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Feature - A community in transition

With pressures on the land and a way of life residents grapple with change in Pemberton

Sitting in farmer Al McEwan’s backyard, shaded under a couple of trees, it’s hard to believe Whistler is just down valley. It seems like light years away.

Here in the midst of yawning fields, time could be suspended in place like the gliders floating on puffs of air high above.

The sound of insects buzz in time to McEwan’s gentle conversation of times gone by and futures yet to unfold. A few horses chomp on their lunch. An empty tractor sits in the yard in preparation for the day’s work ahead.

This farmer’s family has been here for five generations, toiling Pemberton’s rich fertile soil. You could sit here all day, just listening.

But this is a farm and there’s work to be done. Buildings need to be repaired, wood must be chopped, cattle have to be moved, veggies planted and strawberry fields watered.

Flash back in time to this farm 50 or even 100 years ago and the way of life hasn’t changed dramatically, save a few inventions along the way.

But step beyond the farm and Pemberton is transforming at a rapid pace.

New buildings, new people, a new direction for the economy are all a part of this evolving community, which is trying to move seamlessly into the future and at the same time preserve its past.

"We’re a developing community, developing with all the pains that come with it," said Mayor Elinor Warner.

Longtime locals don’t need census numbers to tell them things are on the move in their town. The unfamiliar faces say it all.

Pemberton is B.C.’s fastest growing community, according to the 2001 Census, and one of the new hot spots for recreation in the province.

They’re coming from all over to get a little piece of the country.

The town has grown so fast that it is bursting at the seams, with a sewer system that is not equipped to deal with the unprecedented growth.

Development is effectively on hold until the village gets a grant from the federal and provincial governments for a $6.8 million sewage treatment plant, with a capacity to service a population 6,000 strong in the future. The announcement about the grant is imminent.

"It’s amazing, isn’t it?" asked Warner, pointing to all the proposed developments on the colour-coded map hanging on her office wall.

The projects in the pipeline span from single-family homes on the Pemberton Benchlands to new lots at the industrial park, not to mention everything in between.

It’s staggering when you remember that there were only 350 people living in Pemberton in the mid-80s. In the five years prior to the 2001 Census Pemberton’s population increased by 91 per cent, from 857 people to 1,637. There are even more people living there now.

"Growth is inevitable," said Cindy Bush at the Pemberton branch office of Whistler Real Estate where she has been a real estate agent for the past 10 years.

Bush is a familiar face around town having lived in Pemberton her whole life.

Her great-grandmother, a widow in Ireland with a small boy, moved to Pemberton to join family. They settled into the valley for the long haul despite the sizeable challenges.

Looking around Pemberton today it’s hard to imagine that at the turn of the century there was only a handful of families eking out a living in the swampy, mosquito-filled valley.

Now Bush has no less than seven first cousins living in the area and three children of her own.

But the rapid population increase points to a growth spurt that is not just simple evolution and the inevitable expansion of the family tree.

Pemberton’s changes are directly related to the success of Whistler as one of the top resorts in North America.

Whistler’s success creates both problems and opportunities said developer Serge Coté.

"The problem is that by being so successful everybody wanted to move to Whistler and this created a lot of strain on the real estate market, moving the prices up to limits where the normal working family could no longer afford to live there," he said.

"And that of course is a problem. But a great opportunity for a town that’s located 20-25 minutes away."

The former Whistler developer took a relatively safe gamble on Pemberton’s future after looking at patterns in other U.S. resorts and their outlying communities.

Neighbouring communities to Vail and Aspen boomed with the success of the corresponding resorts. Some of those areas were even further away than the 35 kilometres between Whistler and Pemberton.

Coté was also confident in his decision to build in Pemberton because the valley had merits of its own to entice buyers.

"To put that cherry on top of the sundae, when you come here and you stand in the middle of the valley and you start observing what’s around you and the natural beauty of this valley... then you realize why this was the right bet," he said.

In 1997 he started building the multi-family development called the Peaks, under his development company Glacier Creek Contracting.

The Peaks was a 70-unit project coming hot on the heels of three other multi-home projects in the village – Monte Vale, Creekside and Mountain Trails.

While there had been a growth spurt in the mid-90s to support that construction, there was a slump right when Coté began the Peaks. In the first phase, the company closed on only 12 of the 36 homes.

"We just didn’t know what the depth of the market was at the time," recalled Coté, who said gauging the demand for housing at that time was like looking at a wooden barrel from the outside and trying to figure out the water level.

"When we started there was a downturn in the economy so we started at the exact wrong time."

Two years later they couldn’t build the second phase fast enough.

"I think the town has probably doubled in size since we’ve arrived and we might have contributed slightly to that!" said Coté who has a number of residential projects in the pipeline.

Just as Coté was working on the Peaks, a young Whistler couple happened to be looking for a place to make their home. Tired of renting, tired of the Whistler scene, Pemberton seemed like the next logical choice for Jocelyn Read and Scott Aldrich.

"I was done with Whistler," said Read.

"I’d been here for four years, done the party scene."

Whistler real estate was out of their price range because they did not want to raise their family in a one-bedroom condo.

And so in November 2001 they moved into the Peaks.

It may have been a little overwhelming at first. They had a three-month-old baby girl, Read was on maternity leave, it was the beginning of the winter, and they didn’t know many people in town.

Despite that, they never looked back.

"I never regretted it because I wasn’t paying the Whistler landlord anymore," she said, adding that her monthly mortgage was cheaper than her rent in Alpine.

And then the snow melted.

Everyone came out of their homes, they were planting flowers in their gardens and kids were playing in the streets. The neighbours soon became friends.

Although it’s only been a year and a half, Pemberton is home. They’ve settled into the pace of small town life, with the horses passing by their back deck, and they couldn’t be happier as they wait for another baby to join their family in July.

Read and Aldrich share many similarities with other new Pemberton residents – a young couple, with one child and another on the way, a couple of dogs and jobs in the resort. They are the quintessential new Pembertonian.

Not even the 20-minute commute to work every day could dampen the love for their new home. The commute has simply blended into their way of life.

Every day there is a mass exodus from the Peaks as almost half the residents get into their cars and make their way to work in Whistler said Read.

It is estimated that about 10 per cent of Whistler’s workforce make the commute from Pemberton, some travelling as far as from D’Arcy and Birken these days.

These newer residents aren’t just coming home to lay their heads on the pillows in Pemberton every night. They are making their homes there.

The mayor gets defensive about Pemberton’s oft-applied description as "Whistler’s bedroom community."

"We’re the community of choice... because of our lifestyle," she said matter-of-factly.

"I feel they want to be a part of how this community is shaped."

But young Whistler workers aren’t the only ones changing the face of this community.

A new breed has also come to enjoy country living and is buying places here for recreational purposes, far away from the hustle and bustle of city life and right in the middle of recreational paradise.

If they were looking for a Whistler north, they were sorely misled. Pemberton makes no bones about the fact that it is not Whistler.

Part of its charm is the leaning walls of the Pony Espresso and the dark interior of the Pemberton Hotel.

It’s not just the rhythmic clip clopping of horses’ hooves along the highway that serves to remind you that you’re not in Whistler anymore. It’s not just the guy in a cowboy hat, big shiny belt buckle and boots walking down the street. It’s not the repeated nod to friends in passing cars as you make your way through town.

There’s so much more.

Another phenomenon, once unique to Whistler, has also been evident in Pemberton over the last year.

With a real estate market that in some cases is outperforming the stock market, Pemberton has been attracting investors recently.

"One of the new things that entered our marketplace was the investor," said Bush.

"We did notice definitely last year buyers that were coming from other areas of the world, like Britain or the Lower Mainland."

For some of these buyers the Whistler prices may finally have climbed to heights just out of reach. Pemberton seems like a good alternative.

But the town’s growth has meant that the homes in sleepy unassuming Pemberton are climbing out of reach for average families.

Coté recalls that two-bedroom units in the Peaks dropped down to $165,000 during the economic downturn. That same unit has seen re-sales as high as $267,000 in the past year.

Likewise, you would be hard pressed to find a single-family home under $400,000.

This concerns local businessman Garth Phare who wonders about the future direction of the town, particularly for the future of Pemberton’s youth.

"They have to go where they can afford to start a family reasonably," he said.

"Pemberton is not the place."

There are other changes that have come with success.

The mayor remembers a time when you walked downtown in Pemberton and knew everybody.

"I think in some ways we’ve lost that closeness," Warner says.

She maintains though that the community can rally together when called upon. She gets tears in her eyes when she remembers returning home from a Dragon Boat race in San Francisco late at night two years ago. The RCMP escorted the bus with flashing lights from One Mile Lake, next the fire department joined in and along the way the street was lined with cars with their lights on, people waving and showing their support for Pemberton’s Dragon Boat team.

The way the mayor tells the story sends tingles down your spine.

Phare, who said you need 30 years under your belt before you call yourself "local," pinpoints changes, like the need for dog control within the village boundaries. Or the way people now complain about farmers burning their grass in the springtime, a tradition dating back years. And most noticeable is when you pull out of the parking lot at 3 p.m. you have to wait for traffic to pass, where once you just simply drove on.

Still, Phare is unsure whether or not to call these things changes or simple evolution.

Pemberton’s boom has brought a lot of pressure, particularly on the land and the way of life.

The pressure is tempting some to sell and "cash out" – a phenomenon once reserved for long-term Whistler property owners who could capitalize on the housing boom in the resort.

Sitting in his backyard, his land stretching before him, Al McEwan said the land is so expensive now that true farmers moving into the valley cannot afford to buy it. Recent patterns point to wealthy buyers grabbing large tracts of land, putting a gravel road down the middle of a field and planting a huge house at the end, effectively breaking up the farm.

Inevitably the pressure will be so great that the farming land base will get smaller and smaller he said.

"We’ve all talked about cashing out but it’s hard to do," said McEwan, who farms a 145-acre property along Pemberton Meadows Road, just as four previous generations of his family have done.

"My grandparents still live here on the farm with us. You don’t just cash out. People that do that don’t have their roots down. They don’t appreciate the land the way we do. It’s just a commodity to them.

"That’s an entirely different approach to the old family farm."

But it’s not just a changing population base or the pressure of the real estate market making things a little off kilter in Pemberton. This logging and farming town seems to be at a crossroads as to where to fit in its newest industry – tourism.

"Pemberton hasn’t really decided if it wants to be a full-blown tourist destination," said Phare.

For the past year and a half Pemberton has been getting used to its new provincial status as "gateway to the backcountry," one of only seven B.C. communities with that designation.

With a wide-range of recreational activities available, like snowmobiling, heli-skiing, gliding, golfing, horseback riding and more, Pemberton seems set to capitalize on the success of its resort neighbour.

It bills itself as a different kind of experience. Something a little wilder, a little more rugged and perhaps a little more adventuresome.

"If people are of a mind to explore, it’s pretty incredible," said Phare.

"There isn’t a regulation on exploration. Once you get out there, there are miles to go."

But a Disneyland approach to tourism doesn’t sit well with McEwan.

"It’s a different approach to the use of this backcountry," he said.

"To us it’s not about making money and cycling guests in and out as quickly as possible to pay your helicopter bills. It’s a much more special place than that."

His sentiments about respect for the land are common to Pembertonians.

There’s an undercurrent of pride unique to locals, from the long time residents, to the families who have been living there for five generations, to newcomers who have found their niche in this world.

Perhaps it’s a pride akin to small town satisfaction. Perhaps it’s a pride of living under the mighty Mount Currie… a pride sparked by concern about changes in Pemberton.



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