Summer is back at the Whistler Museum for July & August! You’ll find us at the Discover Nature tent at Lost lake Park Mondays – Fridays, online for self-guided Nature Walking Tours around Lost Lake, leading Valley of Dreams Walking Tours through the Village daily, and being crafty in Florence Petersen Park each Wednesday! Find more information about summer programs here.
Whistler Museum is excited to announce the return of Crafts in the Park for the summer of 2023! We will be continuing our collaboration with Whistler Public Library, who will help in both finding and presenting the stories. The craft theme for this year will be “A Journey Through Time” and each craft will highlight parts of Whistler’s natural and human history.
Crafts in the Park will run on Wednesday, from 11am-noon; no registration is required and drop-ins are welcome. The crafts are intended for children ages 6 and under, with an adult present; all craft supplies will be provided.
In addition, as the weeks progress, we will post a recap of the activity and craft from the previous week, alongside some historical context.
Week One: July 5th.
This week was all about dinosaurs! We read some dinosaur stories before proceeding to make fossils and draw what made them. There were lots of creative fossil designs, from leaves, to shells, to dinosaur footprints. Speaking of dinosaurs, here are some of the ones drawn up from the imagination of those who attended.
Week Two: July 12:
The focus for Crafts in the Park this week was on culture and daily life. We specifically focused around fishing, since for the early part of Whistler’s history, the biggest attraction in the region was Rainbow Lodge, which many visitors came to take part in fishing on the shores of Alta Lake. We read some stories about fishing before proceeding to make fish out of felt-cut outs, alongside using paper plates create an ocean or lake-scene for the fish. The highlight of this craft was the magnet fishing poles, which could be used to catch and reel in the fish.
Next week, we’ll be moving on to crafts that draw attention to the buildings of Whistler’s past.
Week Three: July 19:
For the third week of Crafts in the park the focus was on buildings, more specifically, buildings that have played an important role in Whistler’s history. In line with our craft last week, the activity for this week was to create fishing lodges out of popsicle sticks.
There lots of creative interpretations and decisions made by those who participated, looking forward to next week were the theme will be focused around transportation in Whistler’s past.
Week Four: July 26
The theme this week was transportation.The stories provided to us from the library were all focused on trans, largely because of important role that trains played to the community of Alta Lake in the early 20th century. Our craft today consisted of creating trains out of paper tubes, attaching the cow-catcher, smoke-stake and wheels to the body after the paint had dried. There were lots of creative interpretations and creations.
While most projects got taken home, there are still a couple that have been left with the museum, if you left yours behind, feel free to drop by later this week to pick them up. Next week we’ll be thinking about inventions that have shaped Whistler’s history.
Week 5: August 2nd:
The theme for this week focused on Inventions, in particular, inventions that have made big changes to Whistler’s history. The kids painted paper plates as a background, often with scenes involving mountains and forest, before adding a gondala (modern or older), or a chairlift to the scene.
Week 6: August 9:
This week was a bit different from the previous weeks. Due to the weather, we held our stories and crafts inside the museum, it was a bit cramped, but everyone who came had a great time. The craft for today was cutting out clip-art of skiers from templates after colouring them, and then adding popsicle sticks to their feet for skis and toothpicks to their hands for ski-poles.
Join us next week for the last day of crafts in the park!
Week 7: August 16:
Due to smoky conditions and the increasingly hot weather, Crafts in the park was held inside the museum for this week. The theme for today was mountains, after reading some mountain themed stories, the craft was creating some mountains.
This was also the last week of Crafts in the Park for the Summer of 2023, come back next year for more crafts in the park!
Our summer programs are up and running for July and August! You’ll find us at the Discover Nature tent at Lost Lake Park Tuesdays – Fridays, online for self-guided Nature Walking Tours around Lost Lake, leading Valley of Dreams Walking Tours through the Village daily, and being crafty in Florence Petersen Park each Wednesday! Find more information about summer programs here.
The year 2021 was one of fluctuation for the Whistler Museum. With a few COVID restrictions on occupancy and mask mandates, we were able to keep our exhibits open to the public six days a week throughout the year.
Over the course of 2021, the museum welcomed 6,513 exhibit visitors. This is an increase of 28 per cent over 2020, but still down 55 per cent over pre-COVID numbers in 2019. In addition to exhibit visits, we also held several events and programs online and outside the museum, which attracted approximately 13,232 people. In total, the museum provided direct services to approximately 19,745 individuals. We also had increased traffic and interactions throughout 2021 on our social media accounts including Instagram, YouTube, and our online Whistorical blog.
Our popular Speakers Series was delivered completely online in 2021. These events shifted from in-person events held at the museum to 20-minute mini-documentaries that were streamed live to an online audience and followed by a Q&A with the speakers. The first of these was with Dean Nelson, a longtime organizer of the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival, exploring the history and evolution of Pride in Whistler, including Pride House during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the first such LGBTQ+ space at an Olympic Games. Our next discussion was on the history of journalism and publishing in Whistler and featured speakers Paul Burrows (founder of the Whistler Question), Charlie Doyle (co-founder of the Whistler Answer), Bob Barnett (co-founder of Pique Newsmagazine), and Clare Ogilvie (then-editor of Pique Newsmagazine).
Our third Speaker Series event looked back at one of Whistler’s most endearing races, the Great Snow Earth Water Race that was held form 1975 to the mid 1990s. Race organizer Bryan Walhovd was accompanied by race participants from the first year of the race including Trudy Alder, Nancy Greene Raine, and Joe Csizmazia. Recordings of these Virtual Speaker Series events can be found on the museum’s YouTube Channel and on our social media platforms.
As we were not able to host many of our in-person family programs, we also adapted these to be delivered remotely. Our popular Crafts in the Park program continued as a video series and was developed by our summer programming student. Each video explored an aspect of Whistler’s history and was accompanied by a craft that families could complete at home. This program was presented in partnership with the Whistler Public Library.
Developed at the end of 2020, our Kids Après Activity Booklet was designed to replace our in-person Kids Après program. This activity booklet features colouring pages, mazes, crosswords, and various other activities. The 20-page booklet is still available (for free!) at the Whistler Museum. This program was made possible with funding from the Province of British Columbia.
In terms of in-person programs, we were grateful to be able to offer our long-running Heritage Walking Tours through Whistler Village (June through September), and our Discover Nature program at Lost Lake Park (July through August). These ongoing programs are staples of our ever-expanding program lineup; they contribute to community and visitor outreach and education that are essential to our mandate.
We are currently developing our program schedule for 2022. We hope to see the return of our Mountain Bike Heritage Week in 2022, as we have been unable to produce it over the last two years. More details on these programs will be available in the coming weeks.
I would like to take a moment to thank our funders and supporters: the Resort Municipality of Whistler; the Province of British Columbia; the Community Foundation of Whistler; Canadian Heritage; British Columbia Museum Association; and our museum members for their continued support over the years.
I would also like to say a special thank you to everyone who has visited our exhibits, attended our events, read our Pique column, followed us on social media, and otherwise helped spread the word about Whistler’s fascinating people and history. Your support helped us make through a very challenging year!
