Charlie Chandler was originally from Wisconsin and moved to Whistler near the turn of the century. In 1908 he obtained 160 acres on Alta Lake. According to an interview with Dick Fairhurst, “Charlie had quite a problem with the bottle, and decided that only thing to do would be to get the hell away out in the woods some place where it wouldn’t be too handy.”
However, as Oscar Wilde once said, “the only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it.” Whenever Chandler got some money put aside he would leave his cabin in the wilderness and head for civilization to blow every cent.
Charlie was a trapper and had a trap line on Wedge Creek. He also did odd jobs during the summer months, but he was still considered to be a bit of hermit by the other residents of Alta Lake. In 1916 he sold his land to Alex and Myrtle Phillip and move further north near Alpine Meadows.
Dick Fairhurst related one story about Chandler and Alex Phillip. The two men were out on a hunting trip and when they made camp, Charlie began making bannock for dinner. However, when we went to flip it over, he missed and the bannock started rolling down the hill. Chandler took off down the hill after his rogue dinner. Finally, the bannock came to a halt and Chandler picked it up saying, “you look a little dirty but we are going to eat you anyway!”
In the winter of 1946, Chandler didn’t come to pick up his mail. His friends became concerned and went to check up on him. What they found was quite a shock. Apparently poor Charlie had had a heart attack and died, while sitting in a chair outside his cabin.
He was frozen stiff, still in the chair. This proved to be a bit of problem. There was nowhere in Whistler to bury Charlie and he had to be transported to Rainbow Lodge to catch the train south.
So poor old Charlie was put on a speeder, still in his chair, and taken all the way to Rainbow Lodge. He was left (still in his chair!) on the platform at the station, as the train was not due to arrive until the next day.
His friends decided that Charlie needed a proper send-off. Consequently, an impromptu wake involving copious amount of liquor was held, with Charlie in the (ahem) seat of honour.
According to Jack Jardine, his brother Bob was at the lodge late one night, and heard a ruckus. As he walked behind the lodge he heard some men yelling, “Yay! He was good old stout! Old Charlie, have another drink!” Alex Phillip, Charlie Munsen and another gentleman, a little worse for wear, had somehow got poor old Charlie into a boxcar, propped him up and were offering Chandler one last drink!
When Whistler Mountain entered the ski scene during the winter of 1965-66 it was a pretty big deal, but is was still “just” a ski hill. It wasn’t until the 1980s, once Blackcomb had opened and Whistler Village had been constructed that Whistler’s trajectory to international mega-resort was set.
Eldon Beck, an American landscape architect who had made a name for himself working at Vail, Colorado, was the village’s design mastermind, and the Museum has a bunch of photographs and a 2005 oral history with Beck which give some cool insights into this seminal period.
With local developers and the provincial government recognizing that the Whistler Valley had the potential to completely revolutionize the ski world, the Resort Municipality of Whistler was established in 1975, the first “Resort Municipality” in Canada. By this point, plans were already underway for the construction of ski lifts on Blackcomb and a centrally located, purpose-built village to service the twin ski hills.
Designs were solicited, but they left much to be desired, so in the summer of 1978 Al Raine visited Beck in Vail for some outside input:
Eldon Beck back in Whistler, 2005.
Al came to town and described what they were doing at Whistler, and I’d never heard of Whistler. So Al pulled the [existing Whistler Village] plan out and said, “You know, something’s not right with this. Could you take a look at it?” … It was basically a little grid plan. It was like a little city, and a lot of the images felt like a mini-Vancouver… there were major roadways crossing from one side of the Village to the other. There was a pedestrian [spine], but it had these really very heavy duty auto crossings over it. So you can kind of imagine both cars and people running together at critical locations… The land always tells you what to do. In this case, there was a plan imposed upon that. That was the major problem.
Beck’s initial comments were intriguing enough to earn an invite to Whistler to help amend the designs. During this initial visit Beck spent a lot of time walking around, getting to know the lay of the land and paying close attention to sight-lines. At one point Beck climbed to the top of a spruce tree and recognized the potential for a clear view of Fissile Mountain if the Village Gate was designed just right (thanks Eldon!). Later that day he reconvened with the resort development bigwigs in their corporate office:
I don’t know whose garage it was, but we went into a garage, and the Council was there and they were kind of all gathered around and we said hello and shook hands. This was a Saturday morning and they said, “We have a meeting tomorrow at two. Could you have something for us at two.” And I said, “Of course.”…
What I found in a lot of my design process, I kind of load my brain up and then I sleep on it. So at about four in the morning I woke up and I could really see it pretty clearly. So I got up and basically drew the plan and we worked on it then during the morning, but we had it ready for the two o’clock meeting, and presented it. And they all said, “Hey, that’s what we want to do.” It was supposed to have been a modification of the existing plan, [but] it really became pretty apparent that that was not the way to do it.
And so the Village design adopted a completely new course, following Beck’s lead.
From these initial sketches further details were hammered out.
This early sketch shows the attention to detail and 3-dimensional layout that went into Beck’s designs.
Beck (at centre) was hired on to oversee the project’s construction through 1979 & 1980. Village Square, behind the group pictured here, turned out to be Beck’s favourite part of the completed village.
Beck was initially frustrated by the lack of control he was given with the details of individual buildings, but over time, came to appreciate what he had initially considered to be “dozens of mistakes and imperfections.” The end result was sufficient to have him called back years later to oversee the design of Village North, Main Street and Blackcomb Village as well.
What are your thoughts? Is the Village a masterpiece or glorified mall? Does the consistency of design lead to a comforting or contrived feel?
Last week’s post profiled a former Whistlerite who came to this valley with dreams of resort development, so I figured I’d switch it up this week and recount the story of a local figure who came here with very different intentions, to escape from the stresses of modernity into a quiet life of mountain-bound solitude.
William “Mac” MacDermott was born somewhere in the American Midwest in 1869 or 1870. We know little of his early life, but his experiences as a soldier during World War 1 eventually led him to the Canadian wilderness. Mac suffered severe injuries while fighting (some Alta Lake contemporaries mentioned that he also suffered from shell shock) and he left the army disillusioned with the senseless violence of modern civilization.
Mac (left) with local guest-lodge owner Russ Jordan and a boy (possibly Russ’s son) near Singing Pass, 1920s.
After the war he spent a brief stint prospecting for gold in the Cariboo before heading back down the PGE railway to Alta Lake, where he settled in 1919. The tranquility of this quiet mountain valley was perfectly suited to his gentle demeanor; Mac made Alta Lake his home for the next 25 years.
He built a handful of log cabins at the south end of Alta Lake, one for himself, the others he operated as rental properties during the summer months. I guess, in a sense, Mac was a real estate developer too.
Vancouver’s Matheson family spent two months at Mac’s cabins every summer from 1927 until 1934. Betty Jane Warner (née Matheson) was just a young girl during this period, but in correspondence with the Whistler Museum from June of 2011, she vividly recalled those action-packed summer getaways.
We children thought [Mac] was wonderful, truly a favourite of ours and we would visit him often in his cabin. He played the juice harp, smoked a lot, was a great spitter, swore and turned his flapjacks by tossing them sky-high, hitting the ceiling and miraculously catching them back in the pan. A marvellous feat… He was a great hiker and would take [Matheson siblings] Jack, Claudia and me on many treks to Lost Lake and Green Lake.
A lifelong bachelor, Mac endeared himself so much with the Matheson family that he would often trek down to the city during the winter holidays, which could be quite cold and lonely up in the mountains. As Betty remembers
We would pick him up at the Abbotsford Hotel on Pender Street… He would always present each of we three children with one green dollar. There was no better gift or more welcome guest around our festive table than to have Mac join us for Christmas Day.
While beloved by children, other Alta Lake locals recall Mac’s cabin as a preferred spot for some of the men to “get away from the wives” for a few hours. On one occasion, Some of Alex Philip’s Vancouver friends were having such a good evening that they didn’t want to get back on the train to head back to the city, even though they had to work the next day. Knowing the PGE wouldn’t let them on the train soaking wet, the two men accidentally “fell” into the lake. Now stuck at Alta Lake, the men had no choice but to return to the party.
Ice-cutting day was an Alta Lake February tradition (ice blocks were cut out of the lake ice to provide refrigeration in insulated through the summer months), and after the work Alta Lake staples like Alex Philip and Bert Harrop would come over to enjoy some of Mac’s popular homebrews.
Aside from managing his cabins, Mac supported his simple mountain lifestyle with a variety of casual jobs; carpentry, building rowboats, and trapping, but it as a guide for work crews and hikers heading up into the mountains that he is best remembered.
Mac (2nd from left) with a crew of men helping Jimmy Fitzsimmons set up a load of dynamite to be hauled up to Fitzsimmons’ copper mine on the north flank of Whistler Mountain, circa 1919. The creek that they followed to get to the mine is known today as Fitzsimmons Creek, which runs along the edge of Whistler Village and provides the hydro-electricity for Whistler-Blackcomb mountain operations.
Mac’s stamina and enthusiasm on the trail were renowned among locals. Bob Williamson recalled how Mac would brew extra-strong tea to keep energy levels up ( “Awful tasting stuff” Bob remembered), and when that wouldn’t suffice, he’d engage in some “verbal coaching”: “holy ol’ moccasins can’t you climb that little bit?’ he’d shout. Everybody loved Mac.”
Mac’s favourite destination was up the Fitzsimmons Valley along the Singing Pass Trail. In the sub-alpine meadows there was an old trappers’ cabin maintained by Mac and fellow Alta Lake mountain man Billy Bailiff, which they used on overnight hikes towards the larger peaks at the back of the Fitzsimmons Range.
In the Whistler Archives we have a great collection of photos from a 1928 hike that Mac took with Myrtle Philip, and two of her young staff from Rainbow Lodge, Lena Hanson and Mollie Stephenson.
Mac with Lena Hanson and Mollie Stephenson at the Singing Pass trapper’s cabin (photo by Myrtle Philip), 1928. The Seventh Heaven ski area and Blackcomb Peak are visible at far right background.
Inside the cabin.
After spending a night at the cabin, they headed up over Cowboy Ridge to Fissile (then known as Red Mountain).
Mac and the girls snow-climbing on the flanks of Fissile Mountain, during the same 1928 hike.
This was exactly the life that Mac had envisioned when he first escaped to this remote Canadian outpost. He stayed on at Alta Lake until his death in 1946 at the age of 76.
Extensive (excessive?) development. Cutting-edge facilities. Running Water. It’s easy to take Whistler as we know it today for granted. With these mountains, these lakes, this snow, how could things have turned out otherwise? But it doesn’t work that way.
Everything around us is a product of the past. Stuff happens, and usually, people are behind it.
One of the most influential figures in the early development of what eventually became Whistler was the strong-willed and gregarious Polish immigrant Walter Zebrowski.
Zebrowski’s WW2-era skis now rest in the Whistler Museum Archives.
Born in Skierniewice, Poland in 1913, Zebrowski was uprooted from his quiet, small-town life as a soldier during World War 2. This fascinating story is far too long to tell here (his book-length biography In Search of Freedom is available at the museum for those curious for more details), but it led him from Poland to Portugal, England to Uzbekistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt and many points in between. By war’s end he had attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, escaped from the Nazis twice, and received various medals and awards from Poland, Britain, France, and Italy. Of special note to mountain-folk, he specialized in mountain warfare and many of his exploits were carried out on skis.
After the war, rather than return to communist Poland, Zebrowski traveled to Canada’s west coast to establish a new life. From 1948 until 1964 he lived in Burnaby with his wife Hanka and his daughter Eva, establishing a successful chicken farm among other business ventures.
His new home allowed him to re-visit his love of the mountains, often visiting the North Shore and Garibaldi Park. It was during one of his frequent ski trips to Diamond Head Chalet (near today’s Elfin Lakes huts) that he developed his vision for the potential development of a ski resort in the southern Coast Mountains.
Beginning in the early 1960s he began exploring for suitable lands. By 1962 he began winding down his farm and was preparing to move to the mountains, having purchased lots around where Creekside is today. Keep in mind that Whistler Mountain didn’t begin ski operations until February 1966 (some call this luck or “right place, right time”; others call it vision.)
Over the next three decades Zebrowski was one of the most active developers in the Whistler Valley. He started out alone in the woods, clearing the land and building roads with his bulldozer. By the time he was done he had developed most of today’s Nordic Estates neighborhood, played a central role in the establishment of the Whistler Water Works, the volunteer fire department, the Whistler Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and even brought television to the valley for the first time. If you’re outside, look up to the top of Sproatt Mountain where you can see his tv-signal repeater station.
Walter makes an appearance in the Squamish Citizen, circa 1985.
Of all his contributions to Whistler my personal favourite is the beautiful Eva Lake Park. Dedicated to his daughter, this pocket of wilderness hidden in the middle of Nordic was actually fully landscaped by Walter while doubtful onlookers watched in puzzlement. He even stocked the lake with trout, which, despite the naysayers, continue to thrive in the small pond to this day. Reading, writing, or merely soaking in the solitude is my favourite “quiet time” activity this town has to offer.
Still at it at 80!
A relentless booster of Whistler, his influence extended far beyond his own projects. Passionate and outspoken, he never hesitated to offer his opinion in all aspects of the community. His philanthropy extended to many local organizations including the museum, and his commemorative scholarship supports youth who exemplify his ideals citizenship. One of Whistler’s earliest champions, Walter Zebrowski passed away in 1996 but his legacy continues to thrive, built into the very landscape of his adopted home.
