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Jan SImpson - coming full circle

Her dad kept telling her what a cool scene it was. Totally hip. Totally new. It was really going to put Vancouver on the map, he said. You should come. And then he'd tease her about his passengers.
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Her dad kept telling her what a cool scene it was. Totally hip. Totally new. It was really going to put Vancouver on the map, he said. You should come. And then he'd tease her about his passengers. "All these tanned, fit, good-looking guys," he'd tell her. "And all of them smiling and joking and having a good time."

Sure it was a long bus ride. Eight hours there and back - minimum! But it was worth it. Beautiful mountains. Incredible forests. And the snow - you wouldn't believe how much of the white stuff there was up there. So different from the rain-soaked streets of East Vancouver at this time of the year...

She was definitely intrigued. It was the winter of 1966. City life was boring. Her secretarial job was safe and predictable. For 18-year-old Jan Simpson, a recent graduate at Britannia High School, the same ol' reality just didn't cut it anymore.

"So on a whim, I took him up on his offer," says Simpson. And then almost dreamily: "It completely changed my life..."

You see, her dad worked for Squamish Coach Lines and drove the regular run from Vancouver to the new ski area everyone was talking about - Garibaldi at Whistler. She didn't know a thing about skiing. Could probably count the number of days she'd spent in the mountains on one hand. No matter. Her dad's stories had piqued her curiosity. She was going north.

And that was all it took. Nearly 45 years have passed since Simpson took that first trip up Highway 99. Still a resident at Whistler - and still as much in love with the place as she was as a teenager - Jan has a first-person acquaintance with the story of Whistler. Ski bunny and ski bum, hippy girl, road-worker, drink-slinger, single mum, groundbreaking realtor - and now grandmother, volunteer and yoga instructor - she has virtually lived every stage of this community's evolution.

She's a font of Whistler tales and legends. Knows all the secrets; knows where all the skeletons lurk - even if she has the good grace to keep most of them hidden. Still, for a story-collector like me, she's gold. And I pump her shamelessly for anecdotes.

"In the beginning," says Jan, and laughs immediately. Takes a breath. Starts again. "That's so long ago," she says. Laughs a little more. "In the beginning: well, the bus trip from Vancouver to Whistler, with several stops along the way - to pick up passengers, for bathroom/snack breaks, for scenic stops at Shannon Falls and again at Brandywine Falls - that took about four hours. We left the Vancouver terminal around 6 a.m., arriving in Alta Lake at the Garibaldi Lift Company parking lot around 10."

More laughter. "But schedules weren't a reality due to the heavy snowfalls and lack of equipment available to move it. We arrived when we arrived..."

And the skiing? She smiles. "Oh - didn't you know?" she asks with a straight face. "I broke my leg the first time I went up the mountain." Which sparks even more merriment. She's gotta be kidding. But is she?

"I'd had some ski experience the previous weeks," she admits. "I'd been entertaining the local hotshots with my prowess on the t-bar hill outside l'Apres." (A note to newcomers: you know those surface lifts still operating in Glacier Bowl? Those same lifts used to operate out of the Creekside base area.) Jan continues her story: "I was such a hacker - lucky I was Lou's little girl." She smiles. "Besides, there really weren't a lot of gals around back then so the local guys kind of took me under their wing. And I think they liked my spunk too."

Eventually her new ski mentors decided she was ready for her first encounter with the "real" mountain. "So there I am," she says, "finally graduating to the four-man gondola and a mid-station take-off. My gondola mates - I think Byron Gracie was one of them - encouraged me all the way up - and when we got there, assured me I was ready as they gracefully glided by me, laughing all the way down."

Then she was alone. "The gradual slope and gentle roadway boosted my self-confidence. And then I came to the Sewer's first pitch, and the panic rose in my throat as I peered over the edge. For several moments I watched the occasional skier go by me whooshing up a spray and hooting as they popped over the rise, getting air, landing gracefully, making turns and continuing on their way. 'I can do this,' I thought."

And she pushed off to meet her destiny - which happened to be an inconveniently placed evergreen halfway down the Sewer. "I pointed my skis downhill," she says, "took off way faster than I expected, forgot to turn, hit a tree, broke my leg and sat in the snow for half an hour waiting for help." She shrugs. "I was my own fault though. I didn't blame anyone." So much for Simpson's first ski season.

Or was it? Whistler had obviously touched something in the young woman's soul. "Even though I had a cast on my leg," she tells me, "I still came up on the bus for the rest of the spring and made forever friends with ski patrollers Hugh Smythe, John Hetherington, Al Schmuck and Joe Schnetzler; instructors Dag Aabye, John Nairn, Grant Costello and Bob Dufour - just to name a few..."

Sounds like fun. It was, she says. "I would hang out with my dad, Lou, and whoever else sat down at our card-playing table during the course of the day, sipping coffee, telling tales..." And generally having a good time. There was no getting around it. Simpson was hooked. "I kept thinking to myself - I have to get back to this magical place with brilliant snow instead of rain... where fit, exciting, outgoing, athletic people live. This is where I belong!"

It was that simple. Jan quit her city job the next fall and moved to Whistler. After all, there was always work for an enterprising young woman ready to make beds and sweep carpets and clean toilets and sling drinks and do whatever else was required. But as always, ski bum accommodation was a serious issue. "I lived in the Highland Lodge employee housing at first," she says. "And then upgraded to the Cheakamus Inn staff accommodation above the bar," she smiles, "where nightly bed checks were performed by manager John Reynolds."

As for entertainment, "we provided our own," she explains, "with the likes of Paul Burrows and his guitar in front of the fireplace, movies and dances to records, or the occasional band at Mt. Whistler Lodge... or even treks across the lake to Rainbow for whatever events were happening on the west side of the lake and the Youth Hostel."

Money wasn't such a big deal either. "Lift tickets back then ran as high as seven dollars on weekends or 'high season' and five for a midweek day pass." She sighs. A little nostalgia leaks out. "Those were high times, you know. No worry. No stress. We simply lived in the moment. As long as the lifts kept running, we were okay. There was little we cared about since we didn't have TV or radio to keep us up on what was happening."

Besides, there was always Lou. "My dad used to drop off a bundle of Suns and Provinces at the gas station," she says a grin spreading across her face. "Everyone passed them around. And if you really cared, you might take a look at what was going on in the outside world. As for me... I don't think I paid any attention to anything but the hot men. There were 20 guys to every girl in those days. That made the odds pretty good ..."

The years flew by. The fun just kept coming. Still you had to eat. And being a waitress only worked in wintertime at Whistler. Jan needed summer work now. "In the late 1970's," she recounts, "Drew Meredith worked as a driller/blaster on a road construction crew down by the new Bayshores area. He needed someone to clean the crew-house, make lunches, do laundry, carry equipment - and stuff the holes with dynamite." She giggles. "That was me."

But that was just the beginning. For Jan soon moved on to Mid-Valley Construction and the gravel plant for her next adventure in road building and labouring. "In those days," she explains, "Mid-Valley Construction consisted of a hardened bunch of men and women who could drink until sunrise and still put in a 14 or 16-hour day in the blistering heat produced by hot asphalt. I learned to suck it up." Another big happy smile. "Besides, I had a great tan and developed muscles I didn't even know existed..."

Still, it wasn't all fun and games. "Toad was aptly named because of his resemblance to one.... He was the road supervisor at Mid-Valley and used to get a kick out of coming out to the gravel plant and speeding up the production so I would have to bust my ass on the conveyor belt just to keep up. Which I never could. He would walk away chuckling while the rest of the crew would slow it down again and help me catch up. They got a kick out of watching me too!"

Next Week: old friend Drew Meredith convinces Jan to become a realtor.