Author: Whistler Museum

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The Woman behind Whistler Windsurfing

The Woman behind Whistler WindsurfingThe Woman behind Whistler Windsurfing

September 4, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

It was amazing to be in on the beginning of the sport, which eventually led to winning four Canadian Windsurfer Championships” reflects longtime resident Jinny Ladner. Learning on one of the first two windsurfers imported into Canada, Ladner and friend Mike Gadd started on Alta Lake in 1975. “I sat on the back of the board and then when he got up on a plane I’d crawl up between his legs and stand there inside and figure out how to steer.” 

Ladner first came to Whistler in 1965. Her parents were shareholders in Garibaldi Lift Co. and part of Alpine Village in Creekside, “the first condominiums ever built in Canada.” At age 20 – in 1973 – Ladner moved here fulltime. 

Ladner and Gadd were at the genesis of the sport. “We would chase the crazy wind shifts on Alta Lake and then in 1976, we went to the North American Championships in Berkeley, California.” The Whistler duo met all the big names in the sport hailing from the year-round American sailing hubs. “We met Hoyle Schweitzer,” inventor of the Windsurfer. “That was the beginning of the height, and everybody who was anybody was there,” including Gadd and Ladner.

“In those days you had to hang on to bamboo booms and you had huge calluses on the palm of your hands from trying to hang on because everything would get ripped out of your hands in big wind,” demonstrates Ladner. “Once the body harness was invented, you just hooked into loops hanging from the booms which was much more relaxing.  And you could go for miles.” However, it remained illegal for quite a few years to race with a harness.

Jinny Ladner July 1980. Whistler Question Collection

In the beginning, women and men raced together. “The women were thrown into the

lightweight class.  We had to race with the men and so mostly the men were winning. It

wasn’t until about 1979 that they created [a] women’s class.”

In 1980, a team representing Whistler went to the Canadian Championships in Magog Quebec and won every weight class – Ladner and Gadd along with Andrew Stoner and Chris Janeway.

Jinny Ladner and Andrew Stoner outside Whistler Windsurfing 
July 6, 1982. Whistler Question collection. 

Ladner’s training was limited to half the year being based in Whistler. In 1977 she opened a retail location at the Alta Lake Inn called Whistler Windsurfing. “I had spare parts for Windsurfers, but mostly I just put a sign on the door and said if you need anything I’ll be in the bar.”  Dave Murray was one of her first customers. Ladner was kept busy teaching lessons, including the Toni Sailer Ski Camp campers and the odd rental.

Wednesday night racing began with a local crew of about 15. Starting at Lakeside, “we would sail down to the youth hostel [now The Point Artist-Run Centre], and then across to the Christiana Inn and back up.” Ladner explains, “yacht racing is a triangle race with a downwind loop and back.”

The Wednesday race nights “attracted many more who became interested in the sport.”

Everyone who learned on Alta Lake ended up taking the “Keg Express” downwind at some point, ending up at Adventures West, going to the Keg for a drink, barefoot with their bathing suit and harness, while waiting for a ride to pick them up.

Ladner did not operate her storefront for long, trying to juggle her full-time job (balancing the books for the old Keg) along with competing. She would race in several World Championships, placing an impressive 5th in 1979. Ladner is quick to point out, however, that these were termed ‘the Split Worlds,’ as the Europeans did not attend. The feat remains noteworthy, nonetheless.

Andrew Stoner took over Whistler Windsurfing, re-opening lakeside in the Christiana Inn.

Ladner would win the Canadian Windsurfer Championships from 1978-1981. She retired the same year as her final win. She would continue to judge and run races, including the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Windsurfing’s popularity waned locally with the evolution of sailing in surf, hydrofoils, batwings and parasailing. By the mid-1980’s Whistler’s colourful windsurfing scene simply “faded away.

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Challenged Books at the Whistler Public Library

Challenged Books at the Whistler Public LibraryChallenged Books at the Whistler Public Library

August 25, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Written by Anna Donaldson

Photo: Joan Richoz with a collection of challenged and banned books during Freedom To Read Week in 1994. Whistler Question Collection. 

This year marks the 40th birthday of the Whistler Public Library. To celebrate our friends at the library, we at the museum thought we should highlight some of the amazing work the library has done for the community. Known as Whistler’s Living Room, the library provides crucial services, resources, and programs to community members. One of the ways the library does this is by making sure everyone has access to knowledge. Every year around the last week of February, the Whistler Public Library recognizes Freedom to Read Week. Freedom to Read Week, spearheaded by the Canadian Library Association, has been taking place in libraries across Canada since 1984. It sheds light on books, magazines, and other pieces of media that have been challenged or even banned.

As Canadians, our right to intellectual freedom is guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter was signed in 1982, only two years before Freedom to Read week was established. Freedom to read week encourages us to explore books that were challenged, and learn about why they were challenged, and the action that was actually taken by the organization that housed them. Ignorance can bloom when we don’t learn about these books, despite their controversy. Reading these books is how we can learn about the controversial topics they may contain, and how we can better ourselves from it.

Many books that are deemed as classics have been banned in places all over the world. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding have all been banned in specific libraries across Canada. In the ‘90s, the Whistler Public Library staff would cover the books for Freedom to Read Week in plain paper bags to draw interest. People are always shocked at which books have been banned in Canada, the U.S.A., or other countries. Joan Richoz, one of the founders of the Whistler Public Library, states that it is a “great way to teach the public that not everyone likes all the books in the library”, and that different people will have different opinions on what is acceptable.

Joan Richoz reading to a group of children at the Whistler Public Library in 1991. Whistler Question Collection.

Whistler is a very progressive community, as Richoz states. However, the Whistler Public Library is not immune to challanged books. Since its creation in 1986, the library has had very few books be challenged. The first book to be challenged was Headhunter by Michael Slade. It was challenged under the belief that it did not promote “good Christian values”. In an interview with the museum, Joan remembered that the classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak was issued a complaint by a parent for being too violent. Lots of challenged books are children’s books that have not aged well. Joan herself says that while these books shouldn’t be kept in the kids section, it makes sense to put them in a different section to reflect the socio-cultural ideas of society at their time. These books should be read not with the intent to take their messages to heart, but from a sociological perspective. Challenges are always taken very seriously, but ultimately the Whistler Public Library has not formally removed any books from its shelves.

The Whistler Public Library has been very outspoken about their belief in intellectual freedom. Every February, the staff at the library curate a list of books that have been banned or challenged across the country, and promote them. Freedom to Read week encourages us to expand our knowledge, and learn about why these books were banned so that we can better ourselves and our minds. The next Freedom to Read week is from February 21 to February 27, 2027. The current Freedom to Read list can be found below.

https://whistler.bibliocommons.com/v2/list/display/915621879/2473631239

Anna Donaldson is the Summer Program Coordinator at the Whistler Museum through the Young Canada Works Program.

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Keep on Pushin’… the Man behind the Skatepark

Keep on Pushin’… the Man behind the SkateparkKeep on Pushin’… the Man behind the Skatepark

August 19, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Photo: VHS screengrab of Monty Little skating the newly opened bowl. 1990. Little collection.

The 79-year-old man who designed the original Whistler Skatepark first came here when he was 17. On a motorcycle, by himself. He got run off the road by a logging truck. Rattled, but unphased, he carried on to Alta Lake, enjoyed a swim, then rode back to Vancouver.

He would return to Whistler four years later, in 1968. “I drove up to the Gondola Barn [in Creekside], as it looked like the place to go, and the first guy I ran into was Jim McConkey.” Monty Little became McConkey’s first-ever employee.

Little ran McConkey’s rental shop. “I would start early on Saturday morning at the top of Taylor Way in West Van with my thumb out hitchhiking a ride to Whistler. … After I got the rentals out, about 10:30 I would head up to the Roundhouse where I ran the little ski shop up there.”

Little usually “would go all the way back to West Vancouver, hang with my friends. On Sunday morning, I’m back out there thumbing a ride all the way back up.”

Though never a resident of Whistler, Little would later develop the Blackcomb Discount Lift Program in 1982 in conjunction with SuperValu: “a big bonus for Blackcomb who were the new guys on the block. They needed help.”

When talking mountains, Little was a skier-turned-snowboarder. In the city, he was a ‘sidewalk surfer’-turned-skateboarder – a man at the genesis of the sport. “The best compliment I’ve ever received was the United States had Frank Hawk and Canada’s got Monty Little.”

“I made my first board in 1963” with steel wheels “slapped onto a two by four.” In ‘65 he upgraded to clay ones with Chicago trucks for $12.50.

50 years ago, Little organized the first skateboarding competition in BC in Stanley Park. “CBC’s award-winning TV show W5 came out, covered the event for part of their documentary they were doing on this fad called skateboarding.” The contest was a huge success.

In 1977, Little helped form the Canadian Pro-Am Skateboard Association. That same year, Little was responsible (with the YMCA) for the creation of the “first skatepark in Canada” in West Vancouver. However, the municipality, claims Little, said there were too many interested kids showing up – so they instructed the builder to change Little’s plans from one run to two. Away at the time, when Little returned and saw the “disaster,” he almost cried. “The top of the park [wasn’t] even functional. I don’t take any credit for designing the West Van Park as they strayed from my plans.” It was buried in 1984.

Little’s reputation remained intact and subsequently co-designed the legendary Seylynn and William Griffin Parks in Greater Vancouver.

“And this is where we come to Whistler…” Little begins tearing up.

Blueprints for Fitzimmons Creek Park Skate Board Bowl. May 3, 1990. Little Collection.

“I remember the call. … ‘We’d like to build a skate park along the banks of Fitzsimmons Creek. Would you come and take a look at it?’” Little jumped in his car, early Spring 1990, came and viewed the site covered in cottonwoods and agreed to the project.

Enlisting the help of builder Terry Snyder, on August 11th – mere months later – the first skaters were allowed in the park. “The reservoir, the snake run of the bowl all happened at once.” The official opening would happen a few weeks later. This week, the first phase of the Whistler Skatepark celebrates its 36th birthday!

Little’s design for the Whistler park was inspired by the snowboarding and skiing culture – “They’re going to come down from the snowboard camp and want to play, and they’re going to want to carve just like they’re used to. So I made it a bigger park, bigger hips, so you can go way up this wave of this hip and then across … and pump your way back up.”

Skateboarder displays his talent for the many onlookers at the Skate Bowl. July 1992. Whistler Question collection.

Whistler’s Skatepark – and Little’s contribution – holds an important part in Canadian Skateboarding history. The park remains one of the country’s largest. It has been expanded (Phase II designed by Jim Barnum). It is also one of the featured stops of the second-oldest skateboard contest in Canada: ‘The Bowl Series’ and houses such inspiring initiatives as those facilitated by the Real Wild Kittens. Meanwhile, Monty Little “keeps on pushin’”!

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Train Wreck turns 70!

Train Wreck turns 70!Train Wreck turns 70!

August 11, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Combine a speeding train going more than twice the speed limit with a heavy load of logs and a narrow section of track and one might say you have a recipe for disaster. Seventy years ago on Aug. 11, 1956, that’s exactly what happened on a portion of rail near Function Junction.

Today, the Train Wreck is one of Whistler’s most popular and family-friendly attractions: a site accessed by a one-kilometre-long trail through forest and over a Cheakamus River suspension bridge, where one happens upon a scattering of derelict, rusting railway cars all covered in bright and ever-changing graffiti. A suite of ruin, also very much alive!

The story of what actually happened that fateful day seems to have remained quite hush-hush for some time. The reasons for this can only be speculated: was it because the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) tried to deflect attention from the matter? This is neither confirmed nor dismissed—but what we do know now, from first- and second-hand accounts, is that not only was the PGE responsible for the accident, the company also could not clean it up itself.

Train wreck in 2013. Photo: Kristina Swerhun

In 2013, the Whistler Museum’s executive director Sarah Drewery published a piece in the Whistler Question about the “mysterious” Train Wreck. The piece served as a public query and resulted in two members of the Valleau family—who ran a large logging operation based out of Mons—reaching out to the museum and sharing what they knew.

In honour of the anniversary, we share an excerpt from Drewery’s article “Train Wreck Mystery Revealed,” the piece we subsequently published in 2014 about the conversation had with the two Valleaus. Rick Valleau remembered his father talking about the wreck. Rick’s uncle Howard actually remembered the incident first-hand.

“The crash occurred in 1956 shortly after the Valleau family had moved to the area. The wreck happened on an area of track constricted by rock cuts, and there were three boxcars loaded with lumber jammed in there, blocking the line. The PGE Railway’s equipment couldn’t budge them so the company approached the Valleau family,” Drewery wrote.

“The Valleaus took their logging machinery (a couple of D8 Cats) down to the site, put a hitch (luff) on with two moving blocks to the boxcar and pried them out. They then dragged the cars up the track and into the forest, where they lie today. To all those who were confused by the fact that there is no damage to the trees around the wreck, this is because the train did not come off the rails at this point, but the boxcars were moved there after the fact.

“The train had been assembled in Lillooet by John Millar, a conductor for the PGE. Millar told the story to Howard Valleau, as follows: The train had four engines. There was a mistake made on the tonnage of the train, making it too heavy, and they had to split the train to get up the grade to Parkhurst (on Green Lake). This put them behind schedule, and they tried to make up time by travelling a little faster than usual. The speed limit on that section of rail was only 15 m.p.h. (24 km/h). The fourth engine turned a rail, causing the train wreck. They checked the tape in the engine, which told how fast they were going—the crew had thought the speed was 15 m.p.h., but in fact it was 35 m.p.h. (56 km/h).

“Millar told Howard Valleau that had they known the actual speed, they would have taken the tapes out. The engineer and crew were subsequently fired after the investigation into the wreck.”

Ted Tempany riding Train Wreck [1999]. Insight Photography Collection.

It just so happens that the week of the Train Wreck’s 70th anniversary also coincides with the Whistler Museum’s 30th annual Building with Lego Bricks Competition! To celebrate both, this year’s competition theme is “Build Your Best Rescue Machine.”

On Sunday, Aug. 16, the museum invites children ages three to 12 to register for the exciting event, held in Florence Petersen Park: blending imagination, colour and innovation! There will be prizes and activities. For more info click here.

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