Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Friends and family mourn passing of David Christian

27-year-old remembered as a devoted son and a big brother to his friends
news_whistler3

The last conversation Marie Christian had with her son David was on St. Patrick's Day, hours before he would go missing. She had climbed a local mountain outside of Dublin and was thinking of her son thousand of kilometres away in the mountain town that he was planning to call home. So she called him.

They spoke a little about work and plans for the summer, and whom he was celebrating the day with. He cut it short because he couldn't hear very well over the din of the celebration at Merlin's, but his last words as they said goodbye were "I love you."

"I can rest easy with that," said Marie, who arrived in Whistler on Thursday with David's stepfather to help with the search for her son. That search concluded the previous day, Wednesday, March 21 with the discovery of a body in Horstman Creek.

This Thursday she will fly her son's body back to Ireland to his two grieving brothers Andrew and Robert and his extended family.

David's friends are at a loss to explain how the guy they thought of as a big brother, always the responsible one, was found dead in the woods around Lost Lake. He was last seen at 11:30 p.m. on March 17 at Merlin's and was heard from again at 2:30 a.m. the next morning via a text message. He was expected to head to Vancouver on Sunday for mass, and with David working opposite shifts to his roommate and close friend Matt Gore he wasn't reported missing until he failed to show up to work on Monday morning.

A search effort got underway immediately with ski patrol avalanche dogs, RCMP dog teams, Search and Rescue, volunteers from the community and staff at Whistler Blackcomb, but in the end it was a member of the public who found his shoes on the 15th fairway of the Fairmont Chateau Golf Course on Wednesday, March 21 and called police. They followed footprints through the snow, and eventually found his body in Horstman Creek.

Friends now believe David, known as "Irish Dave" to friends, may have gotten on the wrong bus to the Benchlands instead of to Staff Housing, From there they suspect he followed the wrong trail into the woods and became disorientated while trying to take a shortcut home. While the investigation is still continuing, the police say the cause of death is consistent with hypothermia.

Marie knew her son saw the world a little differently from a young age. He never seemed to have any best friends in elementary school, but she realized later that's because he tried to be friends with everyone. He also had an urge to explore. On one class trip to Isle of Mann, Marie said he came home with photos of the scenery.

"I couldn't understand why there were no people in his pictures, and at first I was sad because I thought it was because he had no friends. But later I came to understand that what he was doing was really showing me the world as he saw it," said Marie. "He said 'Look mom, in this one photograph you can see England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...' It was his wish to see the world, and he did that."

David, 27, was laid back but not lazy.After high school he took a three-year degree in Bioinformatics, then went onto graduate school where he earned another diploma in his field. He had no problems finding a good job after that, but as soon as he made some money he was off travelling.

That work-travel lifestyle brought him and his best friend Matt Walsh to Toronto in June 2008 to live and work, but it wasn't long before David started to get restless. Whistler Blackcomb was advertising a job fair at that time, and they decided that was where they wanted to be.

"David said, 'we have to do this,'" said Walsh. "He was so excited."

Bright and personable, the pair was hired right away and made arrangements to travel to Whistler in October for the start of the season.

They only had one week off between jobs, and after telling his mom that he didn't have time to fly home to celebrate her 50th birthday David secretly boarded a plane to Ireland to surprise her.

"I was picking up a relative at the airport so he actually had to hide from me at the airport," said Marie.

He slept on relatives' couches for a few days, and then concealed himself in a large rocking chair box — not an easy feat for her six-foot-three, 210-pound son.

After that visit he flew back to Whistler, Maria convinced once again that David was an amazing person.

David had only skied a few times before arriving in Whistler, and up until arriving here he wasn't much for sports, In fact, he hated sports so much that his Canadian friends used to torture him and make him watch hockey. Left alone he much preferred music and socializing, and had tickets to the Sasquatch Festival in Washington in May.

But he loved Whistler, and told his mother he couldn't imagine living anywhere but the mountains.

"People just warmed to him right away," said Matt Walsh of his friend. "When he was in Australia he was invited to travel around by people he'd only known for a few weeks. They went to his boss and said 'sorry, we're taking him.' And his boss said, 'good, go and see Australia,' and was happy for him. He was a great friend from the get-go, you (would) have the most amazing conversations with him."

David had a rule for living well and it was that nobody discussed work outside of work. "There was no work talk at home," he said. "He always said, "I work to live, not live to work.'"

David also made a big impact on Matt Gore when he arrived in staff housing from Ontario at the age of 17. "He could see I was struggling a bit because I was shy at that age," said Gore. "At 17 you can't drink or go out, but David hung out with me. When his roommate moved out he invited me to move in there, and from there we always kept in touch. He really was a big brother to me. He was always there."

David worked through his first season here, and then he and Matt Walsh went to New Zealand to squeeze in a second winter. They both did some more travelling on their own before David eventually returned to B.C. He took a course in Ski Area Management at Selkirk College earning his third degree/diploma and returned to Whistler at the start of this season. He knew that the ski industry was where he wanted to be, and wanted the best education to succeed in it. He also knew that it would help his chance to earn his resident status.

It hasn't been an easy few years for the Christian family. David's father Mick died of cancer in 2000. Maria's father passed away a few years ago and his grandmother died after falling down stairs last year.

Through it all David remained bright and optimistic, and Maria couldn't remember a time in his life when he was miserable.

Marie said she was touched by the number of people that attended a celebration of David's life on Monday, and was grateful for the support of Whistler Blackcomb and others. She's returning in a month to participate in a fundraiser in his honour, and will be back again in a year.

After services in Ireland she plans to hold onto his ashes until they can be spread at Sybil Point with his father's ashes were scattered. Every year the family goes to Sybil point to remember Mick Christian, "and now David Christian," said Marie. She's extending an invite to David's Whistler friends to be part of that event a year from now.

After that, a portion of David's ashes will be brought back to Whistler to be close to his many friends.

Marie doesn't blame anyone for the death of her son, but wants to use his death to promote the idea of a buddy system. "Men would never let a girl walk home alone, I know David wouldn't, but men (don't do the same,) for each other," she said. "If one guy says, 'I'm going home,' and another says 'I'll go with you,' that could save a life. I know if two got lost in the woods it would have been okay."