Christmas has always been a hectic time here in Whistler, as so much energy goes into welcoming and entertaining guests. This was as true 90 years ago as it is today. Scanning through our archives this week, we were surprised by how few Christmas images we actually had. It seems as if everyone was always too busy to get the camera out! In any case we managed to find a few good ones for this week’s post.
Christmas was always a major production at Rainbow Lodge. Myrtle and Alex were renowned entertainers, and for Christmas they pulled out all the stops. These two images show the calm before the storm. Although it would be nice to have pictures of the actual dinner and guests, these photos are especially valuable because, of the hundreds of images we have of Rainbow Lodge, only a handful of them were taken inside the lodge.
“The calm before the storm”
Here’s the Rainbow Lodge dinner table, Christmas 1923.
As gracious and popular hosts, the Philips always had a long list of friends and associates who sent them Christmas cards:
A 1947 Christmas Card from Rainbow Lodge friend, Paulene Johnson, featuring Binkie the Dog!
In later years, Christmas was a more relaxing experience for Myrtle as she didn’t have the responsibilities of entertaining at Rainbow Lodge.
Myrtle Philip and friend Mollie Boyd at Myrtle Philip School to enjoy a performance of “Christmas at Rainbow” by local school children. It must have been the best Christmas present ever for Myrtle to watch the theatrical ode to her life’s work performed in a school named in her honour!
And even though for most Whistlerites Christmas is far more work than holiday. we hope you all have a chance to kick back with friends (and if you’re lucky enough, family too) and treat yourself as well. Happy Holidays!
Season’s Greetings from Whistler Mountain staff, early 1970s.
As some of you may know, last Sunday was International Mountain Day (IMD). In recognition of this, and in conjunction with the Whistler Forum’s efforts to raise the profile of IMD in Whistler, a very special event was held at the Whistler Museum on Saturday Evening. Three elder statesmen of the mountains were invited to share stories from their lives in the mountains, and to communicate what the alpine realms meant to them.
Our distinguished panel began with the 92-years-young Howard Rode, who has been climbing and skiing in our local mountains since he was a young man, and remains active today! His light-hearted recollections of early trips into Garibaldi Park recalled an era when far more effort was required of those seeking alpine adventures. Despite this, Howard spoke of his experiences with an undeniable fondness, clearly enriched from over seventy years playing in the mountains.
Howard was followed by well-known local Don MacLaurin. Don, a retired forester, educator, and parks planner, was an active mountaineer for half a century, achieving multiple first ascents in the area and even acting as President of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club for some time. Don was no stranger either to physical exertion in the name of mountain play, but his talk focused on his lifelong efforts as an educator, and his desire to share the wonder of mountain environments with others.
Our final speaker was the Honourable John Fraser, former Speaker of the House of Commons, Federal Environment Minister, and Canadian ambassador to many key international summits including the 1992 Rio Summit on Environment and Development. Mr. Fraser gave a fascinating talk on his early adventures growing up in a forestry family and running a pack train in the Yukon before settling into his professional career as a lawyer and politician. Perhaps the most interesting moment came when he described his involvement in a committee tasked with identifying potential winter Olympic sites in the 1960s.
The distinguished legislator and statesmen concluded with several pointed suggestions for Whistler, which has been his part-time home for several decades, and more generally, for younger, environmentally minded citizens.
It was a pleasure to be able to take part in this event, and it was truly an honour to host such a distinguished and impassioned panel. Whenever you have the opportunity to listen to anyone with this much experience and accomplishment, let alone three, you should take advantage.
These three gentlemen had the great fortune (and foresight) to make the mountains a major part of their long, productive lives, and they made it quite clear that this was no coincidence. If I had to single out one lesson (among the many) to take away from the evening it has to be this : We live in a special town immersed in a truly inspiring and empowering natural landscape. No matter how busy you find yourself this winter, make sure you make the time to actually get up into the mountains and take advantage of all they have to offer.
There’s a photograph in the Museum collection of an unlikely pair of friends: a bear cub and a piglet, leaning into each other as they happily lay on their backs. Until very recently, we assumed that the bear cub in the picture was none other than Alta Lake’s most famous bear cub: Teddy.
The photograph in question. If you look deep into the background you will see a dog looking on – his name was Freckles and he preferred to keep to himself. The original print belonging to the Museum was very faded, so we weren’t able to see that this bear does not have a distinctive white patch on its chest. This print came from former resident Norm Barr, and the bear’s lack of markings is easy to spot.
For those of you who have never heard the story of Teddy, it goes like this: In 1926, Whistler pioneer Myrtle Philip was out picking berries to make a pie with some Rainbow Lodge guests in the woods when they heard a whimpering sound. They soon discovered it was coming from a lone bear cub, whose mother was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, they decided to take the bear back to Rainbow Lodge, where he was given the name Teddy and spent the summer happily playing with lodge guests. By the fall, Teddy was getting too big to remain at the lodge, and was taken to the Stanley Park Zoo, where he lived out his days. Myrtle continued to visit him at the zoo over the years, where he would run up to the bars to greet her.
Teddy the bear in 1926 – note the white patch of fur on his chest.
Teddy is the subject of many photos in the Museum collection, so it was easy to surmise that the bear in the photograph with a piglet must be Teddy as well. Recently, Archivist Sarah Drewery interviewed Norm Barr, the son of former Parkhurst owners Ross and Alison Barr, and discovered that there was another bear cub in the Alta Lake area, a decade after Teddy. This bear was named Molly, and Molly’s best friend was McGee – a piglet that had been purchased in New Westminster by a teenage Betsy Henderson (née DeBeck).
Betsy was interviewed this past month about the two summers she spent at Green Lake with her family, in 1936 and 1937. Her brothers worked in the logging industry, and her mother was eager to get the whole family together, so they rented a cabin at what used to be the Lineham’s mink ranch, prior to the Depression. According to Betsy, the remnants of the mink ranch remained, in the form of cages all over the property.
Making their way to Green Lake, the family of six didn’t travel lightly. At a time when travelling meant you had to take the train, the DeBecks managed to bring what might as well have been their own zoo with them: a cow, McGee, Molly, and a spaniel named Freckles. Not to be limited to four animals, they also rented two horses, and had a third horse which her brother Denis apparently found. Not one of them had prior experience riding a horse as they led their rentals away from the barn, but that’s another story altogether.
So if McGee came from a farmer’s market in New Westminster, where did Molly come from? Apparently Molly formerly went by the name “Crisco,” after her penchant for breaking into the cookhouse in Bella Coola, where she lived, and eating Crisco to her heart’s content. Betsy’s father Edward was working in Bella Coola, and decided to bring the bear cub to his family, staying at the mink ranch. As you can imagine, her owners were not remotely reluctant to give her away. Although Betsy’s mother initially said she would leave the instant the bear cub arrived, she was easily swayed when Molly got off the train and promptly wrapped her arms around her legs.
Molly standing on her hind legs. She looks quite different from Teddy in this photograph.
The travel from Bella Coola included taking a ship to Vancouver, and then the train from Vancouver to Alta Lake. While onboard the ship, Molly spent her time in Edward’s sleeper cabin. When Edward ran into a friend who had a rough night on the boat and needed some sleep, he promptly turned over the keys to his cabin, neglecting to mention that Molly was fast asleep on the couch. It seems that the friend initially thought he was hallucinating, but was a bit of a jokester too, so he quickly saw the humor in the situation.
After the second summer at Green Lake in 1937, the DeBeck family was moving on to Victoria. While they had a large lot in New Westminster and were able to keep animals, they were moving to a small city lot in Victoria, and had to say goodbye to their motley crew of pets, save for Freckles the spaniel. The DeBecks approached the Alaric family, who had a logging operation on Green Lake, and sold them the cow, Molly and McGee.
Molly and McGee enjoy a meal together in 1937.
The story of Molly the Bear highlights how easy it is for something to take hold and then continue to be perpetuated until it becomes an inextricable part of the history, taken to be true. One such tale is that Teddy and the piglet (now know to be Molly and McGee) were the best of friends until one day Teddy got a bit hungry and decided to eat the piglet. There is no truth to this, but it was repeated so many times it became easy to believe. Even when we learned that the piglet wasn’t consumed, we no longer questioned whether the bear in the photograph was Teddy. It’s amazing to realize the power of a single image.
By collecting oral histories, we are working to build a stronger understanding of Whistler’s history – Molly is just a small (and cute!) example of how effective these interviews are proving to be. Perhaps there are other photographs in the collection like this one, waiting for the story behind them to be unlocked as we speak with early residents of the valley.
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!
