Tag: Green Lake

Finding Familiar FacesFinding Familiar Faces

February 18, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

It is not uncommon to head off on a trip and find yourself running into people you know from home, no matter how far you’ve gone or how small your community is. In the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, this phenomenon was often reported on in the Whistler Question’s “Notes From All Over,” which listed the comings and goings on of members of the Whistler community, from birthdays to gossip to sightings in other locales.

In the spring of 1984, Inge and Jens Nielsen headed off on a visit to Denmark and Germany. They came across a familiar name on their return trip when the flight crew was introduced; their flight from Frankfurt was captained by none other than Chuck Blaylock.

Chuck Blaylock stands in front of the Wedge Glacier, circa 1982. Blaylock Collection

A pilot for Air Canada, Chuck Blaylock grew up in Montreal before moving out to British Columbia for two years in 1953. He never moved back and his family instead settled in Vancouver. On a camping trip to Alice lake in the 1960s, Chuck decided to drive further up the road and ended up at Green Lake. Growing up in Montreal and seeing lots of families head off to cabins in the Laurentiens, Chuck’s father had told him that if he found somewhere that you could drive to in a few hours and be at a lake, he should build a cabin there. It happened that Capilano Highlands Ltd. was selling lots in Emerald Estates and the Blaylocks purchased one right on the lake.

Before working for Air Canada, Chuck had played Junior hockey and had played internationally. The combination of a lakefront property and winters with three feet of ice on Green Lake meant that Chuck, who remained an avid hockey player, became known for informal hockey games. He kept a light outside the house that could illuminate nighttime games and he would clean a good sized rink, eventually even buying a snowblower.

Chuck Blaylock dressed to play. Whistler Question Collection, 1993

With no hockey arena in Whistler until late 1992, Chuck was part of negotiations to have Whistler teams come down for games when the arena in Squamish opened in 1978 and helped found the Whistler Hockey Association with Bill Barrett, Tom Hickey and others. Whenever hockey was being organized in Whistler from that time on, Chuck was sure to be involved.

Chuck also instructed for Jim McConkey at the ski school on Whistler Mountain and became very involved in the small ski area community. In an oral history interview in 2011, Chuck remembered that once they got telephones installed, it was not uncommon for Emerald residents who were out of town to call their neighbours to check on their property. Neighbours let each other know where the key had been left out and Chuck would often go over to neighbours’ houses to check on their pipes and the snowload on the roof. As Whistler and its needs grew, Chuck became part of the Whistler Health Planning Society (renamed in 1985 to the Whistler Health Care Society) and volunteered his time for numerous organizations and projects.

Upon hearing that Chuck was piloting their flight, Inge Nielsen sent a note up to the captain. In return, she, Jens, and their 12-year-old niece Iben who was coming to visit Whsitler for three weeks were all invited up to tour the cockpit. Inge described it as “incredible to see the swoop of the horizon through the wrap-around windows” and the June 7, 1984 edition of the Question thanked Chuck for “safely spiriting them home.”

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A Family BusinessA Family Business

February 4, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Not all summer residents of Alta Lake came to the area for the fishing or a mountain holiday. When Everett Valleau moved his company, Valleau Logging Ltd., to the area in 1955, he came to log timber around Alta and Green Lakes.

Valleau Logging was a family business and over the years each of Everett’s sons (Bob, Eugene, Gerald, Howard, Laurence, Lindsay, and Ron), at least ten of his grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren all worked for the company in different capacities. The Valleaus operated from Parkhurst on Green Lake and later moved their logging camp to Mons. As skiing opened up in the area and development increased, the Valleaus formed a subsidiary company, Alta Lake Contractors Ltd., to provide excavation work, road building, and more. In 1965, they were hired by Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. to build the road from the valley to the midstation of Whistler Mountain while the logging side of the company removed the usable timber from some of the runs that were cut. The Valleaus and their crews also built roads and parking lots for the Cheakamus Inn (now Whistler Vale), the Highland Lodge, and the Alpine Villas development.

Long before the road was paved or the name of the building changed, the Valleau’s built the road up to the Cheakamus Inn. Whistler Question Collection, 1979

In 2023, the museum spoke with Karyn Smith, one of Everett’s granddaughters, who remembered coming to the area with her family each summer, though they lived on Vancouver Island throughout the rest of the year. She remembered Parkhurst as “a fun place to be” and also a busy place in the summer as it was a working camp with the mill, bunkhouses, and a dining hall, though each of Everett’s sons had their own cabin with their family. With so much family around, Karyn spent a lot of time with her cousins. The kids would often go swimming, though Karyn recalled that her grandfather was “the only adult I ever knew who would swim in Green Lake,” having grown up washing in the cold waters of Galway Bay in Ireland. They would also go on Sunday outings where they would walk down the railway tracks to go horseback riding at Buckhorn Ranch or to visit the Tapleys. Mr. Tapley (Myrtle Philip’s brother Phil) would collect their mail for them and they would have a ball game and eat the meal provided by Mrs. Tapley (Phil’s wife Doreen).

By the time they moved the logging camp to Mons, Karyn was old enough to start working as a “flunky” in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and other vegetables, fetching the meat from the walk-in freezer, doing the dishes, and keeping the coffee going. As Whistler Mountain developed more, Karyn got other jobs working at the Christiana Inn and the Highland Lodge.

Community members began Ice Stock Sliding on Alta Lake and moved to blacktop after the ice melted. Philip Collection

Throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, it was not uncommon for the Valleau name to pop up whenever there was a community project that needed support and an unexpected job that needed doing. In 1956, when a train crash led to three boxcars loaded with lumber jammed in place and blocking the line, the railway’s equipment couldn’t move the cars. The Valleaus used their logging machinery to pry out the cars and then drag them up the track and into the forest, where they are now a popular destination.

The Valleaus also offered office space in their administration building at Mons to serve as a post office after it moved out of Rainbow Lodge in 1966 and made their kitchen at Mons available to the Alta Lake Community Club to prepare fundraising dinners. When some residents of Whistler started up an Ice Stock Sliding Club during a cold but snowless winter, the Valleaus set aside an area of blacktop for them to continue playing throughout the year. In the early 1960s, when the Alta Lake District Ratepayers Association applied to lease acreage for a dump the Valleaus donated equipment and labour to excavate ditches and fill them in once full. They also provided equipment to help the Alta Lake Sports Club build a bridge over Fitzsimmons Creek when they were building Nordic ski trails around Lost Lake. Laurence Valleau was named Whistler’s Citizen of the Year in 1974.

Miss Valleau Logging Kristi King rides atop the Valleau float in the Pemberton parade. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

As Whistler became larger and more emphasis was placed on the resort development of the area, Laurence and his sons Rick and Dave moved Valleau Logging to Pemberton.

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Early Aches and Breaks at Alta LakeEarly Aches and Breaks at Alta Lake

November 12, 2024 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

A broken bone and accompanying cast are not an uncommon sight in Whistler during any season and are likely to become even more common as the mountains open and we begin another winter season. While these days most injuries are treated by medical professionals at the Whistler Medical Centre, a few stories from our archives show that residents of the Alta Lake area, prior to the development of Whistler Mountain, sometimes had to take a more hands-on role in treating themselves.

Louise Betts is the daughter of Jenny Jardine, whose family first came to Alta Lake in 1921 when Thomas Neiland, Jenny’s step-father, started a logging business. Jenny and her brothers grew up in the area and she married Wallace Betts, who had been working at one of the logging camps in the area, in 1937. Though the couple and their children did later move away from Alta Lake, Louise would often visit her grandmother Lizzie Neiland at her house in what is now Function Junction. A story from one of her visits would make anyone who has a bone set in Whistler today appreciate the care they receive.

Louise Betts with her brother Sam and grandmother Lizzie Neiland at the garden at 34 1/2 Mile (today the Function Junction area), around 1943. Jardine/Betts/Smith Collection

Louise and her cousin Alfie were playing in the field near their grandmother’s house. As Louise described it, “We’d go to the top of these little humps and lie down and roll to the bottom.” On one of these rolls, Alfie broke his arm. The pair ran to find Louise’s mother (according to Louise, “I can remember he just came screaming up”) and Jenny “grabbed him by the shoulder and straightened his arm out. Like that, thank you!” After creating a splint for his arm, Jenny, Alfie and Louise got on the train (Louise could not remember if it was a passenger or freight, though she thinks they waited for the passenger train) and headed for Vancouver. Luckily for Alfie, the doctors there concluded that Jenny had done a good job splinting his arm and after putting a cast on they were able to return to Alta Lake.

Like the Jardine-Neilands, the Kitteringham family also came to the Alta Lake area because of the forestry industry. Olie and Eleanor Kitteringham and their children Ron, Jim, and Linda lived at Parkhurst from 1948 to 1956 and, unlike many of the people who worked at the mill, stayed at Parkhurst year round.

Part of the townsite at the Parkhurst mill on Green Lake. Debeck Collection

With no doctor in the area, Eleanor told her family, “If you are going to get sick it has to be on a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday” as those were the days when the passenger train came through from Lillooet to Squamish. When Ron was about nine years old, however, he became sick and delirious for three days with a high temperature. Eleanor consulted her “doctor book,” which said that it might be bronchial pneumonia, and used the phone in the mill office to call up Dr Kindree in Squamish and ask that he put some penicillin on the train for her. The penicillin was “thrown off by the next freight at [the] station” and Ron soon recovered.

Not all of the stories in our archives have such fortunate endings and accidents at the mill could have life-altering results, as could untreated illnesses. In 1980, Dr Christine Rodgers and Dr Rob Burgess both set up practices in Whistler and began seeing patients, providing the first full time, year round medical care in Whistler.

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Lake Fun in WhistlerLake Fun in Whistler

July 2, 2024 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Whistler’s lakes offer a variety of water-based activities and are a great place to cool off during the summer heat. From sailing regattas and floating art galleries to swim races and a quadrathlon, Whistler’s lakes have seen it all!

The Alta Lake Sailing Club’s annual season end “Regretta” included sailing races as well as land-bound activities for participants of all ages. The first ever “Regretta” was hosted in the summer of 1965 and was named after the regret the community feels as the summer comes to an end. Today, the Whistler Sailing Association offers sailing programs, rentals, and races throughout the summer. Alta Lake and Green Lake permit motorized boats; however, on Alta Lake they must be kept under 10 horsepower. Non-motorized boats such as pedal boats, kayaks, canoes, and standup paddle-boards are welcome on all of Whistler’s lakes.

Participants in the Great Snow Earth Water Race rush out of the water. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

On Victoria Day, 1975, the Great Snow Earth Water Race first started. The first leg of Whistler’s version of the relay race included skiing from the top of Whistler Mountain, then running the remaining distance to today’s Creekside where the first baton pass-off took place. The next leg was a bike ride around Alta Lake where the baton was passed to the group’s canoe team. The canoeists then paddled through the River of Golden Dreams to the first weir and passed the baton to a runner who completed the race by running all the way back to Creekside. The 2014 revision of the race included an extra three components: ski or snowboard touring, downhill mountain biking, and cross-country biking. Unfortunately, the last Great Snow Earth Water Race took place during the 1990s.

Windsurfers on Alta Lake in August 1981. George Benjamin Collection

Through the 1970s and early 1980s, windsurfing at Alta Lake became very popular. Whistler was home to multiple windsurfing regattas as well as a weekly race night. Participation eventually declined due to lack of availability of the equipment and legal issues. Windsurfers on Alta Lake were a concern for those participating in the Fun Fitness Swim Race in the 1980s. After a swimmer and windsurfer collided (both were ok!) the swim race was moved to Lost Lake. The Fun Fitness Swim Race was roughly a mile and a half long and was offered as a community fitness event rather than a competitive race. The swim race took place from 1979 until the early 1990s.

Today’s water-bound activities include paddling across Alta Lake and through the River of Golden Dreams. This route takes visitors past old growth trees, through lush scenery, and offers breathtaking mountain views. A round trip takes roughly 3 hours and can be completed in a kayak, canoe, or on a paddle-board. Tours can be booked or self-guided depending on skill and comfort level. Alta Lake is also home to Art on the Lake, which includes local artists, live music, and a floating art gallery. One of Arts Whistler’s more recent annual undertakings, the first Art on the Lake event was organized four years ago as a way to host an arts event during the pandemic. This event takes place in August and is accessible by boat, kayak, canoe or paddle-board.

A group (who appears to have forgotten their lifejackets!) paddle down the River of Golden Dreams. Whistler Resort Association Collection

Keep an eye out more more information on local lake activities to participate in this summer. Remember your sunscreen and towel for every lake day adventure!

Ella Healey is the Summer Program Coordinator at the Whistler Museum through the Young Canada Works Program.

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