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The spice that adds to life

"Once upon a time - in a northern land far, far away - lived a tribe of people who loved to play outside in the snow in wintertime. They called themselves the Snow-Eaters.
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"Once upon a time - in a northern land far, far away - lived a tribe of people who loved to play outside in the snow in wintertime. They called themselves the Snow-Eaters. When the weather turned cold and the winter blizzards hit, most other tribes would hunker deep inside their shelters and pine for spring. But not the Snow-Eaters. For them, playing outdoors in all seasons was fundamental to their character."

How Eagle Saved The Snoweaters - A Fable For Our Times (2006)

I missed Opening Day this year. Don't laugh. It was a traumatic event for me - probably the first time in 30 years that I haven't been near the front of the lift line looking to set early-season tracks on my favourite mountain in the world. But you know how it goes.

I'm doing penance for my past sins. Living the consequences of my old lifestyle. Meaning? My new bionic knee is taking its own sweet time to get acclimatized to its new environment. In other words, the damn thing's not progressing the way I want it to progress. My back has rebelled too. Turns out that while I was trying to ignore my knee issues last season the rest of my body was struggling.

The result: I was recently diagnosed with something called spondylolisthesis, or as they say in Wikipedia, "the anterior displacement of a vertebrae or the vertebral column in relation to the vertebrae below." Ouch. Very Pavlovian too - any time I get too active the ensuing electric jolt from my back to my brain quashes any desire to even lick the envelope - let alone push it. And there's no fast cure in sight.

So there I am. Sitting on the sidelines on the injured reserve list. Gnawing my knuckles with frustration and envy. I can tell ya - while others were getting in touch with our snowy backyard last week, I was squirming like a worm on a hook...

Still, I got the vicarious pleasure of hearing from those who did get to slide on Friday. Remember Greg McDonnell? The subject of last week's Alta States musings, Whistler's own (un-caped) social crusader wouldn't think of missing out on this event. Here's how he described his first day of the ski season:

"I got up at 4:30 a.m.," he told me, "and rode my bike to the village (screw pay parking!). I fashioned a killer ski rack on the back of my bike and will ride all winter. I knew there was a reason we chose to live close to the village...."

But back to Opening Day. "I arrived (at the Whistler Mountain base) to high school kids and French Canadians having a blast... ubiquitous and pungent smoke filled the air. There was one tent and at least a dozen people asleep in down bags right on the ground!"

Committed, eh? Read on. "The first three gondies at least were all skiers (maybe one or two snowboarders) - (they were) mostly stoked high school kids, some of whom had mom bring them breakfast in the lineup! I was aware of the amount of women waiting as well... more than usual. The average age in the lineup was YOUNG. My buddy Peller and I were ancient in comparison (note to readers: Greg is 39)."

Using his b-ball honed elbows, McDonnell made sure he was near the front of the pack. "I managed to squeak into the second gondie and enjoyed boot-top to knee-deep magic down Dad's and Rabbit Tracks... three laps without a lineup! Then the line got huge and so I opted to hike Pika's Traverse to get a little boomer/gunbarrels. Divine..." Oh - and by the way: Greg was back home and ready for work by midday.

In a postscript, he reminded me once again just how tenuous our hold on life is around here. "Attending Opening Day," he wrote me, "has been routine for me and a few friends for the past 12 years or so. However, this year was a bit sad as one of our buddies - a committed Snow-Eater - was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and couldn't make it. He has a six-month old son... really sad and we're all pulling for him. Needless to say we had a few sit down smear turns for him in the pow!"

This story, to me, is pure Essence de Whistler . Greg's humour, his unbridled love affair with snow, even his tribute to a fallen comrade - it's what makes this community so inspiring. Don't you think?

When I launched this column back in the summer of 2006, my goal was to celebrate the distinctive mountain culture that had taken root in the Whistler Valley. I believed it was an incredible asset and needed protection. And yet no one else seemed to be paying attention. With the massive commercial growth that the community had experienced in the last decade - and the ensuing pressures to "conform" to a more urban style - I feared that the very thing that made this place so attractive (the inhabitants' passion for snowplay; their infatuation with outdoor activities of all sorts) would slowly suffocate.

That's why I started Alta States with a little fable I'd created. It was about this mythical tribe, "the Snow-Eaters," and how their passion for playing outdoors in winter had led them to discover snow-sliding. Maybe you've forgotten about it. Maybe you never read it. But the message behind the fable was simple: We need to recognize how fundamentally important this tribe of so-called Snow-Eaters is to the future health of postmodern mountain tourism.

"But that's only five per cent of the skier market," my detractors have countered. "We'd all starve if those were the only people we attracted here. What a stupid idea..." And it would be a stupid idea if that's what I meant.  But I don't. Skiers are just one subset of the Snow-eater genus. My vision is far more inclusive than that. Indeed, my point is that Whistler needs to be a hub for ALL VARIETY OF SNOW-EATERS - whether they ski, ride, fly, skate, walk, climb, float, whatever. Furthermore, I believe that if we don't continue to actively attract core Snow-Eaters to this place - if we don't celebrate their positive impact on our visitors - then we're all doomed!

Why? Because they're the true believers. Their way of being - their zeal, their fun, their goofiness even - is the honey that attracts less-ardent visitors to this place. Do you think Whistler would be as popular with kids if the New Canadian Airforce hadn't cut its teeth here? Of course not. The same goes for third-generation riders like the Janyk kids, Ashleigh McIvor, Maëlle Ricker, Robbie Dixon and Julia Murray. Whistler is still aspirational with the youth crowd because it still has real Snow-Eaters living here.

As for Whistler's annual Opening Day orgy, it may represent the one time in the year when all that passion and craziness and zeal is allowed to be openly expressed. Dismiss it if you want. But it's at your peril. For you can't deny the buzz right now.

C'mon. Be honest with yourself. Is there any other time of the year when Whistlerites are as giddy as they are this week? You can feel it in the grocery store. The energy is palpable in the bank lineup. Even a walk through the village will reveal mostly ear-to-ear grins and happy faces. Snow is the spice that animates our life.

I mean, if we could just bottle this energy and release it during slow times of the year, we'd be all rich - or at least richer. And isn't that worth something?

At a time in Whistler's community development where more and more questions are being raised about "quality of life" - the current OCP review process comes immediately to mind - it behooves us to remember how quickly the world is changing right now.

Look around you. The Slow Food movement has given birth to the Slow Cities movement (Google "CittaSlow" if you're interested). There are signs everywhere these days that people are finally realizing that buying more "stuff" isn't going to bring more meaning to their lives. And that begs the question: when do Snow-eaters get to slow down and appreciate the soulful elements in their mountain environments?

Life today is all about finding balance - spiritual, emotional, physical. Yet in our haste to industrialize our mountain environment, we've let technology become the dominant selling point. Call me a neo-Luddite, but I think that leads to a dead-end. As my old friend and mentor, John Fry, recently wrote in Ski Magazine: "The restoration of mind and spirit in high places is a distinct reward of skiing, largely ignored in these days of sybaritic vacationing and hyperactive vertical-foot scorekeeping. There's more to enjoy in the sport. Sliding through space on skis, you can feel liberated from the bonds of time, briefly touching the infinite."

I'm with Fry. There's a lot more to mountain sports than hyperactive vertical-foot scoring. So why not provide zones of more contemplative sliding on our mountains today? Why not consider other possible Snow-eater activities within the WB tenure?

So c'mon people, let's get imaginative. Let's come up with ideas that will help the community negotiate the next few years intelligently. And let's not be afraid to tell our strategic partners what we want from them. But first and foremost, let's get out there and indulge our Snow-Eater tendencies! As Fry puts it: "Even the most convinced atheist may feel his soul lifted by gliding, floating, flexing and soaring in an ethereal pace where the snow-covered mountains limn the heavens."