Tag: Garibaldi Provincial Park

Our Mountain HomeOur Mountain Home

December 17, 2011 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

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.

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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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Neal Carter climbing albumNeal Carter climbing album

October 29, 2011 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 6 Comments

Among the tens of thousands of historical photos that the Whistler Museum holds in our archives, I think Neal Carters’ are my favourites. Carter was one of the most prolific mountaineers on the BC Coast during the 1920s and 1930s, gaining several first ascents. He also managed to turn his climbing hobby into a career, working as a surveyor first on Hydro crews around Garibaldi Lake, and then playing a major role in creating the first official topographic map of Garibaldi Park in 1928.

The mountains immediately surrounding Whistler were of special interest to him. Not only did he personally map much of the area (original copies of his massive topo map are in the Vancouver City and BC Provincial Archives), he was also instrumental in convincing the Provincial Government to expand Garibaldi Park in 1928 to approximately its current boundaries, including the Spearhead Range and the Wedge groups of peaks.

His first excursion into our local mountains occurred in September 1923 when he, along with fellow Vancouver climber Charles Townsend, spent two weeks bagging first ascents in the region. Beyond the sheer joy of two weeks climbing in such sublime terrain, the two were also on the lookout for potential sites for future BC Mountaineering Club summer camps, which had been held almost exclusively in Black Tusk Meadows for the last decade.

Their first night’s camp on the flanks of Wedge. Tent pole technology has come a long way in the last 88 years.

Using Rainbow Lodge as their base (they gave Myrtle Philip copies of their photos from this trip, which is how the museum ended up with them) they first scrambled up Wedge Creek with a week’s worth of provisions. Townsend’s very matter-of-fact account printed in the BC Mountaineer belies their huge, gruelling days of bushwacking, navigating crevasse mazes, and scrambling up terribly steep and loose talus slopes in uncharted terrain.

The view south from Wedge to our familiar W-B backcountry: (l to r) Overlord, Pattison, Fissile, Trorey, Davidson, Castle Towers and Decker.

They managed to bag the first ascents of the twin giants of Wedge Mountain and Mount James Turner (whose summit was almost too small to build a cairn), while surveying and naming many of the surrounding peaks and glaciers, over seven days. Along the way they were treated to remarkably clear conditions, which, combined with Carter’s substantial technical skills as a photographer (crucial for accurate topographic surveys), produced some striking images of the surrounding landscape.

Returning back to Rainbow Lodge, they revelled in a massive dinner and comfortable night’s sleep in a bed, but were back at it early the next morning heading for the “largely unexplored” Spearhead Range. They first headed for Singing Pass-then known as “Avalanche Pass” and spent a night in the prospector’s cabin.

Impressive solitude near Whistler’s peak.
Getting radical near Mt. James Turner.

The rest of that week was spent climbing surrounding peaks such as Fissile (then known as Red Mountain), Overlord, and a further excursion for the first ascents of Mount Diavolo, which they named for their difficult experience on its steep and exposed north ridge.

This is just a small sample from more than fifty photos in our collection that Carter produced over the two-week dream trip. Most of them are beautiful in their own right, but are just as interesting as a unique perspective on a landscape that has become so familiar to us. Scanning through the images, you get a sense of Carter’s excitement and wonder as he peered out over vast expanse of completely undeveloped, largely unknown terrain.

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Whistler is (Grizzly?) Bear Country.Whistler is (Grizzly?) Bear Country.

September 17, 2011 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 3 Comments

Everyone knows that Whistler is bear country. Today, several dozen black bears live within the ski area alone. While it has been at times a rocky relationship, Whistlerites are rightfully proud of our relatively successful co-existence with local bears. (For a number of reasons, this has been an especially stressful year for our ursine friends, as you can read up on here and here.)

For the most part, our local bear population has adapted well to the expanding human presence in Whistler. Michael Allen photo.

Justified as it may be, celebrating our thriving black bear population obscures one crucial fact: Whistler is also grizzly bear country, or, at least, it very recently was. Earlier in the twentieth century it was not uncommon to see these tawny giants on the slopes surrounding Whistler, and they often wandered into the valley itself as was reported by local trapper Billy Bailiff in a 1935 provincial wildlife survey by the Royal BC Museum.

Grizzlies were most commonly encountered in the gently rolling country to the southeast of Whistler Mountain familiar to backcountry skiers and hikers as the Musical Bumps and Singing Pass. The wide expanse of open meadows and sub-alpine parkland provides a diversity of niche environmental conditions perfect for supporting an array of wildlife, big and small.

Hunters with two grizzly bears in the Singing Pass/Musical Bumps area, circa 1916-17.

The local grizzly population suffered a steady decline through the twentieth century, though the odd grizzly still does occasionally wander into developed areas in Sea-to-Sky Country, usually pressured by abnormal environmental conditions. (Click here to read about a grizzly encounter in Squamish in 2007.) While the reasons for their virtual disappearance are not simple, unsurprisingly, they are largely man-made. As local naturalist Bob Brett puts it:

The “line of extinction” as it’s sometimes called has moved, save for a couple of pockets, from Mexico north to the Pemberton Valley. Wolves, wolverines, and grizzlies are all animals that don’t do well around people, probably for the same reasons: huge home ranges, a tendency to get shot when near people, and general aversion to humans.

Sure, living with bears has its challenges but we all recognize that it is more than worth it, which raises the obvious question: could grizzlies one day reclaim some of their lost territory? Perhaps more crucially, if it was possible, would we let them?

While this most recent grizzly encounter near Squamish ended peacefully, there is still a long way to go before they are once again recognized as rightful residents alongside black bears. Of course, grizzlies are a completely different beast from their darker-haired cousins. For one, they’re bigger, hungrier, and require far larger swaths of undisturbed wild country to sustain themselves. They also require a rather different approach to conservation and management.

In 1989 a stray grizzly wandered into Function Junction where it was shot and killed by RCMP officers after it started displaying aggressive behavior towards local dogs. A June 15th 1989 article in the Squamish Citizen about the encounter reported an RCMP representative’s statement that the bear was fatally shot because local authorities did not have the necessary expertise or equipment to safely tranquilize and relocate the animal. The same article also reported on the successful relocation of a black bear that same evening by provincial wildlife officials from the Creekside area.

While it is easy to get disheartened, even cynical, when considering modern society’s seemingly unrelenting assault on the natural world, attitudes are changing (if slowly and unevenly). Plus, as this article shows, nature can be incredibly resilient.

So what’s your take on all this? Should we encourage grizzlies to return to the surrounding hills which they called home for thousands of years, or are they simply too dangerous to co-exist with us humans (despite contrary evidence in Northern BC, the Rockies and Alaska)? Have we modified the local environment too much to enable such a homecoming? Certainly these are questions that we, as a community, should be asking.

For an eloquent take on the dwindling fate of southwestern BC’s grizzlies, and human-wildlife interaction in general, see the beautifully filmed episode of The Nature of Things “The Last Grizzly of Paradise Valley.” (shot in the North Cascades near Princeton, not the Paradise Valley north of Squamish).

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