By Anna Donaldson
Since Whistler became a Resort Municipality in 1975, the community has had a handful of newspapers, from the Whistler Question to the Whistler Answer, and of course the Pique Newsmagazine. One of these was The Whistler Town Crier, a biweekly newspaper first published on September 7, 1994. Edited and published by Jacquie McCarnan, with Peter O’Donnell as assistant editor, the paper ran for just one volume of approximately 17 issues.It was edited and published by Jacquie McCarnan, with Peter O’Donnell as the assistant editor.
Jacquie and Peter moved to Whistler in 1992 near the end of the recession that hit Canada in the early 1990s. They quickly secured jobs in Whistler, but noticed that there was a “gap in the reporting”. The Whistler Answer closed down not long after they moved to Whistler in August of 1993, and the only news was coming from the Whistler Question. McCarnan herself remembered the Whistler Question being more of a “corporate” newspaper. McCarnan and O’Donnell saw an opening for a newspaper that covered the news McCarnan believed the Whistler Question was neglecting, and that focused on different aspects of the local community. McCarnan had a degree in Political Science with a minor in English, and O’Donnell had a History degree. They had no experience running a newspaper, but were determined to try. In an interview, McCarnan, stated that they “wanted to put something out there that was positive and reflective of the community that we were living in.” In 1994, Whistler had about a third of its current population, and McCarnan and O’Donnell aimed to make a newspaper that connected with the locals. Most of the articles and columns in The Town Crier focused on local issues no matter how small.
The Whistler Town Crier had a few local columns, but one of the newspaper’s most notorious columns was “Ask Uncle Willie”. This was a satirical column where readers could write in about problems in their lives and ask Uncle Willie for advice. Readers would write under silly pseudonyms, and Uncle Willie would respond with ironic answers. McCarnan revealed that Uncle Willie was written by Bill Pauline, whom she worked with at Wild Willies. McCarnan stated that Bill was her own ‘Uncle Willie’ in a sense, giving her advice that didn’t need to be taken seriously. When she was looking for more contributors to The Town Crier, he was happy to write his own regular column.
While the “Ask Uncle Willie” column was satirical, the rest of the newspaper was sincere. Even when writers covered topics that didn’t focus on Whistler, they always managed to tie in a local perspective. For example, Peter O’Donnell’s article “What The Hell Is the Internet” explained how citizens would benefit from the newly incorporated invention of the internet (in 1995). The article highlighted Armchair Books as a local business where residents could pick up the Canadian Internet Handbook. It also referenced how people moved to Whistler from all over the world, and that the internet could help keep them connected to their friends and family, as well as news from home.
When The Town Crier was only four issues in, the Pique Newsmagazine started. The Pique had Bob Barnett, former editor of the Whistler Question, and other financial resources that the Town Crier lacked. Funded largely from McCarnan and O’Donnell’s own pockets, the Town Crier struggled to compete for advertising dollars with the Question and the Pique, eventually forcing it to close. “When you’re in competition, like in a small town, the stores … [and] the restaurants aren’t making a ton of money and they have three different people asking them for money for the same thing. They’re going to pick the one they think is going to get the most eyeballs,” McCarnan stated.
Though The Whistler Town Crier was short-lived, its impact on McCarnan lasted longer. She recalled that the paper “informed the way that [she] lived the rest of [her] life,” allowing her future projects to be “positive and reflective of the community” around her. Looking back more than 30 years later, McCarnan felt that despite the paper’s limited resources, “we did a great job for what we did.”
Anna Donaldson is the Summer Program Coordinator at the Whistler Museum through the Young Canada Works Program.