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LETTER: We will survive

Geez, it has been a week. It kind of feels as though Whistler has collectively torn its ACL. It's a serious one, a Grade 3 tear; or 300 even. It's bad. We're out for the season, down for the count. The good news is, we can do this.
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UNSPLASH

Geez, it has been a week. It kind of feels as though Whistler has collectively torn its ACL. It's a serious one, a Grade 3 tear; or 300 even. It's bad. We're out for the season, down for the count.

The good news is, we can do this. We've done it before. A friend or coworker gets banged up doing any number of the activities that people do in our town and what do we do?  We help them out—bake them cookies, pick up Samurai Sushi, give them access to our Netflix account, lend them our moonboot.

We support them when they're in need because they support us when needed. So now here we are, in need en masse, and although the vast majority of things are currently out of our hands, there is one massive underlying thing that is not: the kind of town we want to live in.

We have the choice of how we're going to support one another and define our town on our terms.

We're all in the same mountain-surrounded boat now, and yes, things are going to be incredibly uncomfortable for a while; like sharing-a-bed-with-your-uncle uncomfortable.

Once all of the seasonal staff makes their exit from the valley, with more of a disheartened fizzle than a bang this year, here we will remain, because this is our home. We will stay and experience this awkward discomfort together and wonder what the future will hold for Whistler, a town that has put each and every single one of its eggs into one neatly organized, tourist-packed gondola.

But wait, there's more good news! We are now presented with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of a mulligan. A do-over, but only if you act now.

Things were getting a bit too insane to carry on as they were anyway, no? During this time of discomfort, we have been gifted ample time to reflect on how we could perhaps revive the better parts of Whistler that have gone by the wayside with its tourists, tourists, tourists, now, now, now way of sustaining.

With tourists no longer skewing our vision, let us turn inwards to determine what kind of town we want to live in, because make no mistake, this choice is most certainly ours to make.

I'm excited and eager to see what we have in store for Whistler. Let's all make the choice to, first and foremost, resurrect Whistler as the kind of town we want to live in and see to it that our "after" picture renders our "before" picture but a small image in our rearview mirror.

And when the days get real tough, which they undoubtedly will, always remember that things could be worse. We could be living in Toronto.

Stay well out there.

Kate Turner // Whistler