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A history not too long ago

Whistler’s history still alive and well at the Whistler Arts Council’s 25th Anniversary celebration
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Riding Back in Time Isobel and Don MacLaurin brought audiences back to a time when lift passes were $6.50 at the Whistler Arts Council's 25th Anniversary Celebration at the Four Seasons Resort. Photo by Nicole Fitzegerald.

What makes Whistler’s history so exciting is that instead of reading dusty history books about the former summer fishing resort’s pioneers of the 1950s and ’60s, those stories are shared by the legends themselves.

Watching Don MacLaurin sit in one of Whistler’s original chairlifts crowned with a toque advertising the name of the first mountain operator, Garibaldi Lifts Ltd., outsiders not privy to the $6.50 lift ticket price of the ’60s could only imagine themselves riding the lifts mid-week, when the mountain was virtually deserted.

MacLaurin was one of 15 Whistler icons to spin a few yarns from Whistler’s history as part of the Whistler Arts Council’s 25 th Anniversary celebrations at the Four Seasons Resort last weekend.

The tales dated as far back as 1955, when Florence Petersen moved to the valley as a summer resident to live with a group of girlfriends in a shack with no running water or electricity. The hardened women scrubbed clothes clean on washboards, chopped wood to boil water and ordered food by mail from the Woodward’s department store.

Saturday night dances at the Rainbow Lodge were the highlight of the young girls’ week. The dance began when they arrived and ended when they left.

When ski cabins began to spring up on the eastern slopes of the valley they brought “civilization”, and with civilization came crime. Petersen recounted how chainsaws were used to saw through floors and rob the liquor store trailer, and how robbers hitched the bank trailer to a car and hauled it away.

Whistler’s growth was all about trial and error.

Peter Alder, general manager of Red Mountain in Rossland in the 1960s, and later general manager of Whistler Mountain, explained why Red Mountain got its gondola up and running before Whistler did. Whistler Mountain was supposed to open in 1965, but when a trial run of the new gondola was conducted, with each cabin loaded down with 100 pounds of sand, the gondola stopped dead after 50 feet. Upon further investigation it was discovered the lift was missing a tower.

Much has changed, but some things remain, even after 40 years.

John Hetherington, former owner of Whistler Heli-Skiing, talked about the housing problems back in the old days. Not much has changed, only the solution back then was building cabins on $10,000 lots, the most famous being Toad Hall, which required a “small sawmill” to keep the wood-burning fireplace going. With no electricity, Toad Hall residents didn’t notice when the summer diesel in one of the town’s two generators froze, blowing the main transformer for the entire valley on Boxing Day. It took five days before electricity was restored in the –30 temperatures. The only place in town with the luxury of propane heat was the newly built Boot Pub.

Yarns spun were raw and more often than not humorous as Whistler’s cut and paste history was patched together by storytellers.

Garry Watson, a member of the Garibadli Olympic Development Association that bid for the 1968 Olympics and a member of the first three Whistler councils, recalled what factors were taken into consideration when discussing whether the province, municipality or an independent contractor would develop the village site. One proponent said the village needed to deliver at least two of three things that people were looking for in a mountain resort: great skiing; fantastic entertainment, dining and accommodation; and the chance to get laid.

Marika Richoz was the youngest historian of the group. She recited a top 10 list of how you would know if someone was born and raised in Whistler. Number 10, someone who remembers when Blackcomb lifts were all named and all Whistler chairs were doubles. Number nine, you had a crush on Steve Podborski. Number eight, you learned how to ski on Rainbow. Number seven, you had at least one of only half a dozen teachers. Number six, trick or treating at Tapley’s Farm. Number five, you ate at the Originale Restaurante. Number four, you attended the Hoe Down Showdown and the Great Snow, Earth, Water Race. Number three, you attended the Whistler Children’s Art Festival and then taught at the festival later on. Number two, you remember when the Roundhouse was still round. Number one, people on chairlifts thought you were lying when you told them you lived here.

The storytelling evening wrapped up with one of Whistler’s original 1960s ski patrollers. Hugh Smythe’s tale was at the heart of how Whistler came to be: vision, overcoming great odds and stealing a lift in the dead of night under the cloak of darkness.

The 7th Heaven lift on Blackcomb, a coming of age tale, started with Peter Xhignesse, who saw the powder potential of an area that had been dismissed previously as too exposed and wind blown. Blackcomb was up for sale, so business heads weren’t interested in investing any more capital in the mountain. Without telling shareholders, Smythe and his team got a steal of a deal on a T-bar lift at Fortress in Alberta, and the lift was pulled down in 48 hours and rebuilt on Blackcomb over five months with crews excavating by hand, in the process creating North America’s first mile-high mountain and tripling the size of Blackcomb’s terrain. Blackcomb’s biggest competition retaliated; The Peak chair was built on Whistler Mountain.

The T-bar was eventually replaced with its present-day high-speed quad. However, the T-bar with three lives now operates as the Showcase T-bar on Horstman Glacier.

Whistler’s history continues to live on in the present, near to us and sometimes even standing next to us riding up a T-bar.