Category: Mountain Culture

Life in the mountains.

The Bucking Bronco of Après: Part II of a not-so-Dusty-tale

The Bucking Bronco of Après: Part II of a not-so-Dusty-taleThe Bucking Bronco of Après: Part II of a not-so-Dusty-tale

March 10, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Featured Image: The Den at Dusty’s photo. Intrawest Collection. Does anyone have any information about ‘The Den’? The Museum would love to learn more…

Last week, the adventures of Dusty – the one-time stuffed bucking bronco – from the bar that still bears his name, were chronicled. This mythic tale takes up where the last article trailed off…

The bar and bbq joint re-branded in the late 1980s, setting Dusty off from the raunchy ranch into the ‘realm of mythology.’ The now-battered-up bronco hit the fundraising circuit. He was auctioned off on Timmy’s Telethon. The buyer never picked up his rodeo cocktail champ, and that’s when Ski Patrol stepped in and ‘rescued’ him.

Dusty was set up in the Volly cabin, right next to Honest Eddie: the pop-turned-beer machine. One dollar bought you a brew-with-a-view with the dead horse.

Only in Whistler: Tales of a Mountain Town (Harbour Publishing, 2009), the book by longtime local Stephen Vogler, relays that Dusty also became a prankster. Or perhaps, more aptly, the mascot for mayhem-makers. He showed up on top of the lift evacuation practice tower, surely after going up the Pony Trail: a sky-high stallion who stirred the concerns of animal rights activists, stating it was inappropriate treatment of a dead animal. He was removed.

The bar which still bears Dusty’s moniker claims, “One of the greatest legends of our time, our namesake’s origin is as much a mystery as his whereabouts today.” But…or maybe, more appropriately, well… that is not entirely correct, nor incorrect. 

The order of operations of his subsequent adventures is hazy at best: but he did transition to ‘the dark side’. The missing-a-leg Dusty made his way to Blackcomb. He rode by snowmobile and then was transferred to toboggan. The injured horse (whose head apparently may have partly fallen off in the process) was hoped to be moved to the upper alpine, but was only able to make it to the top of Chair 2, halfway up the hill. Vogler’s telling shares many more of the bumps and bruises of the journey, including the fact that in the morning, he was promptly removed and sent to the dump.

But the story doesn’t end there… and as Vogler points out, “perhaps it’s best to leave names out when the police become involved.” And so it goes…the driver of the horse-disposing truck (again, no mention of it being a Bronco!) apparently could not bear the thought “of dumping a once-famous museum-worthy equine in the landfill” (*and as far as Museum records show, no attempt to contact the archivist was made!). The truck rolled over the old log bridge and from there “Dusty made one last jump for freedom” into the Cheakamus River. 

But, then there was the kayaker. The kayaker who called the RCMP. And the RCMP who dispatched the dive team and called in a crane to remove the horse who had “clearly stumbled over the rugged banks to its death.” The cops called in the cowboy who ran the stables at Mons, whereupon seeing the horse is reputed to have said “That’s Dusty. He’s been dead for fifty years.”

The RCMP wanted to lay charges. None were ever filed.

Back into the truck Dusty went and back to Blackcomb Base II did Dusty take his last ride. With a match, and a can of gasoline, it is rumoured that Dusty saddled up to become a blazing effigy to Après adventures and the legacy of rodeo-like-ski-resort town…

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The Bucking Bronco of Après: a not-so-Dusty-tale

The Bucking Bronco of Après: a not-so-Dusty-taleThe Bucking Bronco of Après: a not-so-Dusty-tale

March 3, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Featured Image: The Interior of Dusty’s Bar & BBQ, 1987. Whistler Mountain Collection.

Dusty’s Bar & BBQ is about as synonymous with Whistler’s Après party scene as is snow to skiing, fish to water… or, in the memories of many locals and longer-timers: a stuffed bronco is to beers (and braless bawdiness!).

Dusty was a horse. A taxidermied bronco forever frozen in mid-buck. A stuffed relic, with an origin story that begins, however, with three different  ‘Once upon a times…’ 

The first: He was from 1920s Texas – an award winner in his time: one who had surely earned many of his rodeo riders big-buckle-bragging rights. Naturally, this would translate to him finding his ‘rightful’ place at the base of a snow-bawllin’ slope, in a bar named after him some 100 years later. Dusty’s opened in 1983.

The second, according to Dusty’s website (the bar’s not the bronco’s): “Some say Dusty [was] bred on a farm owned by the local druggist in the town of Hope. It was said this pharmacist was the best in the Fraser Valley, and upon Dusty’s untimely passing, the kindly druggist had him stuffed and placed in front of his store.”

The third: “Dusty was a Hollywood stunt horse. His trainers were forced to shoot poor Dusty when he threw a certain trailer-turned-actress into the middle of her 30’s. It is said that Dusty, a rock-and-roll horse at heart, couldn’t take it when the star stopped singing that Broadway tune. The actress had Dusty shot.” (https://www.dustyswhistler.com) 

The tales of Dusty’s tail only start there… but what remains undisputed is when he arrived here. In 1979, Dusty rolled up in the back of a truck (sadly, in a missed moment of potential corollary – or corralary – synchronicity: there is no mention that he rodeoed in in a Bronco). He was destined to be the centerpiece of the newly re-branded, mountain-base, post-slope watering hole: converting from the original L’Après to Dusty’s. However, the bar was locally, Creekside-colloquially, known as The Deadhorse. 

Much for being dead, Dusty had a lively Après-life, a Whistler ‘After’-life.

Rules, necessarily, soon needed to be put in place. Management became wranglers: if riders rode the bronco with their clothes on, they had to buy the house a round. If clothes were shed, well legends were born and tall-tales were spread from the fogginess of fact vs. fiction…

Perhaps one of the most famous stories, from which many re-tellings have been told involves a young woman in mountain management, some ‘bareback’ bouncing, a sudden supposed full moon and claims that she was subsequently fired. Some twenty years later, the woman who raised the bar – and the bar’s profile – overnight, wrote a letter to The Pique to set the riding-record straight. She was not fired, but remains known as ‘Lady Godiva’ ever since.

The bar and BBQ joint re-branded in the late 1980s, setting Dusty off from the raunchy ranch into the ‘realm of mythology.’ The now-battered-up bronco hit the fundraising circuit. He was auctioned off on Timmy’s Telethon. The buyer never picked up his rodeo cocktail champ, and that’s when Ski Patrol stepped in and ‘rescued’ him.

Dusty’s adventures will be continued in next week’s column …

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Outtakes from the ‘Olden’ Days

Outtakes from the ‘Olden’ DaysOuttakes from the ‘Olden’ Days

February 3, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Featured Photo: John Millar outside of his cabin 1911. Philip Collection.

The trials of this town’s early trailblazers were not without their moments of hilarity, precarious predicaments and comic quandaries. Here, I highlight four such stories: standouts in the history of how a place comes to be… 

John Millar ran a roadhouse at Mile 34 ½ (Function Junction) in the early 1900s. A former cow wrangler, rumour had it he was on the run from the Texas Rangers with a couple ‘notches in his gun.’ He housed and fed weary travellers who were making the arduous journey along the original Pemberton Trail. He was known to serve stewed raccoon, muskrat stew and haunch of bear; recognizable by his broken nose, his buckskin coat, beat-up stetson and neck-wrapped red polka dot handkerchief.

John was a character. He was also a trapper and tended a line up the Cheakamus Lake valley: catching marten, rabbit, mink, muskrat…and wolverine. On one mission, John put the limp body of what he thought was a dead animal – a large, muscular and aggressive member of the weasel family – into his pack and set off… only to have the angry beast ‘come to’ and bite him in the buttocks. The tangle on the trail made it so that John could not sit comfortably for some long time after!

*

The Burnt Stew Hike. Petersen Collection

Fast forward to the summer of 1958 and a backpacking trip around London (now, Whistler) Mountain. Local notables Florence Peterson, Kelly Fairhurst and Don Gow were out with overnighting packs and picnic gear and a billy can they rigged over a fire to make dinner. The pot was neglected, as campfire comradery took over, only to be remembered when the pungent smell of scorched food filled the air. The stench permeated the area to such an extent that the basin and the ski run earned its name ‘Burnt Stew’.

*

Back now to butt-bitten John. Periodically he would venture with his packhorses down to Squamish and then take the steamer to Vancouver. One fall, he was returning with his entire winter’s supply of liquor, when one of his horses fell hard into Rubble Creek. Every bottle of John’s seasonal spirits were broken, shattered in the stream. The only glass that didn’t break was a bottle of vinegar. “I was so cussin’ gol’ danged mad that I pulled the cork out of the vinegar and a good swig of it.” Rueing the woes of the rubble, John made his way home with a much lighter, more sobering load.

*

Then there was explosive Charlie Chandler. Charlie came to the valley in the early 1900s. He, too, was a trapper. A floatplane pilot gifted Charlie with a small amount of high-grade aircraft fuel, which he then used to clean his filthy overalls. After laundering the garment in gas, he felt it best to dispose of the dirty fuel down the pit of his outhouse. He didn’t think twice about it. The next time he visited the bivvy, he sat himself down, lit his pipe as was his custom, and survived (albeit, stunned and singed!) to tell the tale of an explosion that was heard from miles around!

Charlie would later leave the world with a bang, again sitting down. In 1946, friends found him dead, in his chair, outside his cabin. He appeared to have had a heart attack. He was also frozen stiff.  Charlie was transported – still in his chair – by  ‘speeder’ along the rail line to Rainbow Lodge to catch the train south. The train, however, was not to arrive until the next day. Now this is where the story gets a little blurry, but somehow, as local lore would have it, in the meantime, Charlie was offered a final drink – (surely to warm up!) – and hoisted, still seated, bolt upright, into a boxcar for his final, if not somewhat flamboyant, voyage!

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The Dual Mountain Duel: 7th Heaven and Peak Chair

The Dual Mountain Duel: 7th Heaven and Peak ChairThe Dual Mountain Duel: 7th Heaven and Peak Chair

January 20, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Top Image: Skiers atop Whistler Peak. 1990s. Griffith Collection.

This week marks the 60th anniversary of Whistler Mountain’s opening. Blackcomb Mountain opened in 1980. Whistler’s runs were designed more to side-run the mountain, whereas Blackcomb’s followed more of the fall lines. 

Up until 1997, the two mountains operated separately. There was, however, a Dual Mountain Pass that could be purchased, granting access to both mountains. The pass was one of the only points of collaboration between the two competitors, whose rivalry was best showcased in their alpine lift duel.

In 1985, Blackcomb installed the 7th Heaven T-Bar: at the time, becoming the continent’s first, and only, “Mile High Mountain.” A vast amount of new terrain was opened up by this development – expansive glacial access and four powder bowls – extending Blackcomb’s skiable area by almost two-thirds. The significant upgrade served to dispel its previous uniformity in design. Skiers now could  travel down runs covering 1160 acres, a substantial increase over the previous 420. 

The alpine world had been opened up. 

The mid-1980s, short-lived 7th Heaven T-Bar. Griffith Collection.

A young Mike Douglas (“Godfather of Freeskiing”, filmmaker and founder of the Canadian chapter of Protect Our Winters) described the experience of arriving at the top of 7th Heaven as being “dropped off at the edge of the world.” Nancy Greene (Olympic gold medalist voted Canada’s Female Athlete of the 20th Century) declared “The enormous variety of slopes and spectacular views are unequalled in North America.” In the forefront of those views was Whistler Mountain. 

Whistler responded by countering a year later with the opening of the Peak Chair, a three-seater, one kilometre long lift depositing people just beneath the summit of the mountain at 2182 metres. The bar had literally just been raised (in every sense of the word!), one upping Blackcomb in the process.

Peak Chair was initially restricted to just advanced skiers. Snowboarders, at this time, were still not welcome on the mountain. 

Whistler’s original Peak Chair. Griffith collection.

Challenging, cliffed, corniced and steep terrain characterized the area off the peak. Glaciated bowls and bouldered outcrops earmarked the summit’s geologic geography; whereas, its demography was being populated by seekers-of-skiing’s-extreme.

Blackcomb was not to be outdone. Riding 7th Heaven, arguably, remains the pinnacle of the Blackcomb experience.  The following year, in 1987, 7th Heaven Express opened, replacing the two-year existence of the T-bar. The new four person chair, running along a longer and new lift line is the same one in operation today. Much like the Peak Chair, only skiers were permitted, when both first opened. 

Blackcomb was the first to welcome snowboarders in 1988/89. Whistler followed suit; however, in this case, the mountain was much more reluctant to follow this trend, only opening their slopes to shredders a full year later.

In 1996, the two mountains joined forces, merging under the banner ‘Whistler Blackcomb.’ Continuing the streak of earning international accolades, the united front earned the Number One spot in SKIING Magazine’s ranking of the ‘Top 25 Resorts in North America’ (Tourism Whistler, 2019).

Two years later, Whistler further upgraded access to its alpine summit, with the unveiling of the four-seater, Peak Express. This same high speed, detachable chairlift remains in operation today.

And every morning, the eager and the energetic mingle and gather at the bases of 7th Heaven and Peak Express, awaiting Ski Patrol to finish their avalanche clearance protocols, in a bid to carve fresh tracks through unparalleled terrain.
The duel of the dual mountains – the rivalry of lifts and runs –  may have ended on a financial and marketing level, but preferences ran – and still run – strong between slope-sliders and stylers  as to which side of the mountain they prefer… along with their preferred method of flying down their chosen hill!

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