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Meredith Gardner - jumping aboard the Whistler train

"I'm just so happy to be here. So excited to wake up in these beautiful mountains every morning. I'm living in Whistler. Yippee! Can't wait for the snow to fly." New Whistler resident, Meredith Gardner She was one of Canada's classiest competitors.

"I'm just so happy to be here. So excited to wake up in these beautiful mountains every morning. I'm living in Whistler. Yippee! Can't wait for the snow to fly."

New Whistler resident, Meredith Gardner

She was one of Canada's classiest competitors. Twice crowned world champion in freestyle aerials - and a longstanding master in the combined discipline of ski ballet, aerials and moguls - the Ontario athlete did much to popularize her sport for Canadian fans in the fast-moving 1980's. But she had a lot more going than simply being the first (and only) Canadian woman to complete a triple flip on skis. With her girl-next-door good looks and cheeky wit, Meredith Gardner represented all that was exciting and fun and attractive about Canada's burgeoning ski community. She was the real thing.

"I started skiing when I was eight," explains Gardner. "Got into competition when I was twelve." She laughs. "I spent one year making a serious bid at ski racing but it was cold and uber-competitive."

It just so happened that future ski-media mogul Chris Robinson also skied at Talisman in those days. Recalls Gardner: "He and his buddies were wearing these cool bright orange and yellow shiny lycra suits and doing these awesome tricks like worm turns and legbreakers." Wait for it. "They called it 'freestyle skiing,'" she continues with a straight face. "And I was intrigued."

So Meredith decided to try it out. "I signed up for a camp run by a woman freestyler by the name of Renée Smith," she says. And that was all it took. "I still remember looking at Renée and thinking: 'if she can do it, then I can too.' Then and there I decided I was going to be a World Cup skier."

Her years on the World Cup circuit taught her much. "Freestyle skiing was a very new sport back then," she explains. "There was a lot to learn." As for income, forget about it. There was no money. That all went to the alpine skiers. Pa-dump-pump.

Seriously though, Meredith says she was profoundly touched by her years of international competition. So much so, that when she retired, she could never fully execute her exit plan to become a journalist in the real world. She stuck it out for ten years - first as a weather girl, then entertainment anchor, news reporter and finally sports producer. And it was a good life. Still, she wasn't fully satisfied. There was still one dream that hadn't come true for her. She wanted to live in Whistler.

"Growing up in Ontario - skiing on small hills - nothing prepares you for the mountains of the west," she says. "I think I fell in love with Whistler the very first time I came here. And I've been dreaming of living her ever since..."

But it's not like she hasn't tried. She came out a decade ago and lived by herself for a year. But it wasn't the right time yet. "I wanted to start a family," she says, "And, well..." She shrugs. "My family's all back east." So she moved back to Ontario, and with her husband bought a beautiful log cabin in the woods. Her son was born two years later. The seasons passed. Life got better. But something still itched. The mountains still called.

And then she turned fifty. OMG! It was now or never. Her son was eight years old, her husband was going through some changes at work, and she had a great job with the freestyle association waiting for her in Vancouver.  Could she finally make the big move to Whistler she'd been waiting, dreaming, pining for these last three decades?

The signs were good. Last July a Whistler friend landed a job in Calgary and offered space in her beautiful new Cheakamus home. Was Meredith interested? "I was almost shaking I was so excited," says Gardner. "It was just what I needed to hear."

She arrived in Whistler at the end of the summer and hasn't stopped smiling since. She's finally living her dream, she says. Finally in the mountains where she belongs.

I met up with Meredith during the Whistler Writers' Festival a few weeks ago. We hadn't seen each other in years and spent the first few minutes just catching up. I was so inspired by her story - and so touched by her genuine goodwill for Whistler - that I asked if she'd mind retelling her tale to Alta States readers. "I'll think about it," she said.

But in true MG fashion, she did far more than that. A couple of days later, I received an email from Meredith with what can only be described as a love letter to Whistler. It was such a powerful piece of writing that I've decided to quote the majority of it for your reading pleasure. Read and enjoy!

"The trek to Whistler," begins Meredith, "has been the most extra-ordinary quest of my life - which may reflect my meter flipping over to 50 years of age this past June. After two previous aborted attempts to move to the mountains, and numerous visits, and countless hours of wailing to my significant other that I wanted to live the Whistler dream, it was finally happening. Albeit with my husband digging in his heels and refusing to leave Ontario.

 

"I landed [at Whister] after driving for four hard days through the USA. Each day longer than the last because I lollygagged at first, gathering steam the closer I got.

I had to be here September 1 to meet my spouse who was transporting our eight-year-old by plane. I arrived at midnight and drank prodigiously with my old friend and current landlord to the point where I had to discretely sneak around the car and void some of the drink while picking my family up at the bus loop. So much for the argument to my husband that the old Whistler party days are dead, and this move is a lifestyle decision...

"But sadly, the old party days are dead. I mostly sit alone at night in this lovely duplex, playing my guitar (badly) and contriving activities to form a childhood for my son and in adulthood for me that feels right. Skyping home to Ontario, I keep my fingers crossed that the whole family (dog and cat included) will succeed in packing themselves in a covered wagon and brave the passage through the Rocky Mountains.

"I love it here. Sure, I've loved this place for 30 years but now I love it even more. Then it was truly the most crazy, beautiful playground; now it is a crazy, beautiful town.

"Whistler is jaw-droppingly, rocky-cliff-and-mountain-stream Montana beautiful. I stopped in Livingston, Montana on the way here and was sidetracked for two hours taking pictures and drinking in the remorseful beauty of a 1940's mountain town gone awry. It is the home of the most epic series of pick up trucks of every age and description I have ever seen. A living homage to a dead cowboy lifestyle.

"But Whistler is far too young to be Livingston sad. This town is just leaving the 'door slamming, 'I hate you' teenage stage of its existence. Whistler residents appear to be uncomfortably adjusting to life in a post bubble economy.

"If I were an echo boomer who had lived here for the last twenty years I'm sure I would be grumbling right along. As a newbie, I see Whistlerites as proud owners of a collective rock star image fed on the media glut of the 1990's, witnesses to three bloated decades of unchecked development, and understandably many are left feeling shafted by 2010 Olympic Games organizers. The residents of this town do not seem the types to quietly tighten their belts and ride it out until the next economic upturn.

"Two nights ago I was tickled to have someone knock at my door and invite me to meet a mayoral candidate. Lured by the promise of free drinks and kids to for my son to play with I landed in the middle of an hour debate about parking. Of course, where to park your RV, boat, or extra car is a compelling question; but more than the asphalt plant belching carcinogenic smoke a few hundred yards away? Recalling my journey through the United States, I wonder if is this how Billings, Montana turned into a place where the wealthy lounge in their palatial hillside homes while the working poor live a stone's throw away from smokestacks puking toxic grey smoke?

"Everywhere I go I hear refrains about how the community is failing to meet people's needs. Today I was at the local recreation centre, which includes a gorgeous hot pool, hot tub and lap pool complete with slide that exceeds any five-star hotel (although sans a swim-up bar). I waxed to one Mom that I wished I had brought my swimsuit. She shuddered, "I would never go near this pool, the clinic was full of people with itchy skin rashes when it opened.

"I wanted to point out that had to be ten years ago but if fear of skin rashes was keeping the place quiet then who was I to argue?

"We are slowly folding into this incredibly friendly and welcoming community with its unlimited parks, trails, events, and first class public schools. Perhaps I'll write you again when the honeymoon is over and I have my own list of complaints. Still, I'm sure I'll get at least one winter in my snowy bucolic bubble before I start to see trouble in paradise. Not to mention, I've only recently given up my favorite whine, 'I want to move to Whistler!'"

Welcome home, Meredith.