Floating the River of Golden Dreams is an ideal way to pass a hot Whistler summer’s day. Its lazy pace and winding course makes it an idyllic journey, which Alex Philip, proprietor of Whistler’s first lodge, recognized early on. Alex would paddle honeymooners down the River of Golden Dreams in a large canoe, often by moonlight, where they could snuggle up and soak in the valley’s natural beauty.
Alex Philip paddling guests down the River of Golden Dreams (and Romance).
According to Myrtle Philip, Alex (who was a hopeless romantic) named the river and dubbed it ‘The River of Golden Dreams (and Romance)’ in honour of these moonlit journeys. However, that version of the naming of the river is somewhat contentious. According to Glen Smith, his mother Peggy Archibald named the river in honour of the famous song ‘Down the River of Golden Dreams’. The song Glen Smith was likely referring to was popularized by The Boswell sisters around 1930. Its peaceful tune and wistful lyrics certainly match atmosphere that Alex Philip was trying to promote: “Down the River of Golden Dreams, drifting along, humming a song of love…”. The popular folk song was later recorded by both Slim Whitman and The Platters. Click the link below to listen to the song on YouTube:
Regardless of who actually gave the river the moniker ‘The River of Golden Dreams’, the name is apt for the river. Its true name, however, is Alta Creek, as its source is at the Northern end of Alta Lake. It meanders from Alta Lake to Green Lake.
Floating down the river is still a popular activity for honeymooners, locals, and summertime visitors to Whistler. Whether by inner tube, stand-up paddle board, canoe, kayak, or any other water craft, the trip continues to be a great way to pass a hot summer’s afternoon.
Although contemporary fly fishing gear is full of high-tech advancements like graphite rods and synthetic fly materials, the sport also has a strong traditionalist bent. For many anglers, the romance of bamboo rods, hand-tied flies, and other vintage tackle has almost as much allure as the fish themselves.
Fly fishing at Myrtle and Alex Philip’s renowned Rainbow Lodge was the Whistler Valley’s first tourist attraction, so the Museum naturally has a lot of fishing gear in our archives, not to mention hundreds of photographs.
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To better understand these artifacts we recently had Brian Niska and Scott Baker-McGarva from Whistler Fly Fishing give us their take on some of the fly-fishing gear in the Philip collection. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that both Brian and Scott are true historians of the sport, providing tons of insight into our collection drawing from their impressive knowledge of the evolution of fishing tackle design.
2 of the Philips fishing rods, and Myrtle’s beatiful leather carrying case. The case still contains a travel tag dating to the Fall of 1961, likely the last time she used it.
We have several old cane and bamboo rods, some for fly fishing, some for casting and trolling.
The handle of one of the Philip’s fly rods.
They mostly demonstrate design features from the 1920s and 30s, the heyday of Rainbow Lodge, but the most obvious feature is the amount of use they have all seen. They appear to have been re-varnished multiple times and have many replaced eyes. This makes sense considering that the Philips and their guests were out on the water almost every summer day (and some winter days as well) for decades on end.
Considering most rods had to be shipped from the U.K. or the eastern U.S., the rods were irreplaceable workhorses whose lives needed such prolongment.
The tag on Myrtle’s leather fishing rod travel case.
Alex Philip’s fishing hat
Here we have Alex Philip’s stylish felt fishing hat, a Fedora made by Adam Hats of New York with a special water-repellency treatment for rainy day fishing. Note how the crown is full of an array of traditional wet flies suited to trout fishing in small lakes like Alta.
Brass P.D. Malloch fly fishing reel.
Made by P.D. Malloch of Perth, Scotland, Scott thinks this particular reel could predate World War One because it is made of brass, and most reels were made of alloys after the war. It resembles some of the reels we see in early photos of Alex Philip, and could potentially be one of the earliest fishing reels used at Rainbow Lodge. We contacted the manufacturer for more information but unfortunately their records were destroyed in a fire in 1986.
Other interesting odds and ends include the large reel in the top right of this photo, an Ocean City brand fortescue-style reel. Scott described it as a “multiplying salmon reel” best suited for larger fish than we typically find around Whistler. The Philips were dedicated anglers that took annual trips every autumn to Canim and Mahood lakes, northeast of 100 Mile House in the Cariboo region. This reel, which was appears to date from the 1930s or 40s, was likely used on these trips.
Mucillin and Lineflote (in the small red and yellow tins, both still half full) were grease-like substances used to give silk lines and/or flies buoyancy. Although synthetic lines are much more common now, Mucillin is actually still sold today in packaging nearly identical to our examples from the 1930s.
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Although the lakes don’t provide our valley’s main draw anymore, there is still great fishing to be had. When I was bringing some of our artifacts over to the museum from our off-site storage I actually encountered several people who were on their way to the lake, rod in hand. They were naturally curious about my odd-looking gear, and I’m certain Alex and Myrtle Philip would be equally excited to see their life’s passion alive and well in the Whistler Valley, more than a century after there fateful first casts in Alta Lake.
Whistler Backroads is putting on their 12th annual Fishing Derby this Sunday, June 17th at Lakeside Park. All are welcome, registration is free, and they even have some complimentary gear to use on a first-come, first-serve basis. Happy fishing!
The Whistler Museum is pleased to announce that new interpretive panels have been installed in Rainbow Park. The panels detail life in Whistler’s early days, including the lives of Myrtle and Alex Philip and other early visitors to Alta Lake’s famous ‘Rainbow Lodge’. The newly installed panels have replaced the older panels that had been in place since the Whistler Museum was founded in 1986.
New panels adorn the historic cabins at Rainbow Park. Photo by Robyn Goldsmith.
The panels have been installed in the three remaining structures from Rainbow Lodge, which closed in 1974. Many of the buildings were destroyed in an accidental fire in 1977. These buildings have been moved slightly from their original location, but still sit in what was the original Rainbow Lodge Area.
The new panels were installed to continue the legacy of our 2011 ‘100 Years of Dreams’ celebration, which commemorated Myrtle and Alex Philip’s first visit to the valley in August, 1911. Whistler owes much of its development to these early visionaries, whose passion for the natural beauty of the area inspired them to build the first resort in Whistler.
Visitors to Rainbow Park can now read about life at the lodge, the history of transportation in the valley, the community on Alta Lake, and how the area transitioned from a busy tourism community to a quiet lakeside park.
A visitor to Rainbow Park checks out the newly installed interpretive panels. Photo by Robyn Goldsmith.
These panels are on public display to be enjoyed by any visitor to Rainbow Park.
This project was made possible by Canadian Heritage through their Community Anniversaries Program.
Myrtle Philip is the leviathan of Whistler’s history: her name is immortalized in the Myrtle Philip elementary school; she was the first person to be awarded the title ‘Freeman of Whistler’; there is even an official Myrtle Philip day! By all accounts she was a very special lady. Incredibly gutsy, she could do pretty much anything – from building Rainbow Lodge by hand, to baking pies out on the trail, to guiding stranded railway men across the snow and back to civilization. Myrtle Philip was certainly no wallflower.
The Museum is packed full of artifacts and archives relating to Myrtle and Rainbow Lodge. She was the first person to donate items to us, and it was Myrtle and another pioneer, Dick Fairhurst, who inspired Florence Petersen to start the museum. We have hundreds, if not thousands of photographs of Myrtle – I can recognize her instantly at any age from 19 to 90. We even have some silent film footage of her: fishing and with her beloved horses. But despite this I had never heard her voice, save for a ten second clip on an old radio show.
So, imagine my delight when Kay Alsop, a retired journalist and good friend of Myrtle’s called me to let me know that she had some reel-to-reel tapes of an interview she had conducted with Myrtle in 1971 for an article for the Vancouver Province.
Kay had been sent up to Whistler to do a piece on Myrtle and the two of them hit it off immediately. Kay remembers, “She was such a take charge kind of person – no nonsense…really a nifty lady and I could tell right off the bat that we were going to be friends.”
The museum has digitized the tapes. All six reels come to around an hour’s worth of interviews: too much to put on a blog, but we can share some of our favourite excerpts for you here.
Firstly Myrtle discusses how she always wore breeches, despite the fact that women never wore pants at this time:
Hearing Myrtle converse in her broad Maine accent is really thrilling for us at the museum. We have been telling Myrtle’s story for 25 years – now Myrtle gets a chance to speak for herself.
