Category: Ski-Town Stories

From Whistler to Blackcomb to Whistler Blackcomb.

Whistler Characters – Frank “Garage Sale” SalterWhistler Characters – Frank “Garage Sale” Salter

March 10, 2012 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

In April 2011, we had the chance to sit down with well-known Whistler local Frank “Garage Sale” Salter and talk all things ski. As we head into our next Speaker Series evening featuring Frank, it’s the perfect time to share a post on this avid ski collector.

Frank shows off one of the split tail skis in his collection, photo courtesy of Frank Salter.

Most of his ski collection is stored in a Creekside basement (he has recently taken over the adjoining space as well), although one can find a few pairs adorning the home he shares with his wife and two sons in the form of coat racks. When he started collecting in earnest in 1991, Frank set his upper limit at four dollars, although he admits to spending a bit more at times.

His work in medical research fed his habit, as he travelled for a job that saw him finishing work by around four or five pm. Local thrift shops remained open for an hour or two after that- plenty of time to grab a few new pairs of skis for the collection (a collection which today sits around 500 pairs).

In the 1990s, you could travel with your skis for free, and so bringing multiple pairs of skis back across the border on your flight wasn’t a prohibitively expensive prospect.  Of course, had they known that Frank was significantly exceeding a single pair of skis, it may have been a different story. Armed with a screwdriver, he would remove the bindings and then stack multiple pairs of skis in a ski bag. Today, Salter’s collecting has slowed somewhat. According to him, in spite of Vancouver’s proximity to good skiing, collectible skis are rarely to be had in local thrift shops.

Some pieces from the more obscure corners of ski-gear world can be found in Frank’s collection, including the Nava and the Burt binding. The Navas are immediately jarring to the eye- in his words they look like, “some sort of bizarre device, almost a torture device.” You may not immediately notice the Nava from the front, but if get behind someone on a t-bar skiing on them and the wrap-around arm will be visible. A combination of a soft boot, much like a Sorel boot, and this arm made for a skiing experience that was much like sitting back in a reclining chair.

Some of the obscure retro bindings in Salter’s collection – those would be the Navas at the bottom, photo courtesy of Frank Salter

The Burt binding was less noticeable, unless you were to fall, and then a cable would initially allow the ski to separate from your foot, and then sharply recoil, snapping the ski back against the base of your boot. Sound questionable? Urban legends point to these bindings as the stuff of some gruesome injuries. While that may or may not be true, there is something to be said for keeping these tucked away in storage.

That being said, some pieces of ski history still make it out onto the snow. When we spoke, Frank was having some of his 70s freestyle skis tuned for the notorious “Hot-Doggin’ Party” thrown by Ace MacKay-Smith at the end of each April. Ballet skiing competitions are a part of the fun, and Salter provides the skis as well as some eye-catching one-piece ski suits to those who approach him. One white suit features a particularly stunning large Elvis-style buckle at the waist.

His collection isn’t limited solely to skis, but includes all kinds of ski paraphernalia: goggles, the aforementioned one-pieces, boots, posters, and a few snowboards. Much of Frank’s collection focuses on the 1970s/freestyle period. Asked what drew him to that particular era, he explains, “It was a big era of experimentation. It was everything- a different way of skiing, the clothing, ski graphics. The skis were a little different- shorter and softer. It wasn’t racing, that was the big thing.”

Three well-known hot dog skiers show off their style in 1973 at the Toni Sailer Summer Ski Camp. Left to right: George Oskwold, Wayne Wong and Floyd Wilkie

That’s not to say that experimentation didn’t happen prior to the 1970s- some of Salter’s favorite skis in the collection are aluminum skis from the 1940s and 1950s. Aircraft-industry grade aluminum was used to craft the edges, bindings bases- the whole ski. According to Frank, “They didn’t work, and they were stiff as a two-by-four, but they were still expensive at the time, and they were a good prototype.” Once he started collecting in earnest, he quickly hunted down a few pairs of his first good skis. He suggests that it is those skis that people really feel attached to- not their very first pair, but their first good pair, the pair that made them truly fall in love with skiing.

So where did Frank get his nickname from? While the nickname “Garage Sale” immediately conjures up images of Frank buying skis for the collection, the nickname actually stems from the telemark skis he made for himself and his friends in the early 1990s as he transitioned to a life in the mountains. Telemark skis weren’t readily available at that point, but in Frank’s hands, five-dollar garage-sale skis morphed into ripping tele skis. An article written by Leslie Anthony gave him the nickname, which quickly stuck.

Join us on March 21st from 7-9pm for Frank’s Speaker Series presentation. All the details can be found here.

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Forget the Glass Slippers: Whistler Chicks Wear Ski BootsForget the Glass Slippers: Whistler Chicks Wear Ski Boots

January 28, 2012 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

The tale of Tony and Irene Lyttle really is a ‘Made in Whistler’ story. The couple first met in the mid 1960s and while it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, sometimes things are just meant to be. Tony worked for BC Hydro and was also a ski patroller. Irene was a skier, subletting an apartment from Paul Burrows in Whistler while he was in Europe. In a 2003 interview Irene was asked how she first met Tony, and romance isn’t the first thing that comes to mind:

“[…] the long and the short of it was that I hitched a ride in the back of Tony’s car, so I basically met the back of his neck. I wasn’t too impressed, actually, by the back of his neck. So that’s how we met. Tony was on the Patrol and I was ‘just the skier’ and he gave me a drive up to go skiing.”

Whistler Skiers’ Chapel in 1989

Despite this inauspicious beginning, Tony and Irene soon became a couple and later engaged in 1967.  They chose Whistler as the perfect place for a wedding. When the Lyttles were asked why they chose to be married in Whistler, they said it just seemed like the natural place to do it. Irene elaborated:

“I don’t know whether it [getting married in Whistler] had been done at all.  I didn’t do it because it was popular.  I didn’t have any church affiliation and I loved mountains and the outdoors, and it didn’t make sense to get married in a church in Vancouver when none of us spent much time there.”

Tony and Irene Lyttle getting married in the Skiers’ Chapel, January 1967.

In fact, the Lyttles may have been the first couple married in Whistler. It certainly wasn’t easy. Tony wasn’t even in the country at that point  — he was working for the Aspen Ski Corporation at the time.   Also, everything had to be brought up from Vancouver – a treacherous 2.5-hour drive in the best weather.

The challenge was how to get all the guests up to Whistler in January. Some guests travelled all the way from Nanaimo to attend the wedding. One of Irene’s friends was only two weeks away from delivering a baby and still managed to make the trip. Tony himself brought the priest up to Whistler in a sports car during a snowstorm!

Irene Lyttle on her way to the wedding altar, January 1967.

While all their friends joked that Irene would wear ski pants to the wedding she was determined to wear a white wedding dress. However, one of the wedding ushers placed her white mid-calf ski boots in the aisle. As the now married couple prepared to make their exit, Irene stopped, pulled up her skirt, removed her fancy white satin heels and, like the Whistler version of Cinderella, placed her newly married feet into the ski boots. She then proudly left the chapel with her patroller prince.

Wow – a wedding on the mountain and a bride wearing ski boots.   Maybe there’s hope for romance after all.

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The Real “G” in GLCThe Real “G” in GLC

November 26, 2011 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

At this year’s Icon Gone we experimented with a new head-to-head elimination format to heighten the competitive drama. The new system also introduced an interesting strategic twist, as one could potentially be presenting three times if they advanced to the final round: Do you deliver your best material up front, or, conversely, do you save your best for last with no guarantee you’ll get a chance to use it?

By most accounts the formula was effective, though it was at times hard to accept the ruthless efficiency with which it discarded so many compelling would-be  pretenders to the Icon Gone throne.

One of the most unfortunate victims was Stephanie Sloan, who hoped to reveal the true story behind “the ‘G’ in GLC.” (Stephen Vogler won the inaugural Icon Gone with a conspiracy-theory-esque exposition arguing that the “G” stands for “gravity,” which it doesn’t.)

Stephanie Sloan entertains the crowd at Icon Gone.

Stephanie delivered a solid, informative first-round presentation about the life and times of one Giuseppe Garibaldi, the nineteenth century revolutionary  credited with the creation of the modern state of Italy. Beyond his trans-Italian military campaigns, Giuseppe’s adventures took him to such exotic locales as Russia, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and New York, among others, making him a more-than-worthy namesake for so many prominent features and organizations in a region renowned for its globetrotters.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, Whistler’s only icon to have never come anywhere near the place.

At last count, Garibaldi’s name is attached to a massive volcano, a stunning alpine lake, a world-class provincial park, a hotel, a (now-abandoned) town,  an Olympic Development corporation, the company that founded Whistler Mountain, the renowned apres spot that hosted this years’ Icon Gone, and countless other local businesses. Not bad for a man that never visited the B.C. coast!

And so, with her five minutes almost up, Stephanie dangled this historical conundrum as bait for the judges’ and audience’s support, concluding with:  “If you vote me back for the next round, I will tell you how Mount Garibaldi got its name since the Iconic Garibaldi never came to this part of the world, and of Whistler’s own battles to be promote peace and freedom.”

Alas, Stephanie narrowly lost to Hi Brooks, whose ode to loved ones lost to the mountains left more than a few teary-eyed audience members, and we never got to find out. I’ve had a bunch of people write or tell me how they wished to hear the rest of Stephanie’s story, so here it is:

In 1860, the British sea captain George H. Richards of the HMS Plumper was conducting a survey of the coastline from the Fraser River Delta to the Sunshine Coast. When he encountered the massive volcanic peak at the head of Howe Sound, Richards decided that it was a fitting monument to the celebrated Italian hero, whose army had defeated the Kingdom of Naples a few months earlier, essentially creating the modern state of Italy. Garibaldi was an especially popular figure in Britain, considered a champion of Liberal democracy.

It was common practice in that era of colonial exploration to name far-flung landforms after prominent public figures back in metropolitan Europe. On the same trip Richards named a bunch of other geographic features, such as the Britannia Range of mountains along the east shore of Howe Sound, with Hanover, Windsor, and Brunswick mountains each named after a European house of nobles.

When, acting upon the advice of local mountaineers, the BC government created Garibaldi Provincial Park in the 1920s, it was an obvious decision to name the park after the mountain which was best known and most representative of the area (although there were a few calls to change the names to better reflect lobal history).

Mount Garibaldi and Garibaldi Lake from Panorama Ridge, probably the most photographed viewpoint in Garibaldi Provincial Park for the last 80-plus years.

Decades later, when a group of Vancouver businessmen started to act upon their dream of bringing the Winter Olympics to British Columbia, it made sense for them to name their organization, the Garibaldi Olympic Development Association, after the park where they planned to hold the games. They even looked into hosting the events in the Diamond Head area on the flanks of Mount Garibaldi itself, but, as we know, they eventually chose the peak known as London Mountain on government charts (again, named by an early British surveyor) but referred to locally as Whistler Mountain.

The Garibaldi Lift Company followed soon after, as GODA’s sister organization dedicated to the development of ski facilities at Whistler, and the current bar/lounge of the same name is an homage to that bygone era.

An early brochure for the upcoming development of skiing facilities on Whistler Mountain.

Beyond Giuseppe Garibaldi’s spirit of adventure, Stephanie drew a second parallel between the prolific place-name muse and our own history. When Whistler finally won the Olympic bid in 1998–a bid supported by a municipal council that Stephanie was proud to be a part of–it was seen by many as the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of efforts, akin to Garibaldi’s ultimate success 138 years earlier and half a world away.

Just as Garibaldi fought several Wars for Freedom during his lifetime, Stephanie planned on celebrating Whistler’s multiple bids to host the Winter Olympics, a movement which she describes as dedicated to ‘building a peaceful and better world’ through sport. As Stephanie’s presentation on this great, largely unknown icon would have concluded: “Garibaldi would be amazed to see all of the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.”

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Power Up!Power Up!

October 22, 2011 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Throughout BC we are blessed with an abundance of mighty rivers from which we get almost 90% of our electricity. Here in Whistler we’re surrounded by hydro-generating stations of all sizes, notably the IPP on Fitzsimmons Creek which provides for all of Whistler-Blackcomb’s electricity needs. [Correction – it produces the equivalent of all W-B’s electricity needs, but the power is sent to the province’s main power grid.]

A helpful little diagram of W-B’s Fitzsimmons Creek hydro-electricity plant.

Considering this natural bounty, it’s hard to believe that a mere 50 years ago Alta Lake residents had still not entered the modern electric era.

As Whistlerites have always been wont to do, a few residents took matters into their own hands. Bob Williamson installed a small wind-powered turbine at the south end of Alta Lake but it could only power a few lights when the wind picked up. Dick Fairhurst was more successful with the water-wheel and generator he installed on Scotia Creek in 1954, providing steady, reliable power for his Cypress Lodge (the old hostel building next to Rainbow Park). In later years the Philips had also purchased a gas-powered generator for Rainbow Lodge. But aside from these few enterprising DIY-ers, Alta Lake residents continued on with pre-electric living.

Alta Lake resident Bob Williamson working on a power line, circa 1940s.

Heating was mostly from firewood (some residents had oil or coal-burning furnaces) and bed-time reading was done by candlelight or gas lantern. Refrigeration was accomplished in sheds full of thick ice blocks cut from Alta Lake in winter and insulated through the summer with sawdust from local mills.

This lack of hydro service must have been especially frustrating since high-voltage transmission lines ran through the valley as early as the 1930s, linking the Bridge River Hydro dam to Vancouver. At the same time there were plenty of plans for more hydro-development closer to home, including dams at Garibaldi Lake, Cheakamus Lake, on the Soo River and elsewhere, but that’s another story altogether.

Then in the late 1950s, BC Hydro built the Cheakamus Dam at Daisy Lake and another set of transmission lines linking Seton Portage to Squamish was constructed. Ironically, work crews for the power lines (which included a young Peter Alder, the influential ski area manager/developer who continues to call Whistler home) were even housed at the still-unserviced Rainbow Lodge for some time. Still, no infrastructure was provided to convert the 230,000 volts running through the valley into something a little more manageable for the residents of Alta Lake.

It wasn’t until November 1965, a few months before ski operations on Whistler Mountain began, that the Rainbow Substation was finally completed. It was only fitting that Alex and Myrtle Philip were the honourary guests at the opening ceremonies. In typically stylish fashion the Philips were a little late for the event, but as Alex noted, “after 54 years without hydro, what’s five minutes?”

The Philips attend the Rainbow Substation opening ceremony in typically stylish fashion, 18 November, 1965. Left to right: unidentified, Alex Philip, long-time Whistler resident and BC Hydro employe Rolley Horsey, Myrtle Philip.

Alex was granted the honour of actually flipping the switch that finally energized the valley. Unable to conceal the thrill of the moment, Alex let out an excited “I did it!” and a new era dawned upon the Whistler Valley. For the now-retired Philips this meant they could spend the winter at Alta Lake, instead of with friends in the city as they had in previous years.

The Philips tour the new Rainbow substation with an unidentified BC Hydro employee, November 18, 1965.

And so a new era dawned for the Whistler Valley, albeit a little late. According to Wladek “Walter” Zebrowski‘s biography In Search of Freedom, the arrival of electricity almost prevented Whistler’s development into the massive resort it is today. While clearing his land near what would soon become Creekside in July 1964, Zebrowski was suddenly drawn from his work by the deafening roar of a helicopter setting down nearby:

A man got out–it was Bob Brown, a surveyor for the B.C. Hydro Corporation–and he informed Wladek that a power line was going to be put through his land.The forty meter wide line with transmission towers… was to cut through the whole valley (today the centre of town with the town and and four large residential areas). The plans had been already made, the land had been prepared and many tress had been cut out. He was here just to take the last measurements as the construction was to start very soon.

The book continues to recount how Zebrowski immediately halted working and drove to Vancouver to inform Franz Wilhelmson at the GLC offices. The next day they met with B.C. Hydro Chairman Dr. Gordon Shrum and convinced them to relocate the transmission line so as not to interfere with the planned ski area and adjoining residential developments. Instead, the high transmission lines run along the west side of the valley–the more populated side during the Alta Lake era–leaving room for Whistler to develop into its current state.

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