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Upstaging the Games

Time and again, the thing that surprises me about construction projects, renovations, almost any activity whose end game is the creation of something, is how crappy things look right up to the point of completion.

Time and again, the thing that surprises me about construction projects, renovations, almost any activity whose end game is the creation of something, is how crappy things look right up to the point of completion. It’s a larger version of the Zenlike question: When does a man who needs a shave become a man with a beard?

Both God and the devil are in the details and the last 5 per cent of any project is 100 per cent detail.

That’s partly why I can’t get too lathered up about the tilted derrick sticking out of the side of Blackcomb Mountain. When the clouds finally lifted late last week, I got my first glimpse of it. Admittedly, I’d been looking in the wrong place. I’d naturally assumed, from the passion of the letters decrying it, the writers were talking about some behemoth concrete structure — the base station. I kept straining my eyes in the direction of the Rendezvous to see what the fuss was about and assumed the remnants of stringy fog were hiding the eyesore. When my gaze wandered far enough south, there it was.

Okay, it’s ugly. It’s not as ugly as the Olympic billboards still dotting the highway — c’mon guys, they’re mounted on wooden posts — and it’s not as ugly as the monolithic wall that faces you at Creekside when you drive south. It’s not as ugly as the McMansion being built above Alpha Lake right next to the other McMansion, often in the past mistaken for a boutique hotel but now beginning to look rather shantyesque compared to its new neighbour. And it’s not a blight on an otherwise pristine, natural landscape, unless clearcut ski runs now pass as nature.

There are a lot of reasons to cluck in disapproval at the Peak to Peak Gondola — as dorky as that name is, I’ll bet it’s imbued with the patina of nostalgia and sophistication once the sucker gets slapped with a corporate moniker. Chief among them is the very self-centred shame of spending in excess of 50 million smackers on something that won’t increase skiable terrain by 0.0929 square metres (1 square foot). But complaining that it furthers the Disneyfication of Whistler is a bit like standing at the end of a pier, waving one’s arms frantically at a ship slipping below the curvature of the earth and screaming, “Don’t go.” Besides, it’s not nearly as annoying as the sound of small planes flying overhead a couple of dozen times a day.

But it is ugly. And therein lies its salvation. The way I see it, the braintrust at Whistler-Blackcomb has three choices, three possible things they can do with that cockeyed tower this winter. Obviously, they can do nothing, which has the attraction of costing nothing, unless you consider opportunity cost and a couple of hundred thousand visitors looking up and saying, “What’s that ugly derrick doing on Blackcomb?”

They can buy a few cans of forest green paint and make it melt into the background. That’ll look good from the valley but as one ascends Solar Coaster it’ll look like an ugly derrick painted green.

Or they can add a bit of theatrical flourish and have something every single visitor to Whistler this winter will tell their friends about. As one commentator said, “It looks like a spaceship crashed into Blackcomb.” Actually, it looks like the skeleton of the Hindenburg crashed into Blackcomb.

But with enough sheets of plywood it could look like a spaceship crashed into Blackcomb. And how cool would that be? “Buck Rogers crash lands in Whistler,” scream the headlines. Everyone who comes will want to see it, want to take pictures of it, be talking about it and forever telling the story of the weird thing they saw at Whistler. It would be the perfect pitcher of lemonade, as in, when life hands you lemons….

Go for it, guys. Prove to the town and the world you have a sense of humour and style. Take a risk; make a statement. The tourists will love it.

And Whistler should love it. Why? Because if we’re serious about putting this place on the map, as in, “The Olympics will put Whistler on the map,” we’d better start thinking theatre because the stark reality of the Olympics is this: The Olympics themselves don’t put any place on the map.

The Olympics are like a flare on a dark and stormy night. They illuminate a little space and draw the attention of parts of the world… as long as the flare burns. After that? Darkness.

Too harsh? Okay smartypants, name the venue that hosted the alpine skiing events at the 1988 Winter Olympics. Queue the final Jeopardy theme. What is Nakiska, Alex? If you know the answer to that question chances are (a) you’re Canadian, and (b) you ski. And because you got it right, here’s the followup question. How many skiers from around the world go to Nakiska for their ski holiday as a result? Answer: Zero.

Okay, Nakiska ain’t much of a resort. How about, oh, Albertville? Nagano? Sapporo? Lillehammer? Sarajevo? Lake Placid? Innsbruck? Grenoble? Well, maybe a few go to those last three. But try this question. Name the biggest tourist ski resorts in North America? Aspen. No Olympics. Vail. No Olympics. Sun Valley. No Olympics.

The point isn’t that the Olympics are bogus. Well, they are; but that’s not the point. The point is, the Olympics aren’t going to put Whistler on even skiers’ maps. The 2010 Games may well put Vancouver back in the minds of people planning their vacations — ironically their summer vacations more likely than winter — but Whistler will be, in all likelihood, an afterthought, a sideshow, an appendage.

Unless, that is, we take advantage of the Olympic stage to put on our own show.

Right now, and through the run of the Olympics, we have the capability of commanding the attention of the world’s media, and through it, the world. But self-serving press releases won’t cut through the dreck. Media tours of venues as they’re completed won’t capture anyone’s imagination. Test events will hardly be a blip on the radar.

Becoming our own country might.

No, I’m not advocating we go all Quebec and leave Canada. But we could pretend to. We could, quite theatrically, declare the creation of the Principality of Whistler, a quasi-sovereign — whatever that means — enclave within Canada that will, come 2010, issue Principality of Whistler passports to foreign nationals, meaning everyone, who visits Whistler during the 2010 Olympics.

Of course, we’d need a prince. And maybe a princess. Pomp and ceremony. But how hard would that be?

The point is, if we really want to put Whistler on the map, we’d better get creative. The only real Olympic legacies are the ones we’ll create in the minds of the rest of the world. Okay, boys and girls, that’s the challenge. I know you’re all creative. Now pick up the gauntlet and let’s hear from you. Bob would love to publish your letters with your best, wackiest, most outlandish ideas.

Get busy.