"Language is, of course, man's greatest and most complex artefact, every word of which extends or involves all of his sensory life."
- Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher of communications
I don't get it. Where does she get the energy? How does she fit all those tasks into her very busy life? Why is she always smiling, for that matter? Doesn't she know she's living way too hectic a life to be happy all the time?
Like so many other "Whistler women" - Shauna Hardy Mishaw comes to mind, as does Stella Harvey and Kristen Robinson and Florence Petersen and Cathy Jewett and Joan Richoz and... - Whistler Reads' tireless founder Paula Shackleton is a force of nature. I know. I know. She doesn't live in Whistler full time anymore. Who cares? As far as I'm concerned, she's as much a part of this community as any full-time resident today.
What fascinates me, frankly, is the nature of her relationship with this mountain town. Why does she care so much? What drives her to keep contributing her time and energy to making this place a fuller more culturally-rich environment?
I mean, it's not like her intro to Whistler was all that promising. "I learned to ski with my father through Grouse Mountain's Headway ski program in the late '70s," she recounts with a laugh. "I loved it but I needed to focus on school at the time, and didn't have much opportunity to practise."
She was a nursing student at VGH when she met her future husband, Chris, a fourth-year medical student at UBC. "He was a former racer from the Dave Murray era and had lots of connections to the ski world," she tells me. "Chris has the funniest ski stories dating back from Whistler's Wild West days - about the Mt. Currie Rodeo and beer fights at the Boot Pub, the sketchy road up, the epic snow levels... things like that."
So was she intrigued? She bursts into laughter. "Oh yes. But I was just a neophyte skier. On our first trip to Whistler I remember riding up the Red Chair sideways in a blizzard and he says: 'Whatever you do, don't fall off the chair when we get to the top.'" She pauses for a well-timed breath. "Well," she continues, "of course that's exactly what I did." She laughs. "I felt like I'd failed my first big test..."
Her ski lessons continued however. "Skiing with Chris was a challenge. It was like playing a game of perpetual leapfrog without the opportunity to be the lead frog," she says. "But I learned to ski fast and straight."
After post-grad stints back east and abroad Paula and Chris were married and in no time had three kids running around the house. "We lived in Vancouver," she explains, "but we raised our kids in the mountains. Whistler was our refuge."
The Shackletons moved to LA in the early 1990s so that Chris could pursue his surgical studies at UCLA. "But we would come back to Whistler for every holiday to ski and the children and I spent our entire summers here," she says. "That's about the time I started Whistler Kids Windsurfing , let me think... that was 1994. Or was it '95?"
The program was based at Rainbow Park on Alta Lake and thrived for the next six or seven years. "We worked with the mountain summer camps," Paula explains. "We gave windsurfing lessons to local kids and to visitors from all over the world. Adults too. It was a lot fun." Another long pause. "Windsurfing is character building. Some of our students had no experience in tackling the elements - or swimming in cold, black water. They had to overcome their fears and the stigma of not being 'outdoorsie' or athletic. It was gratifying to see their confidence grow and their skills take off."
A unique joie-de-vivre evolved at Rainbow Beach in those years, she tells me. "We had the perfect location, a sandy beach with sideshore winds. Parents hung out at the park and sailed while we taught their kids; experienced sailors showed up when the winds picked-up to carve jibes and do tricks. There was a real community vibe."
And safety ruled. Trained as an emergency nurse, the meticulous Shackleton ensured all her instructors were certified by the Canadian Yachting Association. She even obtained her junior lifeguard ticket since Rainbow Park had no pros on duty. "At first there was no telephone onsite either so I carried my cell phone in a plastic bag inside my PFD," she splutters, and tries not to laugh. "I lost a few phones in the lake during those summers."
She also got some unexpected recognition. "Technically I wasn't a Whistler local, but when I walked through the village, kids would say hello and introduce me to their parents." A smile. "We used to participate in the Canada Day parade too - me and the kids in wetsuits holding the Mini Bic sails, sweltering!"
Paula eventually sold the windsurfing business to the municipality around 2002. She sighs and a shadow of disappointment crosses her face. "They said they would continue the program. But they never did. I'm not sure what happened..."
No matter. Paula had already moved on to other challenges. "Years ago," she recounts, "I was living in a small community back east and was invited to join a book group discussion for the first time, and I thought, 'What a great way to meet new people and enjoy stimulating discussion.' From that point on I was hooked."
Re-established on the Wet Coast, Paula had immediately set to work launching her own book club in Vancouver. "None of the women I invited knew one other," she recounts. "And they all protested they had ' no time to read! ' But I twisted their arms." So what happened? "That club has been running for 17 years now," she says proudly. And beams. "They've read and discussed over 220 books together."
Buoyed by her success at home, Paula decided to try the same thing when she moved to LA. She was invited to join a pre-existing book club, but soon discovered the pitfalls of longstanding groups: lack of focus, spotty reading choices, the erosion of discussions. She decided to start a website directed specifically toward improving and enlivening the book group experience. "The great thing about living in Los Angeles," she tells me, "is the concentration of talent - and the fact that people are so well-connected. It's amazing what you can accomplish there."
Case in point: "We launched bookbuffet.com at the 2003 LA Book Festival," she continues. "We had a little booth there and handed out 2,000 homemade cookies with our url painted on it." She laughs. "Funny to see what people will do for free cookies." Meaning? "We signed up nearly as many people online as we gave out free cookies..."
And it's grown from there. An online bazaar of all things book-related - with interviews, profiles, new releases, links to other sites, resources etc. - bookbuffet is all about making the reading experience fun and accessible for everyone. If you belong to an existing book club, for instance, you can register your club onsite and reap all sorts of organizational and inspirational benefits. If you want to start a new group, there's help for that too.
In a recent article on the bookbuffet homepage, Paula revealed a little of what drives her: "Literature," she wrote, "describes more exquisitely than any other art form what it feels like to be alive, how minds shift through memories, emotions, thoughts, and sensations. It entices us into contemplating diverse traditions and divergent viewpoints. It awakens empathy and fosters a sense of connection with others. I am forever falling in love with books."
Stirring words indeed...
But Paula's story isn't quite finished yet. After deciding to commit to Whistler full-time in 2005, she realized that the conventional book club format didn't fit the lifestyle here. "That's when I decided to create Whistler Reads ," she says. "The idea was to create an open, public book club so anyone could join. We welcomed both regulars and drop-ins."
And did it work? Five years later, she says, WR has 600 online members and has not missed a date. They've hosted 30 book events - half fiction titles and half nonfiction titles - with events ranging in scope from readings by Governor General award-winning authors to political skits, debates, expert panel discussions and even some pretty outrageous book-themed costume parties.
Despite her success, however, there's still a degree of frustration. "We have a core group of avid readers," explains Paula, "but Whistler is such a mercurial community - people come and go all the time - it's difficult to predict turn-out. We average 40 attendees, but at one event we'll get 180 people, the next 18. I think we need to stress commitment more..."
Fortunately for Whistlerites, Paula isn't the kind of person to just throw up her arms and give up. Though she's reverted to weekender status again - "I realized I needed my urban buzz too: the symphony, the library, my friends, helping my ageing parents..." - Shackleton is still fine-tuning WR to better suit its current and future members.
Any last words? "Yes! Exercise your body and your mind. Commit to Whistler Reads ."
