Tag: Nita Lake

Holding CourtHolding Court

June 24, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

In the late 1960s, when Al and Nancy Raine first bought property in White Gold, there had been multiple years of talk about building tennis courts in the Whistler area but none had yet materialized. Wanting to play tennis, the Raines (who had purchased two lots) built a clay court next door to their house. According to a 2018 interview with Al, as the owners of the only tennis court in the valley (the clay courts at Rainbow Lodge no longer being maintained), he and Nancy soon found that they “had more friends for some reason.” In the spring, summer and fall months, friends (and maybe some acquaintances) would come over for a game frequently.

A few years later, John Taylor, then the owner of over 160 acres in today’s Creekside area, built tennis courts at Jordan’s Lodge on Nita Lake. These courts were used by residents, visitors, and even campers from the Toni Sailer Summer Ski Camp. When Myrtle Philip School opened in 1976, four tennis courts were built next to the school. Clearly, the appetite for tennis in the valley was growing.

The tennis courts at Jordan’s Lodge on the shores of Nita Lake, 1978. Whistler Question Collection

In 1978, Michael D’Artois remembers getting together with other tennis players at JB’s and forming the Whistler Valley Tennis Club. Using the courts at Nita Lake, they began hosting lessons and tournaments, including the first tournament of the 1978 season over the May long weekend. The tennis tournament (part of larger celebrations that weekend that included the Great Snow Earth Water Race and a belly flop competition) cost $3.50 to enter and, according to the Whistler Question, the winner got to keep the balls used and was presented with a “Whistler original perpetual trophy.” Over the following year, the Club would continue to host a tournament over the May long weekend, as well as other events throughout the season.

From stories from members of the Club, players were competitive (some more than others) but also friendly and social. Al remembered that the deck of JB’s (today Roland’s Pub and the Red Door Bistro) was located alongside the courts, which meant that people could sit on the deck to have a drink and watch the tennis games below. According to Al, this was “actually pretty ideal.” In order to play a game, you didn’t necessarily have to organize with a partner ahead of time; instead, a member of the Club could go over to JB’s, go out on the deck, see who was playing and who was around, and pick a partner.

The tennis courts overlooked by JB’s patio. Whistler Question Collection, 1979

Tennis grew throughout the 1980s and over time John Taylor (also a member of the Club) added an additional two courts and added a small building that could be used by the Club (he also added a fifth covered court in the 1990s). Club membership grew and the Whistler Valley Tennis Club became officially recognized as a non-profit society. Members paid dues, a pro was hired, and volunteers maintained the courts (some years the Whistler Fire Department would help out by washing the asphalt).

Esther Gorman moved to Whistler full-time in 1985 and joined the Club in the summer of 1987. Looking back in 2018, she recalled that the Club was where she met most of her “lifetime friends.” (She also remembered playing in a mixed doubles tournament with John Taylor and that, after they won, he named one of the courts after her.) Her husband, John Koenig, echoed her feelings. He joined in 1992, when the Club had 250 adult members and a waitlist, and made many close friendships through tennis, as well as meeting Esther.

A friendly game on the courts. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

Through the 1990s, after the new tennis facility opened next to the Whistler Village, members began to move to the new tennis club, through some maintained memberships in both. In the 2000s, Nita Lake Lodge was built on the site of Jordan’s Lodge and John Taylor’s tennis courts and today a house sits atop the Raines’ clay court. Though it eventually stopped hosting tournaments or organizing lessons and camps, the Whistler Valley Tennis Club maintained its non-profit status for many years in order to act as an advocate for the sport in Whistler. Today, tennis and other racket sports continue to be competitive and social (and often both) pastimes in the valley.

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Tales of Toad Hall: Beyond the PosterTales of Toad Hall: Beyond the Poster

April 25, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 3 Comments

In the spring of 1973, a group of residents (and some of their friends and relatives) who had been renting a property together took a photo as a memento before they moved out. Fifty years later, that photo is best known as the Toad Hall Poster and is widely recognized for its nudity and carefree spirit. While many people who come into the Whistler Museum know of the poster, we’ve heard a lot of different origin stories for the image and a range of names for those featured.

If you had arrived in the Whistler area in the late 1960s and asked where to find Toad Hall, you might have been directed to an entirely different building than the one featured in the Toad Hall Poster. The first Toad Hall in Whistler was a house built beside Nita Lake by Alf Gebhart in the 1950s. Alf and his wife Bessie moved their family to Alta Lake in 1936, when Alf purchased a sawmill and lumber camp. After operating the mill for some years, Alf built a house where he and Bessie lived until the closure of the their sawmill. The house was then occupied by their son Howard and his wife Betty while Howard was working for the railway. When they left the valley as well, the house was sold to Charles Hillman, a teacher living in Vancouver.

The Gebhart/Hillman/Toad Hall house on Nita Lake. George Benjamin Collection.

Hillman began renting out his house soon after lifts opened on Whistler Mountain in 1966 and it was some of his tenants who gave it the name of Toad Hall. Tenants came and went over the next few seasons and by the time Hillman decided that he wanted to start using his house as a ski cabin in would appear that none of the original tenants he had rented to were left. Those who were living there were reportedly amicably evicted and the Toad Hall name moved to a different property.

Before it became known as Toad Hall, that property operated as the Soo Valley Logging Camp. The camp, which included a collection of small cabins, was located at the north end of Green Lake, across the lake from the Parkhurst mill site. The logging camp can be seen in the background of some of the photographs taken by the Clausen family, who lived at Parkhurst in the 1950s. By the 1970s, however, the mill at Parkhurst was long closed and the Soo Valley Logging Camp no longer housed loggers.

If you look closely, the red roofs on the other side of Green Lake from Birthe and Ron Clausen are some of the buildings of the Soo Valley Logging Camp. Clausen Collection.

In the early 1970s, the Soo Valley property housed skiers looking for affordable housing near Whistler Mountain. The entirety of the property was reportedly rented for $75/month (adjusted for inflation, that would be just over $500/month today), which could be quite reasonable when divided amongst enough residents. By 1973, this second Toad Hall was a popular place to find a party or a bed. Unfortunately, however, for those who found a home there, the buildings were scheduled to be demolished that summer and their days at Toad Hall were numbered. The end of Toad Hall was marked by the creation of the Toad Hall Poster.

While we know some of the stories behind Whistler’s Toad Halls, there are a a lot of things we don’t know. How did two different properties on two different lakes come to be named after the home of Mr. Toad from Wind in the Willows? In a time long before there were dedicated Facebook groups for housing in Whistler, how did people hear about and find Toad Hall from across the country?

The building best known from the Toad Hall Poster. George Benjamin Collection.

We’re looking forward to finding out more about Toad Hall from a few former residents on Wednesday, April 26 (tomorrow evening!), when we’ll be joined by John Hetherington, Terry “Toulouse” Spence, and Paul Mathews at the Whistler Museum for our next Speaker Series. Tickets for the event are, however, sold out. Find out more here.

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Why Is That Named Horstman?Why Is That Named Horstman?

May 18, 2021 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Over the past few months we have received quite a few donations of artefacts and archival records at the Whistler Museum, including scale models, archival films, and photographs in various forms. One recent donation included a copy of a land title of an early 20th century Alta Lake resident whose name is well known throughout the valley: Harry Horstman.

Harry Horstman at his Mt. Sproatt cabin. Jardine/Betts/Smith Collection.

Harry Horstman moved west from Kansas at some point prior to 1912. He staked a mining claim on Mount Sproatt, where he spent much of his time searching for copper and iron (and possibly dreaming of gold). He also preempted two parcels of land, one between Nita and Alpha Lakes and another at the other end of Alpha Lake. Preemption was a method of acquiring Crown Land from the government for agriculture or settlement; preemption did not take into account indigenous claims to land, and the land that Horstman preempted is part of the unceded territory of the Squamish Nation and the Lil’wat Nation. According to this recent donation, Horstman’s property at the south end of Alpha Lake was known as Lot 3361 and was made up of 150 acres, more or less.

Horstman kept a small farm on his property near Nita Lake where, according to Jenney Jardine, he had fifty to sixty chickens, “all sorts of potatoes and rhubarb and gorgeous cauliflowers.” He sold eggs and fresh produce to Rainbow Lode and other Alta Lake residents to supplement his income from prospecting. Part of his property on Alpha Lake was acquired by Thomas Neiland, who moved to Alta Lake with the Jardine family in 1921 to set up a forestry business. It is not, however, clear how much of the 150 acres were used by Neiland or whether Horstman made use of the rest of the land.

Harry Horstman serves coffee at the first Alta Lake Community Club picnic. Philip Collection.

While some Alta Lake residents, such as Jenny Jardine’s brother Jack and railway section foreman Fred Woods, got to know Horstman relatively well, others described him as an “odd man” and may have seen him mostly from a distance. According to Pip Brock, Horstman “didn’t enjoy people that much,” though he was part of the Alta Lake Community Club in the 1920s and was even put in charge of the coffee at their first picnic.

In 1936, Horstman sold his Nita Lake property to Russ Jordan, who reportedly bought the approximately 160 acres for $2000. When Horstman began to find the physical labour of prospecting too much, he retired to his cabin on Alpha Lake, presumably on his property on the south end of the lake. He remained there until about 1945, when his neighbours on today’s Pine Point, Dr. and Grace Naismith, arranged for Horstman to move to a nursing home in Kamloops.

Presumably Dr. and Grace Naismith outside their house on Pine Point on Alpha Lake. Philip Collection.

Harry Horstman died in 1946 and was buried in Kamloops, though his name can still be found throughout Whistler, most notably the Horstman Glacier on Blackcomb Mountain. In an interview in the 1980s, however, Jack Jardine expressed his confusion as to why Horstman’s name was given to a glacier on a mountain Horstman was never known to climb.

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The Dangers of Cycling in WhistlerThe Dangers of Cycling in Whistler

June 18, 2019 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Over the last week or so, the Whistler Museum hosted various events as part of our fourth annual Mountain Bike Heritage Week, including a Post-Toonie Retro Bike Show & Shine, a bike maintenance course, a film screening of Ride to the Hills, and talks on the Cheakamus Challenge and bike manufacturing in Whistler.  We’d like to thank everyone who helped with this year’s Mountain Bike Heritage week and all of our amazing sponsors.  With all of this going, it’s no surprise that biking got a little stuck in our heads.

Usually when we discuss the history of mountain biking, we look at events, races and the growing popularity of the sport.  Reading through press clippings from the Squamish Citizen and the Whistler Question from the 1980s, however, a large portion of the reporting on biking covers accidents, injuries and growing concerns for safety.

Constable F. Pinnock runs through the bike safety testing course that he and Constable Gabriel of Pemberton set up at Myrtle Philip Elementary. Contrary to the advise of medical professionals, Pinnock seems to have forgotten to put on a helmet.  Whistler Question Collection, 1981.

A July 1986 article in the Citizen reported on two separate accidents two days apart, both of which caused serious injuries.  In one, a Whistler resident and a Maple Ridge resident collided on the bike path along Nita Lake, resulting in a broken hand and possible concussion for the Maple Ridge resident.  The other claimed that a resident of North Vancouver “lost control of her rented bicycle and careened into a tree,” causing a broken leg and another possible concussion.  Both injured parties were transported to Vancouver.

The RCMP received many complaints of bikers not following the rules of the road and particularly urged riders to carry lights when riding in the dark.  In June 1987, a cyclist was reported to have struck an unidentified object while riding on Highway 99 and was transported to Vancouver for surgery for sever facial injuries.  In an effort to encourage the use of lights, the RCMP began ticketing cyclists who didn’t have any, many of whom were shocked to receive a $75 fine.

By May 1987, it would seem bike accidents were so numerous in Whistler that the Whistler Ambulance Chief Jeff Sopel made a statement appealing to cyclists to “use common sense when using the Valley Trail.”  Part of his appeal included a call to wear helmets and to be aware of their location in case an ambulance had to be called.

These helmets look suspiciously like they may also be used when skiing. Whistler Question Collection, 1984.

The Whistler Medical Clinic, then located in the basement of Municipal Hall, saw quite a bit of business from cyclists over the summer of 1987.  Dr. Ron Stanley collected data from all the bicycle accidents that passed through the clinic between May and September and found that about 50 per cent of the accidents resulted in road lacerations or abrasions (also described as “Road rash – very painful”), 30 per cent caused head and/or facial injuries, 15 per cent resulted in fractures of some kind, 15 per cent of the injuries were serious enough to require a transfer to Vancouver, and 15 per cent of the accidents occurred while the rider was drunk or impaired.

According to Dr. Stanley, there was no obvious pattern to the incidents, which occurred all over Whistler on both roads and trails.  He echoed Sopel’s call, urging riders to use common sense and wear helmets, also adding that wearing adequate clothing (such as shirts, shoes and gloves) would help prevent road rash and noted that the majority of serious injuries occurred when the rider was impaired.

Bike decorating contests for the children of Whistler often accompanied the safety demonstrations put on by the RCMP. Even ET made an appearance. Whistler Question Collection, 1983.

Mountain biking as a sport and bike safety in general have come a long way in the decades since the 1980s (as has the Whistler Medical Clinic, which moved out of the basement and into its current facility in 1994).  One thing we’ve learned from talking about biking all week, however, is that the advise of Sopel and Dr. Stanley still applies today: use common sense and wear your helmet.

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