In the 1980s the Whistler Question began posing a question to three to six people and publishing their responses under “Whistler’s Answers” (not to be confused with the Whistler Answer). Each week, we’ll be sharing one question and the answers given back in 1984. Please note, all names/answers/occupations/neighbourhoods represent information given to the Question at the time of publishing and do not necessarily reflect the person today.
Some context for this week’s question: This question has likely been asked of residents almost every year for decades and continues to be asked today.
Question: Do you think rentals are hard to find this year?
Ginst Casarin – Customer Service Clerk – Whistler Cay
We were early and got a place in September, but right now it’s hard. We were persistent, and went to the chamber of commerce information centre and got a sheet of listings. Most places were too expensive, but that affects all tourist resorts.
Rudi Hofmann – Chef/Restaurateur – Alpine Meadows
I think they are very difficult to find. I think every year a company should make an effort to supply accommodation for its key employees. Some people have to stick with you through thick and thin. You think it would be easier now but from you hear it’s getting harder to find a place. Why, I don’t know.
Colleen Wuolle – Office Manager – Alpine Meadows
It’s very difficult. We get numerous calls every day, and people coming in all the time. A lot of them are looking for permanent places and there’s a very limited number available. I think most that want to move here just keep at it and eventually find something.
When Whistler Mountain opened for skiing during the winter of 1965/66, it had four lifts (one gondola, one chairlift, and two T-bars), all supplied by GMD Mueller of Switzerland. The company of Gerhard Mueller also won the contract to install the gondola and chairlift and two of his employees arrived in the area in the early summer of 1965. This past spring, Ed Schum, one of those two employees, came into the Whistler Museum and sat down with Cliff Jennings and our director Brad Nichols to share his memories of constructing Whistler Mountain’s first gondola and Red Chair.
Ed had already been planning to come to Canada with a friend when he saw an ad in a newspaper for technicians who would go to Canada to install ski lifts. He and fifteen other people were hired by Mueller, who hadn’t officially received the contract to install the lifts at Whistler yet. They worked for Mueller for about a year and a half before four were chosen to go to Canada. Ed and another man named Walter were sent to Whistler Mountain while two others were sent to install a gondola in Quebec.
The original gondola on Whistler Mountain. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation Collection.
According to Ed, he and Walter arrived in Vancouver in mid-June and were flown up to the Whistler area by Quadra Construction, who built the foundations for the lifts. Ed fell in love with the area during that flight and predicted that he wouldn’t be going back to Switzerland after the job was done. Upon arriving at Alta Lake, they found the Whistler Mountain site was pretty much as it had been described to them by Mueller: a nice parking lot where the gondola station would go and then, up the mountain a little bit, “it gets really rough.” The pair went back to Vancouver to buy a truck and some tools, met with Franz Wilhelmsen and a couple of other directors of Garibaldi Lifts Ltd., and then drove back up the “highway” to start work while staying at Cypress Lodge.
There were pieces of tower all over the parking lot that they started assembling. They quickly discovered that the Swiss way of raising the towers wouldn’t work with the rough terrain and limited vehicle access (Ed estimated that it would take about eighteen months to put in the towers that way) and so Quadra Construction put them in touch with a pilot named Buzz at Okanagan Helicopters who had helped with the construction of the tower foundations. Together, they worked out the rigging needed and Buzz flew in the towers of the gondola and Red Chair. It took a day or two, a dozen sets of rigging, and “crews all over the place” to install over thirty towers for the two lifts, and Ed remembered that all of the flying was completed by his 24th birthday in early October.
Once the towers were installed, the gondola still required a cable and cars. A splicer came from a cable company in Vancouver to oversee the splicing of the Swiss cable, a process that required at least six people and very careful oversight. Both Ed and Cliff remembered an unexpected mishap when the heavy cable, still on its spool, broke the floor of the midstation, but the cable itself was unharmed. Additional workers were also hired to assemble the gondola cars, which were cheaper to transport in pieces.
The gondola still in use in December 1978. Whistler Question Collection, 1978.
Ed recalled that Walter went home once the lifts were running while he stayed to ensure that they continued to run smoothly. After the first season, it was decided that the gondola was too low in some places and some of the towers needed to be raised, which Ed took part in. When Mueller opened an office in British Columbia, Ed went to work there but would occasionally return to Whistler Mountain for maintenance work, where he worked closely with Doug Mansell who was in charge of the lift operations. As he predicted on that first flight, Ed ended up staying in the province, although the place and occupation changed over the years. The lifts he built remained on Whistler Mountain until 1991/92, when both the gondola and the original Red Chair were replaced.
Join us on Monday, November 6th for the exciting launch of A BC Odyssey: Canoeing through British Columbia in 1970 by John Hetherington. This gripping memoir takes readers on a 1200 km canoe trip through rugged landscapes of BC, offering vivid descriptions and captivating encounters. All proceeds from the sale of the book will be contributed to the Whistler Museum’s Building Fund.
The event begins at 6 pm at the Whistler Public Library. To sign up for this event and guarantee your spot, email publicservices@whistlerlibrary.ca.
In the 1980s the Whistler Question began posing a question to three to six people and publishing their responses under “Whistler’s Answers” (not to be confused with the Whistler Answer). Each week, we’ll be sharing one question and the answers given back in 1984. Please note, all names/answers/occupations/neighbourhoods represent information given to the Question at the time of publishing and do not necessarily reflect the person today.
Some context for this week’s question: On Monday, October 8, houses, farmlands and roads in Pemberton were flooded, beginning when a creek broke through the dyke in Pemberton Meadows at 6:07am. Flooding continued throughout the day and about 100 people had to be evacuated to higher ground, some to the Pemberton United Church basement. The flood was on the wane by Tuesday, though more rain was in the forecast. There was no flooding in Whistler, though uprooted trees did plug up the Cheakamus River on the Tuesday and cause the level to rise high enough to endanger the sewage treatment plant temporarily.
Question: What was your reaction to the Pemberton floods?
Bill Barratt – Parks Foreman – Whistler Cay
I would say the impact was hard to feel until you saw it on television, even though it was so close. It’s hard to feel the impact unless you see it up close. But I think everyone here definitely felt a lot for what was happening – it could happen in MDC or White Gold. It was a rude awakening.
Frank Thiessen – Resident – Alpine Meadows
I think it’s unfortunate having a flood so close to Whistler, but we’ll never be affected in those kinds of terms. But if the sewage treatment plant goes… We get all these rains in the valley and a couple of years ago it washed out M Creek. This year is just came a little further north.
Peter Leriche – Waiter – Whistler Cay Heights
I’ve got experience with floods just in respect to the flood here in Christmas 1980 and the floods in Squamish. I didn’t really feel a large impact from the flood because we weren’t affected very badly by it in Whistler. I do feel the flood relief package the government is offering is not enough.
