Whistler Museum and Archives Society

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Beyond TokenismBeyond Tokenism

June 18, 2026 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

The land now known as Whistler lies in the unceded territory of the Lílwat Nation and Skwxú7mesh Nation.

For centuries, colonial governments and settlers have displaced Indigenous Peoples from their lands throughout what is now known as Canada. Legislation such as the Indian Act of 1876, the creation of IndianReserves, and Indian Residential Schools [1831-1997] sought to separate Indigenous Peoples from their landsand cultural practices.

The Pre-emption Act of 1860 allowed colonial settlers in British Columbia to locate and claim sections of what the colonial government considered to be unoccupied Crown land.

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, colonial settlers in the area today known as Whistler, pre-empted much of the land surrounding the valleys & lakes. This process did not consider Indigenous claims to land or uses such as seasonal villages of the Lílwat Nation and Skwxú7mesh Nation.

The devastating and horrific impacts of this history have been profound and continue to be felt by Indigenous communities today.

On Sunday, June 21, the Whistler Museum will be closed in honour of National Indigenous Peoples Day. We encourage both residents and visitors to Whistler to explore the celebrations at the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Líl̓wat7úl Cultural Centre (SLCC). You can learn more about their events and offerings here.

Reconciliation takes on many forms.

We, at the Whistler Museum, are committed to learning from past wrongs and collectively working to pro-actively build collaborative futures: one where everyone’s stories and rights are thoroughly acknowledgement, upheld and honoured …

How Whistler helped shape mountain bike mediaHow Whistler helped shape mountain bike media

June 16, 2026 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

Featured Image: Kranked 1 to 5 on DVD. Photo Whistler Museum Collection.

Today, mountain bike media and Whistler are almost inseparable. From 1990s freeride films, coverage of Crankworx and viral videos such as I Only Ride Park and Ferda Girls, Whistler has played a central role in how mountain biking is documented, promoted, and experienced.

A key milestone in Whistler’s connection to the mountain bike media landscape came on April 11, 1999, when Kranked II: Trail from the Crypt premiered at the World Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler. The Kranked series would become one of the most influential MTB film franchises of its era, helping document the rise of freeride mountain biking and introducing audiences around the world to British Columbia’s trails and riders.

Shot on 16mm film, the early Kranked movies captured a rapidly evolving sport. Their footage showcased everything from Kamloops’ sandy steeps to the wooden ladder bridges and elevated features of North Shore Vancouver, which would go on to influence trail-building around the world. The films helped establish B.C. riders such as Ryan Leech, Wade Simmons, Brett Tippie, and Richie Schley as international stars.

Bjørn Enga riding in Whistler. [mid 1990s]
Image: Rowles Collection

The driving force behind the series was filmmaker Bjørn Enga. Raised in Granthams Landing and North Vancouver, Enga discovered mountain biking in the early 1980s. Seeking adventure, he moved to Whistler in the early 1990s, where he embraced the ski-bum lifestyle and worked as a taxi driver between 1990 and 1992. Although he briefly returned to university, the pull of mountain culture eventually led him back to British Columbia’s mountain towns.

By the mid-1990s, Enga had launched Freak Radical, an interactive journal dedicated to mountain culture. Teaming up with Christian Begin, at age 28 Enga shifted to film production, starting Radical Films. Their first feature-length production, Kranked: Live to Ride, was released in 1998, laying the groundwork for what would become one of mountain biking’s defining film series. This period in the sport’s history is explored in detail in Darcy Turenne’s 2017 documentary The Moment.

Whistler played an important role in the development of the Kranked films. The world premiere of Kranked II was held at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler and drew approximately 1,000 attendees. The event was organized by Shauna Hardy, a former North Vancouver schoolmate of Enga’s, who would later found the Whistler Film Festival in 2001.

Another local connection came through Whistler-based artist and designer Stu MacKay-Smith of Toad Hall Studios. MacKay-Smith, who had previously collaborated with Enga on Freak Radical, created most of the distinctive graphics and animation featured in the early Kranked productions.

How audiences consumed MTB media, at the time, was very different from today. Films were distributed through bike shops, first on VHS and later on DVD. Eager mountain bikers often waited for copies to arrive at their local bike shop.

In 2000, while promoting Kranked III: Ride Against the Machine, Radical Films posted a video trailer online, something virtually unheard of in the action sports industry at the time. While filming in Mexico, Enga received an unexpected message from the company’s internet provider that exclaimed that they could not support the amount of traffic. In short, Kranked III’s trailer was blowing up the internet.

“Apparently they were using more data than the usual high-volume content,” Enga later recalled. “I got this message at a pay phone in a remote place in Copper Canyon, Mexico. Our plan with the internet site did not include that much data… Early days!!!”

The trailer’s popularity suggested there was a strong appetite for online video distribution and viewing. What is taken as a given today was groundbreaking 25 years ago.

Kranked III opening night ticket. Rowles Collection

The influence of the Kranked films extended beyond riders and audiences. The series also served as a training ground for a generation of filmmakers and photographers who would go on to shape MTB media. Among them was Darcy Wittenburg, who worked on Kranked films before co-founding The Collective with Jamie Houssain and later establishing Anthill Films. Anthill Films is a production company that has continued to push the creative and technical boundaries of action sports cinematography (see Brandon Semenuk’s unReal Segment).

Today, action sports photography and filmmaking have become an important part of Whistler’s cultural identity. The groundwork laid by early innovators such as Bjørn Enga helped transform MTB media from a niche pursuit into a global industry, with Whistler often at its centre.

Census

A look back at the local census 105 years agoA look back at the local census 105 years ago

June 9, 2026 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

Featured Image: Alta Lake’s original general store and post office, located at Rainbow Lodge, 1920s. Philip Collection

In 1921, fewer than 100 people lived in the place now known as Whistler.

That’s according to the 1921 census, which recorded just 98 people living here.

In 2021, one hundred years later, that number would jump to 13,982 living in Whistler.

This year is a census year in Canada—that federal survey conducted regularly to shed light on the Canadian population.

One-hundred-and-five years ago, the area now known as Whistler had 84 adults residing between McGuire to the south (the since-abandoned logging camp near Brandywine Falls, with its own Pacific Great Eastern Railway stop) and Green River to the north.

In 1921, there were 14 people living in the valley under 21 years old (the then age of majority). The oldest members of the community were three 67-year-olds, the youngest was a one-year old. The bulk of the population was focused around two hubs: Alta Lake being the primary, followed by Green Lake and River area. All mail was received and sent through the Alta Lake Post Office at Rainbow Lodge, established in 1915.

Fifteen different countries were listed, at the time, as peoples’ birthplace, already hinting at the diverse demographic that makes up Whistler’s population today.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of the census is the list of jobs in 1921. From miner to woodsman, labourer to teamster, cook to carpenter: resource-based livelihoods dominated. The highest reported income, by far, was that of Alex Philip: co-proprietor of Rainbow Lodge along with his wife Myrtle Philip. His annual income was recorded as $3,000. Nothing was recorded for Myrtle.

Three people reported incomes of $2,000: two were engineers for the railway and one a purchasing agent.

Twenty-six of the 98 were female, representing 26.5 per cent of the population. Only three women recorded income. A nurse reported earning $1,000, a cook $600 and a housekeeper $150.

In 2023, Pique Newsmagazine reported: “In 2020, women in Whistler made a median annual wage of $41,200, or about $22.64 hourly, while local men earned a median total income of $47,600, or $26.15 per hour,” Pique Newsmagazine reported in 2023. “About 56 per cent of Whistler’s population of 13,983 took home a total annual income of $50,000 or less in 2021, or $27 per hour with a 35-hour workweek.”

Forty-four of the 84 adults, more than half, reported their marital status as single in 1921. Thirty-three reported themselves as married and seven as widowed.

The detailed information gathered in the 1921 census was released following a standard 92-year privacy waiting period.

Census records have been an important source of information in Canada used for research and policy-making. The first census was conducted in New France (modern day Québec) by Jean Talon in 1666. The Constitution Act of 1867 later established the requirement for a national census every 10 years.

Census data can reveal population trends, occupations, family structures and patterns of settlement. In the context of museum work, when combined with archival and research sources such as newspapers, photographs and oral histories, census data can help build a broader understanding of a community’s past.

However, census records are not without limitations. They capture only a single moment in time and can reflect the biases, omissions, and record-keeping and gathering practices of an era. As a result, they necessarily must be considered alongside other sources.

Present-day Whistler represents a dynamic social and cultural mosaic. On Friday, June 12, the resort will celebrate its diversity through the Whistler Multicultural Festival. The event takes place from 4 to 8 p.m. in Florence Petersen Park by the Whistler Public Library. Museum staffers will be on hand to greet guests with an activity tent. For more information visit festival.wmsociety.ca.

Jurassic Park : Blackcomb is 50-70 million years older than Whistler Jurassic Park : Blackcomb is 50-70 million years older than Whistler

June 2, 2026 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

Featured Image: Prospector Henry ‘Harry’ Horstman arrived in 1913. Though Horstman Glacier and Hut on Blackcomb are named after him, he did not stake any claims on the mountain. Photo: Brock Collection.

‘The Fault of Fitzsimmons’

Whistler and Blackcomb mountains have very different histories.

Their differing stories far predate the 80s and 90s ‘Duel of the Dual Mountains’ which played itself out in past battles to access vaster and more expansive alpine ski terrain, faster (a one-upping between once-independent resorts, jostling for prominence, where the launched weaponry was the 7th Heaven T-Bar with the retaliatory firing of the Peak Chair, followed by 7th Heaven Express and Peak Express)…

We’re not talking decades-ago-differences, here.

We are speaking about epochs, eras, periods… years. Hundreds of millions of them.

We are talking geology and geography: the language of our local landforms.

We are speaking about the background of our backyard rocks: what follows is a barebones breakdown of the basics.

Blackcomb came first. A product of the Jurassic Period, the mountain is about 150 million years old. Blackcomb is formed primarily of hard, salt-and-pepper coloured granodiorite. Granodiorite forms about 80% of the Coast Mountains: igneous rock, developed from cooled and crystallized magma protons. It would be fair to say when venturing on Blackcomb, one is entering Jurassic Park.

Whistler is about 80 million years old. It is formed of sedimentary, volcanic rock: shale and andesite, deposited in a marine basin during the Cretaceous Period. Fossils can be found high atop its peak. It was once the ocean floor. During the summer, the famed ‘Shale Slope’ appears as a red streak, visible as one rides the Peak Chair: rising through the stratas of geologic upheaval.

“The reason there is such diverse geology crammed together in the Whistler area is that the rocks are exotic and were actually formed in different geological settings, hundreds or thousands of kilometers west and south of where they are now. Over time, they were transported by massive oceanic plates like a conveyor belt to the West Coast, until 100 million years ago when they started to “accrete” (stick on) to continental America,” wrote geologist Steve Carney for the Whistler Naturalists (2023).

Blackcomb was (as were Wedge, Weart and Cook) pushed up by the Pacific Plate. Whistler rose up due to tectonic action of the Fitzsimmons Fault: the dividing valley line between Blackcomb and Whistler and “a recurring geologic feature in the valley and around the townsite,” according to Fire and Ice, the website spearheading the petition to have the area designated a UNESCO GeoRegion. The Fitzsimmons Fault line runs directly through Whistler’s Ego Bowl and is also clearly exposed along a 4-km stretch of Hwy 99 between Creekside and Whistler Village. It can be identified by its “mineral-rich rocks whose yellow cast is the result of sulfuric gasses circulating over thousands of years deep in the fault zone.”

The Fault, Valley and Creek that runs through it (into Green Lake) is named after prospector Jimmy Fitzsimmons. The miner staked copper claims, and dug for metals – in shafts still visible – along the Singing Pass Trail.

Just opposite, on Blackcomb’s lower flanks, prominent “gossans” can be seen. Fire and Ice describe them as “outcrops of oxidized and heavily metamorphosed rocks that can indicate the presence of ore deposits.”

Prospecting forms an active part of the area’s ‘more recent’ history. Whistler was known previously as London Mountain: likely named for the mineral claim “staked for Frederick James Proctor of the London & British North America Mining Co. of Vancouver, in 1903,” according to the BC government. The Horstman Glacier (and hut) on Blackcomb were named after the prospector who arrived in the area in 1913 in search of gold. However, ironically, Horstman did not stake any mining claims on Blackcomb.

Down in the valley, in the rich wetlands of the Fitzsimmons Delta, the Alta Lake Mining Company began mining in 1916 for iron. The metal originated from the mineral-rich from the towering igneous rocks, and was transported in groundwater and runoff into the lakeside bogs where it oxidized and was deposited as “bog iron.” At its height, the company was producing 150 tonnes of iron per day, which it transported by railway to Squamish, then onward to Washington state.

From plates to peaks, the local area is one of the most geologically diverse.

For more information about local geological features visit https://fireandicegeoregion.ca and https://www.whistlernaturalists.ca.