, 1986 the council of the day voted to declare March 19 "Myrtle Philip Day" in honour of Myrtle Philip's 95th birthday.

Walking through Olympic Plaza in the winter, chances are you'll see some people out skating on the ice. Plans for an ice rink in Whistler Village date back to the 1980s, though the original plans looked a lot different than the rink you see today.