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A sense of place - Whistler's mojo revisited

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he receive either." - Benjamin Franklin What a dilemma... It felt like the last beautiful day in September. The sky was clear from one end of the valley to the other.

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he receive either."

- Benjamin Franklin

What a dilemma...

It felt like the last beautiful day in September. The sky was clear from one end of the valley to the other. The plants and trees were just beginning to garb themselves in their fall attire. Despite all the nasty weather earlier in the week, the air still exuded that elusive, warm breath of summer that we all love so much here on the Wet Coast. In short, it was a marvellous day for a walk in the alpine. Whistler at its seasonal best.

"This is our weather window," said Arthur DeJong, WB's homme-à-tout-faire. "I can't wait to show you some of my new trail plans up high. An hour of hiking, an hour-and-a-half max, and we'll be there. I promise you'll be impressed."

It was a wonderful invitation. And one that I'd been counting on for weeks.

So what the heck was I doing sitting under a plastic tent on the northern outskirts of the Chateau, eating a heavy lunch, sweating under my shirt and listening to a chamber-sponsored lecture on something called "place-based" tourism? To tell you the truth, I soon began to wonder myself.

I should have gone on that hike...

It's not like Ontario-based consultant Stephen Thorne didn't mean well. Armed with an engaging sense of humour and a statistical grasp of urban tourism, the former theatre instructor took us on a selective voyage of facts and figures. Alas, he flitted over all the important stuff. And when there was a significant trend to examine, he missed the point.

As in? Please, Mr. Thorne, don't tell us Spain ranks among the top five tourism destinations in the world solely because of its cultural amenities. It's the cheap sun, silly. Just ask the millions of Brits who flock to the Costa del Sol every winter. They couldn't give a rat's as about the Alhambra.

But seriously, if there's anywhere in the world that lacks a genuine sense of place it's Costa del Sol...

But I digress.

Given his apparent lack of experience with mountain culture (the "m" word didn't come up once in his talk), I felt the best thing I could do with Mr. Thorne's lecture was to re-write it with a bit of historical perspective thrown in. So that's what I did. And this is the result:

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. And thank you so much for inviting me to your beautiful valley. Before we begin, however, I have an important admission. I can't accept the cheque you sent me.

"No, please. Don't object. Let me explain. Simply put - there's very little I can teach you about place-based tourism. You see, except for two or three other destinations in this country - Quebec City, Banff and Niagara Falls maybe - Whistler boasts one of the most distinctive tourism 'brands' in Canada. And it's been that way for years.

"Let's time travel back to the early 1960s for a moment. In those days, skiing was little more than a fringe sport. Rudimentary lifts and equipment, clothing that did little to keep the wearer warm and/or dry, access roads that were often more dangerous than the activity: skiing was definitely an acquired taste. As for big-mountain skiing, there was very little available outside Europe.

"So what the heck was Franz Wilhelmsen thinking when he decided to build a new extra-large ski area in a remote corner of Garibaldi Park? A former pilot in the Norwegian air force and a skiing proselytizer (the Nordics are even worse than the Austrians on that point), ol' Franz was convinced that the fjord-like Coast Mountains were just as good as the Alps for skiing. Forget the bad weather. Don't sweat the difficult terrain. Damn the naysayers. He and his team were going to make this big-mountain thing happen.

"Now Franz was no dummy. He knew that if his project was to be successful, he had to seed his mountain with not just good skiers, but great skiers. And he proceeded to do just that. Whether Ornulf Johnsen or Dag Aabe, Jim McConkey or former national team star Bob Dufour, Whistler's early years virtually sang with stories of its skiers' exploits. And those stories attracted even more good skiers. Whistler's culture - and its distinctive style of branding - was slowly beginning to coalesce...

"Does anyone here remember the article 'The Mountain Belongs To The Bums', which appeared in the March 3 rd , 1973 issue of Weekend Magazine ? You should. For that little bit of editorial fluff caused a furore from one coastline to the other! In its breathless, titillating 'don't tell your mom' prose, the story provided a highly stylized view of the hedonistic - and very naughty - lifestyles of such Whistler ski-bumming stars as Al Davis, René Paquette and Lyle Featherstonhaugh. Parents across the country were warned never to let their daughters visit this alpine Gomorrah. 'They might disappear and not be heard from till spring,' warned Soo Valley denizen, Paul Mathews.

"The outcome? Whether intended or not, that Weekend story spoke directly to the hearts of an emerging generation desperate for new adventures and mountain epiphanies.

"Of course, the fact that high-profile Canadians like Pierre and Maggie Trudeau were huge Whistler fans didn't hurt the fledgling resort's distinctive storyline. But the most important thing - at least among the youth flooding into the valley - was that the lifestyle here actually lived up to the hype. Sometimes it even exceeded it.

"Naked windsurfing on Alta Lake? No problem. Hedonistic gatherings on top of the mountain? Of course! Psychedelic costume parties, mountain rodeos, impromptu races in the alpine? Yeah baby. It was all good. Whistler in its early incarnation was a refuge for all the crazies and eccentrics and wild folk who couldn't - or wouldn't - fit in anywhere else. In that way, the burgeoning culture here perfectly complemented the physical plant. This was definitely NOT your father's ski resort.

"And Whistler stories continued to underscore that fact. Even ol' Beaudry there, sitting in the far corner of the room, played a part in burnishing the resort's image in those years. Think about it. His Beaudry @ Home columns in SKI Magazine in the mid-1990s broke new ground every time he put pen to paper. Imagine: a CANADIAN writer producing monthly stories on a CANADIAN resort - and for an American publication at that...

"But let's not forget that his topics were just as bold as the mountain home he described. They were about people! Whistler people to be sure, but not the ones usually profiled in mainstream media. No, Beaudry's tales revolved around the exciting demi-monde of mountain outlaws and inlaws that made Whistler such an exciting place back then.

"Of course, he wasn't alone. From filmmaker Greg Stump to photographer Paul Morrison, from local writer Stephen Vogler to artist/guide Chili Thom (and I'm omitting dozens of other important folk here), Whistler-based storytellers continued to sing the praises of this wild and woolly corner of the Coast Mountains. And young people everywhere continued to dream of making a home here. Dubbed 'the crossroads of the freeride universe,' turn-of-the-century Whistler boasted the kind of aspirational brand that every other mountain resort in North America lusted for.

"So what happened? Seems like you spent the last 10 years trying to protect your turf rather than leveraging your already-impressive brand. You have an incredible culture here - filled with vertical dancers of all shapes and sizes, populated by fun-hogs extraordinaire and mountain-inspired artists and artisans whose works celebrate this place on a daily basis. Yet I see nothing of that 'sense of place' in your marketing messages. Everything is so - how can I put it? - generic. Your style is safe, conventional, tired even. Indeed, I can't find a distinctive thing about it. And that surprises me.

"So. If there's a vital message I can leave you with - and maybe re-earn my consultant's fee after all - it's this: Be proud of what makes you different. Dare to venture where others fear to tread. In other words, forget all the 'stuff' you have to sell. Rather, inspire yourselves from the story that drew most of you here in the first place. As Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man In The World might say: 'I don't always go skiing. But when I do, I go skiing at Whistler. Stay bold my friends.'...Thank you."

Okay. You can stop giggling now. Mr. Thorne's real speech was nothing like that.

And just so we're clear with each other - I do understand what place-based marketing is all about. As I've written many times before, Whistler's culture is inextricably linked to its physical environment. It's not about the sunshine or the beach or the amusement rides around here; it's not even about the shopping mall at the base of the lifts. As local fundraiser Jane Milner put it: "We sell mountains." And people have understood that (if only subconsciously) since Alex and Myrtle Philip first started pulling rainbow trout out of Alta Lake a hundred years ago.

So there you go. Maybe locals could do with some outside help in rediscovering what the Whistler brand stands for in 2010. Maybe. Still, if we're going to go out looking for assistance from "experts," the very least we can do is look for  "experts" who truly get what we're all about.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I must get hold of Arthur. I want to re-schedule our hike...