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Getting Whistler

International resort doesn't have to mean international prices. Vivian Moreau joins thousands of visitors this summer to re-discover Whistler's original and inexpensive charm.
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Discover another Whistler, one that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg but requires you to use both arms and legs. Photo by Maureen Provencal

"You live in Whistler – isn’t that expensive?"

It’s a question I’ve been asked a hundred times since moving to Whistler a year ago. People from away don’t "get" Whistler. To them the town of 9,000 that bulges to 50,000-plus in the winter is a neurotic cross between a Swiss mountain village and Las Vegas, minus the casinos.

When I arrived here last fall I would have agreed. Landing with my daughter on a bone-chilling, rainy day was disheartening. There wasn’t much to be excited by in a town where the average house price is $1.2 million, a jar of spaghetti sauce costs $5, and rent for our tiny two-bedroom suite ate up $1,600 a month.

But over winter I figured things out – Sunlight on fresh snow cheers things up. I discovered which grocery story has the best meat prices, which has the best produce selection and which bakery the best day-olds. I learned to gas up here because it’s cheaper than in the city. My daughter and I both discovered the joy of garage sale priced designer clothing at the Re-Use-It Centre.

Then with spring I discovered another Whistler. One that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, but requires you to use both arms and legs. Getting outside. It’s free, it’s here. What a concept.

"Whistler has re-discovered itself," Mayor Ken Melamed says as we push through throngs of visitors in Village Stroll during Crankworx. Tourism Whistler says visitor numbers are up 30 per cent this summer over 2005, apparent as Melamed, in red shirt and ball cap, volunteers for his first day as a village host. After years of working on-mountain with the ski patrol he says it feels natural to help those who look lost or confused. He stops and asks a family how they’re enjoying the village. Condo owners who come up from Vancouver regularly, they remark they’ve never seen it so busy. When he tells them he’s the mayor of Whistler their faces light up like he’s a rock star, an encounter that requires a group photo.

"Our family used to live for winter," Melamed says afterward. "But now we live for both seasons."

Melamed is one of 50 village host volunteers who help visitors find their way around the village. In its first full year, the program coordinated by Cathie Coyle and backed by the municipality is always looking for more volunteers. After an eight-hour training stint volunteers who agree to take on two, three-hour shifts per month will field such questions as what can I do here with kids, where should we eat, where is the gondola?

Can you take a dog on the gondola is the question that stumps the mayor. (No is the answer.)

"It’s a good way to stay connected to the resort," Melamed says, "not just with the tourists but locals and workers."

If you don’t think you know enough about Whistler to be a village host, try taking a Whistler Museum and Archives tour. Offered twice weekly, the village tour that starts at museum headquarters beside the library will fill you in on the first pioneers, Alex and Myrtle Philip, who came to Whistler almost 100 years ago to open a fishing lodge on Alta Lake. Want to know what a rooster and a marmot have to do with the area or what the village is built on, then sign up for the hour-and-a half tour. Prices for seniors, students and youth are all under $10.

Alta Lake, Whistler’s pioneer community

Cycling Alta Lake Road will take you past Whistler’s only international hostel, that recently celebrated its 30th birthday, and past Rainbow Park, the original site of Rainbow Lodge, built by Alex and Myrtle Philip. It’s a good place to take a rest on a circle tour that could start at either Whistler Village or Creekside. Although Tourism Whistler staff say it should only take two hours to cycle Alta Lake Road and around Lost Lake, there are reasonable hills that can lengthen that time. Especially for less than fit reporters on their first summer cycle.

Once past construction noise of the south end housing development the ride is quiet, with little traffic. Early morning reflections of surrounding mountains in the lake are a postcard reminder of why people from around the world come here.

You’ll head past about 40 homes clustered on the west side of Alta Lake, Whistler’s original cottage neighbourhood, now year-round residences. Oddly, the community is not connected to municipality’s sewer system and recently made a bid to council for services, noting the lake would be that much cleaner if the homes were hooked up the municipality’s system.

Another way to see Alta Lake is by canoe. Renting a canoe can cost as little as $10 per person if three people chip in for the $30 three-hour morning fee. For Waterloo visitor and lead paddler Libby Asmussen, the surrounding mountains reflected in glass-calm water is just one more perk in a weekend escape from Ontario’s heat. Asmussen is amazed how Whistler cools in the evenings. "I tell people at home it’s like free air conditioning," she said.

It’s not likely to take three hours to canoe around the lake, but if you want to chance the low water portage/paddle challenge of River of Golden Dreams from the north end of the lake three hours will fly by. You’ll end up across from Meadow Park Arena where tour operators will truck the canoe back to Lakeside Park.

If you need another rest, head to Whistler’s animal shelter, Whistler Animals Galore (WAG) and spend time with some of the 17 cats the shelter is currently housing. On Highway 99, just north of Nesters Market, the shelter welcomes volunteers to hang out with cats between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 3-5 p.m, any day of the week.

Half a dozen kittens torment slumbering adult felines, including ones like Angel, a one-year-old smoke grey short hair. Found leashed to a post outside a construction site, the cat was wearing a tag inscribed with her name and a disconnected Ottawa phone number. Shelter manager Joanne Russel says newspaper ads and numerous phone calls have not been able to track down the cat’s owners.

WAG is a no-kill animal shelter and particular about to whom it fosters or adopts out cats. Potential feline owners go through a screening process and pay up to $170 to adopt cats. But visiting them or the two dogs currently on site is free.

People watching

You could walk one of the shelter’s dogs to the cluster of high-end hotels in the upper village. Ironically, the 550-room Fairmont Chateau Whistler has one of the cheapest chai lattes in town, a mere $3, tax included.

On Sunday mornings local farmers and artisans set up stalls to sell their produce and wares in the walkway by the hotel. The Chateau’s patio is a perfect spot to catch your breath, enjoy some java and indulge in that inexpensive pastime of people watching. Whether it’s listening to once feared extinct American voices ("Where you all from? I’m Bill, this here is my wife Louise.") or admiring the clever fruit hawker who hires bikini-clad sirens to bolster sales, the Sunday morning farmers’ market is a feast for ears and eyes.

If you want to get off your butt but are not willing to risk limbs mountain biking forest trails, a hike, if for no reason other than it’s free, is in order. Train Wreck trail, which begins 200 metres south of Function Junction, has both historical and physical value. The tree root-riddled trail demands eyes be kept on the ground when body is in motion, but thunderous lookouts over the Cheakamus River can’t be ignored. An easy, flat walk along the Cheakamus River, the forest trail will take you to the resting place of nine rusting box cars, remnants of a mid-1950s train wreck. Now taken over by mountain bikers for jumps and by graffiti artists as canvases, the empty silent cars are an incongruous addition to the old growth forest.

Few details are known about the southbound coal train that derailed in 1957 and was then abandoned by Pacific Great Eastern. It seems fitting the cars have acquired a new life, decorated brightly with spray paint and with bike jumps joining them.

If you want to create your own art, try stopping in at Behind the Grind, a coffee house recently moved to the Hilton. Wednesday evenings local artist Carol Roberts leads free sketching and painting get-togethers on the outdoor patio. Roberts gives minimal instruction, other than to "keep your brush clean" and encourages participants to focus on creating small drawings supplemented with splashes of colour.

"It’s not complicated and it’s very freeing," Roberts says of the experience. If you don’t have painting sets Roberts sells them for $5. The artist brings flowers, branches, and leaves as inspiration and insists that art shouldn’t be intimidating. "Art can be anything," she said. "Just like people can use a coconut to make rhythm, they don’t have to have a fancy percussion set."

Local equals nude

By now you’re tired and want to snooze in the shade. Take the free bus shuttle from the village bus loop to Lost Lake. Buses are an experience in themselves. Listen to people talking overly loud on cell phones, marvel at speeds drivers can attain in one block or read the poetry tucked in between transom advertising. Whistler Transit is B.C.’s most efficient bus service, operates 23 hours a day, and even if you do pay is still cheaper than city transit service.

Once at Lost Lake be cognizant there is a nude beach, known simply as locals’ beach. "If you refer to it as the nude beach people will know you’re not local," Transit manager Scott Pass says. "It’s just locals’ beach."

By now you’ve learned enough about Whistler you can join the mayor as a volunteer host. He’s fielding inquiries from visitors and is encouraging everyone that stops by the information booth to take a gondola ride up the mountains.

He notes how Whistler is adapting, becoming an all-season resort, evolving from its roots as a fishing destination to skiing, snowboarding and now mountain biking hot spot.

"I don’t know what the next big sport will be in Whistler," Melamed says, "but if it has anything to do with outdoor recreation and can be done in the mountains, we will be a part of it."



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