I've been giving a great deal of thought to culture lately. I've been thinking about culture for, oh, maybe the last 10 minutes now and already I'm beginning to get the same sensation I get when I suck down a frozen daiquiri too fast. Well, at least the sensation I'd get if daiquiris were made of shredded cotton balls instead of whatever they're made of. My brain's going numb and my vision is clouding and I'm hoping some more interesting thought will come along before I have to commit myself to writing a whole column about culture.
Like spring skiing, for example. I'm really looking forward to spring skiing this year. That's because I'm getting tired of skiing snow so old we're on a first-name basis. Snow so old and hard it'll probably void your life insurance policy if you get killed skiing off piste.
My season began on groomed runs because of an ankle injury. With the exception of a week in Austria and a couple of ventures—some good, some bad—closer to home, it's still a season of groomed runs. My carving has improved. My disposition not so much.
But I take solace remembering the 2005 season. Like this one, we passed much of January, all of February and the first half of March looking at, sliding over and cursing the same snow. It was even worse than the parsimonious snowfall this year. Until St. Patrick's Day. It started snowing then and continued, daily, for the next 35 days. Powder, powder and more powder. Everyone who hadn't given up skiing for golf was giddy. A virtually empty resort and unlimited snowfall for a whole month.
Will we get a repeat of that bounty this year? Who knows? Environment Canada is suggesting spring will come to B.C. with an abruptness likely to cause whiplash. One day winter; the next day spring. Spring springing so fast we may get knocked over by daffodil shoots popping out of the instantly warmed earth.
Whatever happens, I'll take it. I'm growing tired of groomed runs and I'm too old to map and name all the moguls larger than four-metres high. That's what I did to distract myself in 2005. Starting with Canadian prime ministers and then moving on to, in order, famous Canadian explorers, wacky B.C. premiers, wacky premiers of other provinces, prominent First Nations people, corporate executives with no proven ties to organized crime, everyone I'd gone to school with my whole life, and the complete database of Whistler-Blackcomb passholders, past and present. I named them all. Well, at least all the ones on Blackcomb and about half those on Whistler.
But back to culture. Culture is, and always has been, a pretty slippery concept. Especially in Canada, home of an identity crisis as big as all outdoors. Canadians have been collectively scratching their heads about our Culture for as long as I've been living here. There have been Royal Commissions on culture, rock-concert benefits for Cultureaid, long, boring essays from Pierre Berton, Mordecai Richler and Margaret Atwood about our alleged culture, and "whatnot," a nonsense word that may actually be unique to Canadian culture.
The only cultural isolate seems to be this: We are not the United States. That Hegelian truth is the bedrock of Canadian culture. The rest of it seems to involve lakes, mosquitoes, prairie hardships and, of course, the never-ending squabble between those whose ancestors lost the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and those whose ancestors were too stupid to realize they won the same battle and vanquish or assimilate the losers instead of giving them their land back and letting them continue living as they had but with the right to elect every other prime minister.
Strip away the lakes, mosquitoes and prairie hardships—which could as easily define Minnesota, the Dakotas and most of Montana—and you're not left with much.
Which brings me back to culture and Whistler.
A couple of recent articles about Tiny Town—written by people who'd parachuted in for a brief visit—opined on the lack of culture here, unless partying until you vomit counts. While it would be easy to dismiss this as the facile, deadline-filling drivel of hack writers who hadn't bothered to look for culture other than that in the town's many bars and clubs, perception is reality, or something like that.
So, the more important question is this: Is it true? I'm just kidding. The more important question is something along the lines of, "What's the meaning of life? Or, "What's for dinner?" Whether Whistler has any culture or not is probably unimportant for most visitors—and quite a few businesses— as long as the Canadian dollar stays low and there are still thousands of Epic™ passholders who haven't come here yet.
But the RMOW has spent lots of time and money pushing culture as a tourist draw. Arts Whistler works hard conjuring up cultural events to amuse, enlighten and entertain. (Gratuitous plug for the Anonymous Art Show April 5.) And ask yourself this question: What will keep people coming back here after we run out of people who have never been here before?
Sure, we have snow—generally—we have chairlifts, we have oodles of terrain, we have bars, we have restaurants, we have shopping and lodging. Of course, with that description, you'd be hard-pressed to know if I was writing about Whistler or Vail or Sun Valley or Banff.
But as the resort continues to mature, as fewer of the people who participate in what is still an industry with a weak pulse haven't been here before, how do we keep them coming back? What's unique about this place or at least sufficiently different to make them choose here instead of there? What is the Whistler Experience?
It's the people, stupid.
It's the people who shape the experience. From the service at breakfast, to the check-in at kid's ski school, to the helpful or surly liftie, to the Village and Mountain Hosts, to après, to dinner, to bed, to the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre, to the Audain Art Museum, the multitude of interactions with people make or break the quality of the experience.
The mood of many of those people is increasingly challenged this year. Whether it's housing conditions, the high cost of living or insufficient free time because you work too many jobs, their culture of pride and service is a big key to success.
The single biggest lever the RMOW has to nurture the people asset is housing. We've witnessed how wanting their private developer strategy is. Let's hope they get Cheakamus Phase II right ... and out of the ground as soon as possible.
