Dipping our toes into the rushing waters of the local kayaking history
Featured Image: B.C. Kayak Championships on the Cheakamus River September 21, 1980. Whistler Question Collection.
Whistler and the Sea to Sky boast some of the best Class 4 and 5 whitewater river runs in the world. However, this facet of our local sports history/destination is often overlooked or underpublicized. Our ‘Triple Crown’ of the Callaghan, the Soo and the nucleus of it all: the Cheakamus, draw people from near and far. As do the Ashlu and Elaho. Whistler is speckled with stories of people who came here to kayak and stayed here to kayak.
The Whistler Museum has begun gathering oral histories from local kayakers and will be running several pieces related to the history of the local scene – dating back to the inception of the Whistler Kayak Club (Kayaklub) in the 1980s – to the river and water changes witnessed over the decades. Kayakers are firsthand gaugers of glacial recession… because, as Whistler’s whitewater scene grows, simultaneously, we are losing our flows….
Shawn ‘Puddles’ Hughes moved to Whistler in 1977. He has been kayaking here for 40 years, bitten, as the expression goes, “by the river vampire.” Hughes was first exposed to the sport in 1986, when the Nationals were held on the Cheakamus. Prior to that, there were a select few locals running and racing on the rivers, but not many.
Hughes was a founding member of the Kayak Club, formed in 1988 by a handful of riverrats in order to acquire the necessary funds to clear a choked-up part of the Upper Cheakamus. Hughes points to Don Butler, of Captain Holiday’s Kayak, as being one of the key instigators of the idea to clean up the “dodgy” section. As Hughes explains, riparian regulations were different then (this, pre-the BC Forest Practices Code) and logging would take place right up to the water’s edge. Logs and debris had no buffer and rolled right into the river, leaving jammed messes of snags, snarling passage. Such as was the case with the Cheakamus.
The extremely unofficial ‘official’ Club was successful: procuring $2500 from the municipality and the same amount from the logging company, to clear the river; an amount which Hughes animatedly relays “was like $20 000” today. It was more like $11 000 in the present-day economy – but suffice to say, it was enough to rent equipment, rig a Tyrolean Traverse and pay people for 10-12 days to clear the canyon (just below the MacLaurin’s Crossing Suspension Bridge, connecting the Farside and Riverside trails). “To this day, I’ve never seen anyone lowered down with a chainsaw … cutting … off a rope in this like hostile environment,” recalls Hughes.
The excavation of the Cheakamus by river-suspended aerials, along with wild water maneuvering, undertaken by this crew not only cleared the way for the river (and prompted a subsequent flood of attention), but it also became the start of new careers for these talented few. “We all went into the movie business and ended up doing safety and rigging” and kayak stunt work. The Cheakamus would become a destination site not only for river navigators, but for Hollywood filmmakers, too.
“All of a sudden … word gets out, you know, there’s people from Washington, there’s people from all over the world that are actually honing in on this thing. And our little group would act as liaisons and people would call and that’s how we did it.”
How they did it and what they did in the late eighties, was they helped plant the seeds for a rich, supportive culture to begin to take hold in the valley. “Kayaking has a camaraderie … it’s strong,” reflects Hughes – upheld as one of the few remaining OGs still paddling and mentoring younger generations. “Like most of our crew has passed away. The ones that were kayakers, they’re just gone.”
At 68, Hughes paddles daily. At the time this piece went to press, he was on Day 90-something-and-counting of river runs this season.