Tag: Resort Municipality of Whistler

Early Days at Municipal HallEarly Days at Municipal Hall

June 25, 2024 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 4 Comments

When the Resort Municipality of Whistler was formed in 1975, the organization was small enough that the for the first couple of years employees numbered in the single digits. According to Kris Shoup, when she was hired in 1977 as the secretary of the building inspector (Jim Murray, employee number one), she thinks she became the RMOW’s fourth employee.

Shoup arrived in Whistler for the summer in 1976 and never left. There were just over 500 residents in the valley at the time and, as Shoup put it, she “absolutely adored it” and “thought it was great.” A vet technician, she ran the vet clinic located in Alpine Meadows, though there was no vet living in Whistler full-time. The vet would come to Whistler once a week and do all the surgeries and appointments booked by Shoup, who did as much as she was able for the rest of the week. She got to know a lot of the residents working at the clinic as “everyone had a dog” and, in the case of an emergency such as a dog hit by a car, Shoup would try to stabilize the animal as much as possible so they could be driven to Squamish.

Whistler Council in its first formal portrait. (l to r) Alderman Bill Peterson, Alderman David O’Keefe, Administrator Geoff Pearce, Mayor Mark Angus, Municipal Clerk Kris Shoup Robinson, Alderman Bernie Hauschka and Alderman Terry Rodgers. Whistler Question Collection, 1983

In 1977, during a particularly bad winter for skiing, Shoup was hired as Jim Murray’s secretary, though she continued to work at the clinic for another year or two as well. About six months later, she became deputy clerk and then, when Geoff Pearce was promoted from municipal clerk to administrator, was told by Carleton, “Congratulations, you’re the new clerk.” Shoup held the position of municipal clerk until the mid-1980s.

During her tenure with the RMOW, Shoup worked out of a variety of locations, including the lunchroom of the original Myrtle Philip School, trailers, the “little green building” built using a government grant, and, finally, the current Municipal Hall after the Keg building was relocated.

Before the Keg could move the old municipal hall building had to be moved off the site. Whistler Question Collection, 1981

The Keg building was relocated from its original site on Alta Lake to its Village location in 1981. It would take three years, however, before municipal staff and council were able to move in and in the interim, Shoup and others worked out of the previous Town Hall, which had been moved down to Function Junction. During this period, Shoup recalled being able to run up to Loggers Lake at lunchtime for her daily swim. After the move to the Village, she continued her lunchtime swims but now in Lost Lake.

Municipal Clerk Kris Shoup Robinson packs it in Friday for the big move to bigger and better facilities at the new municipal hall in Whistler Village. Staff have been waiting in anticipation for the move. Whistler Question Collection, 1984

Whistler saw a lot of change from 1977 to the mid-1980s. According to Shoup, one of the most exciting things to happen while working at the RMOW was the day when Pearce, who was still the municipal clerk at the time, came out of a meeting and told her, “Hang on to your hat, we’re gonna build a town.” She also worked with Trevor Roote organizing public access along with the sewer system in order to build the Valley Trail, witnessed the planning and construction of the training wall along Fitzsimmons Creek (for flood prevention), and saw first-hand Mayor Pat Carleton’s excitement when they found out that a Delta Hotel would be built in the Whistler Village, Whistler’s first big branded hotel.

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RMOW Employee #2: Geoff PearceRMOW Employee #2: Geoff Pearce

June 18, 2024 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

When the first municipal council was sworn into office on September 6, 1975, the four councillors (Garry Watson, John Hetherington, Bob Bishop and Al Raine) and Mayor Pat Carleton were faced with the daunting task of building a resort in the ski area. As the first council of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, however, they first had to hire some municipal employees. Over the past few years, the museum has sat down with two of the earliest employees of the RMOW, Geoff Pearce and Kris Shoup, and heard about their experiences.

According to both Pearce and Shoup, the first position to be filled at the RMOW was that of building inspector. Jim Murray, who had previously been an inspector for the Squamish Lillooet Regional District, was the first hire of the new council. He was soon followed by Pearce, who began as municipal clerk.

The RMOW’s first council: Bob Bishop, Al Raine, Geoff Pearce (municipal clerk), Mayor Pat Carleton, John Hetherington and Garry Watson. Carleton Collection

Pearce moved to Whistler in February 1976, though he had already been called in to take minutes at a zoning bylaw meeting in December 1975 to get a feeling for Whistler. He had heard about the job from his boss in Squamish, where he was working as the municipal clerk, who told him that he should apply. Upon his arrival in Whistler, he found that it was pretty bare from logging but looked like it had “great potential.”

The workplace of the RMOW moved around quite a bit in the first few years. That first meeting Pearce attended took place at the gondola base in either L’Apres or the cafeteria and he remembered attending council meetings in Carleton’s garage and either the Mount Whistler Lodge or the Highland Lodge. Offices were set up in a trailer next to the liquor store (also located in a trailer at the time) and for a while RMOW staff worked out of the lunchroom of the first Myrtle Philip School, not far from the current location of Municipal Hall. This meant that municipal files and records also had to find temporary homes, such as at the home of Betty Jarvis, who was hired as the first municipal secretary by Pearce.

Staff and council meet in a somewhat makeshift conference room – Pearce can be seen above the shoulder of Garry Watson. George Benjamin Collection

For his first few months as municipal clerk, Pearce also functioned as the treasurer and collector of taxes. Outside of the RMOW, he worked as the approving officer for the area and was a volunteer firefighter as well. In 1980, Pearce was promoted to administrator, a position he held until 1985.

From bringing together private water systems to building a sewer system to planning and constructing the Town Centre, Pearce remembered that staff and council “worked really hard,” including working through the winter holidays of 1978/79. The development proposals for Phase 1 of the Town Centre were due December 22, 1978 and council, Sutcliffe, Moodie & Griggs (the project management firm leading the Town Centre project), and staff spent the next few weeks evaluating the proposals in order to announce the winners in early January 1979.

That’s not quite Geoff Pearce behind his nameplate reading Clerk/Treasurer – the Myrtle Philip School kindergarten class came for a visit in 1978. Whistler Question Collection, 1978

According to Peace, when he began working for the RMOW in 1976 the population of Whistler was around 530 people, which meant that you got to know most people quite well, especially those you worked with. He was invited to Carleton’s house for coffee with Pat and his wife Kay and, as part of his job was to personally deliver the council envelopes on Friday night to the councillors’ homes, he would often leave either John Hetherington or Franz Carpay (elected to Whistler’s second council) to last so he could sit down and have a beer. In between committee meetings and council meetings, the group would go out for dinner together, rotating through the various restaurants in the area.

Pearce left Whistler for Smithers in 1985, though he returned for a year before moving to Victoria. As recently as 2019, however, he still received calls looking for background knowledge of the RMOW’s early years. Next week, we’ll take a look at some of the experiences of Kris Shoup, the fourth employee of the RMOW.

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Skiing with Al RaineSkiing with Al Raine

June 11, 2024 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 4 Comments

In 1971, the Alpine Program Director of the Canadian National Ski Team penned an instructional book for skiers, from beginners to experts. The book was titled Skiing with Al Raine and was written, as you might have guessed, by Al Raine. It was a continuation of the nationally syndicated newspaper column, “SKIING with Al Raine,” which he began writing in 1969 and, like the other instructional skiing books found in the Whistler Museum’s resource library, is a guide for those looking to improve their skiing long before the internet made such information so easily accessible.

Nancy and Al Raine on Blackcomb Mountain. Greg Griffith Collection

Similar to both Ski with Toni Sailer from 1964 and Greg Athans’ Ski Free from 1978, Skiing with Al Raine offers skiers information about choosing ski equipment, how to prepare the body for skiing, and different techniques for turns and maneuvers, while also encouraging more formal instruction with a ski instructor as well. In the introduction, Raine acknowledges that there have already been multiple books written about ski technique, but claims that most do not emphasize one of the most important parts of learning to ski: “developing your own style.” He also makes a point of knowing when to stop skiing, skipping a run when you are tired, and the importance of taking a hot chocolate or coffee break.

Written specifically for the Canadian skier, Skiing with Al Raine also includes brief descriptions of the different ski areas across the country. Of the Whistler ski area of 1971, it says “Whistler Mountain is certainly renowned for its Olympic bid, summer skiing potential, tremendous scenery, and the honeymoon of Pierre Elliot Trudeau” and that “each year skiing and skier atmosphere improves greatly.”

Jogging and running was encouraged as a way to stay in shape for skiing. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

Al Raine and his wife Nancy Greene (1968 Olympic medallist and Canada’s Female Athlete of the 20th Century) moved to the Whistler area in 1973. Raine then became the Ski Area Coordinator for British Columbia and when the Resort Municipality of the Whistler was formed in 1975 was appointed to the Whistler council, a position he held until 1982.

The Whistler Museum will be joined by Al Raine and Drew Meredith (Whistler Mayor 1986-1990, realtor, and supposed lottery winner of 1982) to discuss not skiing but the origins and early years of the Whistler Resort Association (WRA) tomorrow (Wednesday, June 12) for our next Speaker Series. The WRA, better known today as Tourism Whistler, began as an amendment to the Resort Municipality of Whistler Act in 1979, a time when a lot of change was happening in the Whistler area. We’re looking forward to learning more about its history and a time when Whistler’s future was, to many, anything but clear.

Al Raine discusses the planning of the Whistler Village. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

On Saturday, June 15 the Whistler Museum will be talking about skiing with Jim McConkey, who instructed countless people to ski through both the written word and as the director of the Whistler Mountain Ski School. This will be the second film screening of 16mm films from the Whistler Museum’s archival collections, which have recently been digitized on new equipment thanks to the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation. You can find out more about both events here.

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Skating in the VillageSkating in the Village

December 12, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Skating and hockey have been popular winter sports in the Whistler area for over a century, especially when weather conditions make for less than optimal skiing. The Woods and Jardine-Neiland children played hockey with shovels on Alta Lake ins the 1920s and 30s while in the 1960s the Alta Lake Community Club reported on Friday nights spent skating at the “Rainbow Rink” with hot dogs and hot chocolate from Rainbow Lodge. Until 1978, most of the skating rinks were built on frozen ponds and lakes by residents and community groups.

Pat Woods, Bob Jardine, Tom Neiland and Jack Woods skating at Alta Lake. Jardine/Betts/Smith Collection

While November 1978 started off looking promising for the upcoming ski season, the snow turned to rain by November 6 and the freezing level rose, melting much of the snow that had accumulated on the runs. The temperature then dropped to about -8°C overnight, leading to frozen pipes and 8cm of ice on some of the lakes and streams.

The weather stayed cold and clear through mid-November, which was great news for those interested in ice stock sliding or skating, but terrible for Whistler Mountain and their expected opening date of November 18. In a statement from November 22, 1978, a lift company spokesperson told the Whistler Question they still needed “about 50 cm of new snow to make the upper areas anywhere near skiable and probably closer to one metre to make the mountain operational.” The season was being compared to that of 1976-77, when Whistler Mountain had closed for three weeks in January due to lack of snow but the cold temperatures had made for amazing skating and a perpetual hockey game on the local lakes.

A hockey game on the Alpine Meadows pond. Whistler Question Collection, 1978
Ice stock sliding on the River of Golden Dreams. Whistler Question Collection, 1978

Whistler residents took advantage of the cold weather of November 1978 by skating on Alta Lake and Nita Lake, playing hockey on the Alpine Meadows pond, and ice stock sliding on the River of Golden Dreams. The municipality also began construction of an outdoor skating rink adjacent to Municipal Hall and next to Myrtle Philip School (MPS).

The ice rink next to Myrtle Philip School. Whistler Question Collection, 1978

Unfortunately for the municipal crew led by Cliff Jennings, as soon as they began to flood the rink, the temperature rose and it finally began to snow. The rink was still not finished by December 6, when a Question “School News” report written by MPS student Lance Bright stated, “We would like to thank the person responsible for the skating rink by the school. We hope it will be completed soon.”

While the change in the weather delayed the ice rink, it was good news for Whistler Mountain, which was finally able to open on December 15. The snow continued through much of December but by the end of the year the temperature had dropped again and 1979 started off cold and clear.

An enthusiastic game of broom hockey on the municipal rink. Whistler Question Collection, 1979

Skating at the municipal rink became a popular activity for residents and holiday visitors. The rink’s regulations allowed hockey to be played on the rink until 1pm; from then on, it was recreational skating only. Lights were added and bonfires lit to attract skaters in the evenings. The rink was always intended to be temporary, lasting only the 1978-79 season. Though the original plans for the Whistler Resort Centre (now the Whistler Conference Centre) included an Olympic-sized ice rink, the plans for the building were changed dramatically following a recession in the early 1980s and the rink was among the features that were cut. Whistler’s first indoor municipal ice rink, the rink at Meadow Park north of the Village, opened in in 1992, with the pools and recreation facilities added in the following years. Walking through the Village today, however, you are likely to see people skating in Olympic Plaza, not far from the first outdoor rink built by the municipality.

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