By Kara-Leah Grant
It’s the time in one’s life where the excitement of emerging opportunities is tempered by the continuing constraints of home life.
It’s the time when you still don’t know who you are, or who you want to be, but you know you don’t want anyone else telling you their answers, especially your parents.
Most of all, it’s the time in your life when you suddenly feel all grown up, but everybody else thinks you are still so young.
For Whistler’s teenagers, it’s a time when they still appreciate all the wonderful things about growing up here – the mountains, the powder, the active lifestyle, the fresh air, the forests, lakes and mountains, and the joys of small town living, like safety and community.
But it’s also a time when Whistler’s homogenous culture, the constant influx of tourists, the Disneyland atmosphere and the sensation of being trapped inside a bubble create a suffocation that weighs on teenagers and encourages thoughts of escape to the much bigger world out there.
These are the thoughts a group of Whistler’s graduating students shared one Friday afternoon during last period on a perfect spring day. Only three of the students are recent arrivals in Whistler, most of the rest have been here since birth. Their discussion of growing up here is like any other discussion of life in Whistler – it centres on affordable housing, career opportunities, monster mansions and tourists.
The teenagers are very aware of the reality of the town they live in and their comments are thoughtful, and thought provoking, revealing a world far removed from the stereotypes that have crept up around Whistler’s high school students.
They say a big part of being a Whistler teenager is the weight of media scrutiny that rests upon a number one resort and Olympic venue. Whistler’s party town image, which lingers despite the increasing push to make Whistler more ‘family-friendly’, combusted with a sensationalized report in the national media last year, and led to an erroneously held belief that drug use was a problem at the school. It wasn’t true, but long after the media moved on, the students were left to deal with the aftermath.
"Whistler’s (adult) party scene may be full of drugs," says one student. "But this high school is probably cleaner than most schools in the city."
The students and teachers at the school were frustrated at their inability to fight against the negative impression the report left. But untrue stereotypes don’t only spring from misleading newspaper reports. The town’s high profile also feeds into the problem.
"There is such a stereotype about Whistler," says one student. "When I go down to Squamish, people don’t call me by my name, they just call me Whistler."
It’s the unintended by-product of creating and carefully cultivating a successful resort brand name. The word ‘Whistler’ now carries certain connotations that these teenagers, hometown Whistler, will never escape.
"As soon as you say you’re from Whistler, people assume you’re rich, snobby and either a superstar skier, or a superstar boarder," say the students. Like all of us, teenagers want people to judge them for whom they are, not where they come from. It’s a slight teenagers are especially sensitive to because adults already judge teenagers just for being teenagers. "The worst thing about being a teenager is the way adults treat you, because they think you’ll do something irresponsible," says Rebecca Kleinman, 17. "They don’t even know you as an individual."
It’s not just the brand image of its name that creates the Whistler stereotype; it’s the reality of living in a town immersed in the alternative sport world.
"Whistler attracts the best sporting talent from every small town in Canada," says one student. "So when you live here, you feel like you’re expected to live up to that standard."
The students say these stereotypes surrounding Whistler teenagers are one of the worst things about living here, but this pressure is tempered by the advantages of living in a resort town. One advantage is the ‘la-la-land’ type vibe and small town community feel the town still manages to retain, an advantage everyone agrees helps them feel safe in Whistler.
"Even at night, when I’m walking in the village, there is always someone around that I know, I always feel safe," says one student. "You always bump into people you know, wherever you go." While some of the girls say they wouldn’t walk the valley trail alone at night, it’s fear of bears, not fear of people, that keeps them away.
The most obvious advantage most outsides would cite about Whistler-living is the advantage the students are the most blasé about. One of the recent arrivals sums it up perfectly. "Before I lived in Whistler, I would ski anything, no matter how icy it was," she says. "Now I only go up on a powder day, when I feel like it. You get jaded to the mountains."
Jaded or not, the students still voice their concerns over the increasing price of a season’s pass, pointing out that university students in the city can buy cheaper passes than they can.
When the discussion turns to cost of living, it also turns to life plans, and it’s clear the disadvantages of living in Whistler outweigh the advantages for this group of graduating students.
Like most teenagers in small towns the world over, Whistler’s graduating class plan to get out and seek their fortune. Small towns will never stop their youth from journeying, but Whistler is different from most small towns, where only some youth leave for study, work and travel.
Here, nearly all of the graduating students say they plan to leave town, chasing dreams and adventure as they study, work and travel all over the world. Almost half of Whistler’s out-going teenagers don’t expect to come back to Whistler to live and those who do, worry they may not be able to stay.
"I absolutely won’t live here as an adult," says Erin, 17. "I’ve lived in this small resort town way too long!"
In the constant ebb and flow of Whistler’s population, it is all too easy to miss this out-going stream of people, but it threatens to wash away the foundations of Whistler’s community. The students see that and understand what it means, but they don’t see any other choice at this time.
Instead, they see a reality where they won’t have the luxury of living in Whistler as adults, or buying homes in Whistler, or raising families in Whistler, because it’s too damn expensive. The battle to keep Whistler affordable for locals has already been lost, say the students.
Mark Mosher, 17, is joking when he comments; "Perhaps I will come back to Whistler to live as an adult, if I become a billionaire." But his statement’s comedy springs from its proximity to truth, not its outlandishness.
There are some who disagree. "I plan to live in Whistler, and find a career here, and maybe even one day own a house here," says one student. "But it’s only because that’s what I really want to make happen that I believe it can." Her voice is the dissenting one amongst the group; her voice is the only one that still has any hope.
The other voices, while they have strong opinions about what should and shouldn’t be done in Whistler, are resigned to the reality they see of growing up in a resort town. Adults can argue over whether or not it’s true, but it’s a central belief driving the choices Whistler’s youth make.
The students say Whistler has been heading in this direction since they were kids and they’ve never expected to be able to make this their home as adults. "I won’t live here as an adult," says one student. "There is just no room for us as adults, plus housing and jobs are too limited."
Their acceptance of the situation does not mean Whistler’s graduating students wouldn’t love the choice of living in Whistler. They just see no point in wasting time hoping for it.
Many of the students still follow local politics and while they say they care about the decisions Whistler’s powerbrokers make, their impending departures mean it doesn’t matter so much to them. "I don’t really follow what Whistler’s decision makers are doing because I’m not going to be living here much longer," says Erin. "But if I could go back in time, I would stop Intrawest from buying the mountain."
Other students say they follow what is happening because it affects their families. One 16 year old commented, "I follow what is happening and I think the decision makers are ruining our town. If I was a decision maker, I would try and keep Whistler a small, low key, resort town."
Other ideas tossed about suggest keeping Whistler affordable through population control, or preventing the building of monster mansions and requiring wealthy absent property owners to contribute financially to the community. "Our high school library isn’t even open every day because of a lack of funds," complain the students. "If we made absent property owners contribute, maybe we could have our library back. People are supposed to care about investing in the town’s youth."
The students believe they do have a voice in Whistler’s decision-making process, but it’s a voice that lacks strength. "High school students do sometimes have a voice," says Sarah Mordan, 17. "But it is often distorted and discredited." After the school’s experience with national media, students are wary of the way they are interpreted and communicated to the world.
Mark Mosher says he believes high school students have a voice. "But only if we are motivated enough to use it."
And therein lies the crux. Motivation is only possible with hope. And, bar one determined teenager who has her eyes fixed firmly on the future she wants to create in Whistler, these high school students do not hold out much hope of affording an adult life in their hometown. It’s hard to stay motivated and work for change when you believe the battle is already lost.
This is what it means to be a teenager in Whistler – to have no hope of ever living here, to be economically barred from adult life in your hometown.
As Whistler heads toward finally adopting its Comprehensive Sustainability Plan, the people whom it may most affect are headed toward making their own CSP’s. Whistler’s decision makers should pay attention to the life plans of Whistler’s graduating class. What is a sustainable community if not a community that can give its children and its youth a reality where they can aspire to live as adults?
Giving hope back to our graduating students would make a unique graduation present. And if Whistler’s decision makers can’t wrap their heads around how exactly to achieve this, they should ask the students.
But if they do ask, they must also listen, and if they listen, they must also act. Asking for an opinion is polite, listening is respectful, but taking action requires leadership.
