"You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost."
- Francis Ford Coppola
He's nearly 70 now. Lives in his RV in a trailer camp just outside Victoria. He stays busy reading and writing and corresponding with friends... mostly though, he just hangs out and enjoys life on the Island. But every now and then Fred Flores thinks of moving home. Not home as in California, the land of his birth. But home to Whistler, the community that embraced him 40 years ago.
"It's true," says the guy once known as Cosmic. "I was up there for Ralphie Jensen's funeral last year. And I ran into my old friend Nigel Woods and he said I could move into his RV Park anytime I wanted to..." He lets the words drift. Laughs. "And suddenly I realized — 'Hey, I could do that. I could move back to Whistler.'" More laughter. "It has a certain appeal, you know. A lot of my old buddies still live there..."
It's funny how life works. Strange how certain places resonate with certain people. Sometimes it's a matter of timing. Luck. You join a community in its infancy. Take part in the creation of its founding myths. You're touched by the experience. Altered. It becomes part of who you are. How you define yourself.
And the place, in its turn, reflects part of your personality as well. Each, in its way, characterises the other. Doesn't matter whether you eventually part ways. Or leave and come back. Or never see the place again. You're connected forever.
Such is the link between Fred Flores and Whistler. Although it's been more than three decades since he moved away, there's a part of Fred that will remain in this valley for all times. "A new community in God's country — that's what Whistler was back then," he tells me. And smiles. "A lot of energy was coming together up there and we all understood and appreciated it. Be love and have fun — that's what it was all about. Nature was precious then and we got to live in it. That's why we were always smiling." He sighs longingly. "I could have stayed there forever."
And then: "There is a lot of fear in the world — they say fear is the lowest level of human consciousness and the root of all evil — but there was little fear in Whistler in those years... just a community growing into what it is now."
Indeed. When Flores first moved into the ramshackle world of Soo Valley in 1972, the "community" of Alta Lake wasn't much more than a string of chalets stretched along Highway 99. It was very much an edge-of-the-world place. But there was a buzz to the fledging ski resort that couldn't be denied.
And Cosmic was perfectly tuned into that buzz. "Such an amazing situation to find yourself," he says. "I didn't even ski you know. But I loved the setting — the mountains and lakes, the snow, the wild. Loved the whole scene..."
Alas, poor Fred wouldn't get to enjoy his new home for long. "When the snow melted, Sally and I broke up," he recounts, "That was the spring of '73... I didn't really understand what had gone wrong... whatever. I had to find a new place to live." Fortunately, the next-door neighbours were leaving for a while and needed someone to look after their cabin. So he moved in there.
Fred's a great storyteller. And he presents the next segment of his life like a narrative snakes-and-ladders game. Bear with me while I try to make sense of it.
Through a series of (cosmic) coincidences, Fred eventually found himself in the Interior of B.C. — in a place called Rock Creek — offering his services to the organizer of what can be best described as a 40-day boot-camp for New Age seekers. "I told him — 'Look, I know you're going to be doing this higher consciousness training. And I'd like to be part of it. But I don't have any money. So if you need help setting up or anything, I'm your man!'"
And that, he says, is how he got involved with the Arica School. "I was still a little sceptical about the training. After all, I'd been doing psychedelics for a while." He pauses. Laughs some more. "I mean, I already knew I was one with the universe..."
Still... he says he was surprised by how much he learned during those 40 days. "I really got into the yoga and meditation. It opened up a whole new world for me."
The course completed, Fred decided to return to Vancouver... Indian Arm to be precise, where he found refuge with fellow Aricans. More coincidences followed. "Some of the boys from Whistler were building a Keg 'N Cleaver in Langley," he explains. "And they told me I could get a job as a waiter there." Fred stops speaking for a moment. Groans theatrically. "At first, I was like no way man! No, no, no! I don't want to do that."
But he eventually caved in. "It was September of '73, my 30th birthday, and I was saying to myself: 'Wow. You've just agreed to be a waiter. This isn't going to look good on your resumé...'"
No matter. He had to pay the bills. Besides, being a waiter wasn't so bad after all. It allowed him to keep travelling, keep exploring. By the summer of '75 he was fully resigned to his fate. "I had just returned from a six-month trip — a whole other story — and I was staying at a friends' apartment in Kits but I was feeling restless. So I called my buddies at Tokum Corners. Paul Matthews answered. 'When are you coming up for a visit,' he asked."
That's when Fred realized there was absolutely no reason to stay in the city anymore. "I could wait tables at the new Whistler Keg," he explains. "And Dave Simmie told me he had a spare room for me... so I really didn't have any excuses. I had to move back." This time would be different though. For Fred had decided he would learn to ski.
"Simmie offered to take me up the mountain the first time," he recounts. "Everything was ice. It was horrible. He scared the hell out of me!"
But then Byron Gracie took pity on him. "It was Byron who gave me my first real ski lesson," he says. "And he was way more patient with me than Simmie had been." Suddenly skiing made sense to Flores. Suddenly sliding on snow wasn't all that mysterious.
So the very next day, Fred decided to head up Whistler Mountain by himself. "A fellow gets on the lift with me," he starts. "A guy by the name of Spud... maybe you remember him?" He laughs. "Anyway, I tell him it's my first day skiing. So he pulls this huge joint out of his pocket and lights it up. I mean, this is the real stuff. I can see the oil oozing through the rolling paper." More laughter. "By the time we get to the top, I'm just flying."
Spud quickly disappeared in the mist, leaving Fred to his own devices. "I'm headed for the Green Chair," he says, "And I'm trying hard to remember everything that Byron taught me ... but it's not happening. And then, for whatever reason, I just get it. I can feel the energy going up my spine. I feel so balanced, so good. It's such an incredible feeling. Almost magical."
And Fred's ski feelings just kept getting better and better. "I remember my first run down the Toilet Bowl. It was snowing hard that day and I was following Burt Heaps. And I remember thinking — 'Hey, this is just like surfing." He stops. Smiles. "That was such an epiphany, man. I mean, I'd grown up surfing. And now, well, it was like this light going off in my brain... snow was just frozen water. By the end of the season, Byron said I was the best learner he'd ever taught! Man, did that make me proud."
But it wouldn't last. By the winter of 1980 Fred's chiropractor had painted him a pretty dire picture. "I was going through some big changes that year," he explains, "and, looking back, it was like I left Whistler for special assignment into the trouble zone." He shrugs. Keeps going. "I had all the best reasons for leaving: I thought it was my injured disc, you know, that I'd be too tempted to ski if I stayed. Besides, I told myself, Whistler was becoming too much like Disneyland, so I stayed away and got stuck in my process in the city where I went through as much fear as I could..."
He sighs. "Not many know what I went through — a failed marriage, a journey through drugs (as if it was my assignment to prove one could conquer such demons... which I almost failed to do). So many stories..." He laughs one last time. "So now I'm a senior citizen with no regrets. My life gave me what I need to share, what needs to be shared, and my stories are coming through. Maybe I will move back, God's country and old friends, somehow, some way... as you can see, I still dream."
