Tag: Russ Jordan

Whistler Weasels into Business: Mink, Marten and Mountain Movers 

Whistler Weasels into Business: Mink, Marten and Mountain Movers Whistler Weasels into Business: Mink, Marten and Mountain Movers 

March 23, 2026 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Feature Image: Nita Lake Fur Farm owner Russell Jordan moved to the area in 1915. Photo: Whistler Museum Collection.

One hundred-and-one years ago, the first fur farm was established in Whistler. One hundred years ago, the local industry doubled, with a second business setting up shop. 

The currency of furs was always one of the mainstays of early residents. The hills were set with traplines extending into the surrounding ranges, however the establishment of farms where animals were raised in captivity – not caught in the wild – began in 1925.

The Lineham Mink Farm was developed on Green Lake – a half mile from where the Pacific Great Eastern Railway ran past the 40-mile post (signifying 40 miles from the Squamish station). P.D. Lineham was a retired businessman from Vancouver who sought out a simpler life in the vast outdoors. His answer to his wilderness quest-for-quiet was to start farming wily weasels.

Lineham’s breeding animals were registered stock – imported from Québec – that had been bred in captivity for generations. By the following spring, the farm had 40 mink and this number was expected to steadily increase.

“The climate of this district is particularly suited to mink and the best pelts are taken from here. They are very little trouble to raise and the losses among the pups are practically nil,” Alex Philip (of Rainbow Lodge renown, the first visitor destination in the valley, established in 1915) reported to Country Life in B.C. magazine. The year this statement was published was 1926. That same year, The Nita Lake Fur Farm began: the first and only marten farm in the province. 

Marten are relentless chewers and diggers. Owner-operator Russell Jordan had his work cut out for him. He rose to the challenge posed by the notorious beasts by constructing pens with 16-gauge wire mesh. The cages were built on the rise of land between Alpha and Nita Lakes and filled with miniature trees. He started with eight pairs of marten, described as being ‘the finest stock that have ever been obtained through careful selection during two trapping seasons.’

Russell first moved to the community of Alta Lake in 1915 with his wife and two children. He worked as a logger and the family purchased the Alta Lake Hotel. In an unusual move for the time, Russell was soon divorced by his wife – and she left for Vancouver with the children. The divorcé continued to operate the hotel (which later burnt down in 1933) while venturing into the pelt-rearing business.

Meanwhile, the Lineham Mink Farm began doing business throughout Canada and Europe. Furs were worth $39 each, while his breeding stock could fetch between $150-$200 a pair. This was a lucrative business at the time.

Both Whistler weasel ventures were proving to be worthy investments…but, their prosperity was short lived. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the end to both local businesses and times turned suddenly much leaner in the valley.

Fast forward to the 1970s and, locally, the name ‘Weasel Workers’ suddenly takes on a much different meaning. No mink, no marten, no furs, no pelts … but, behind every major ski race held on Whistler, it has been said, ‘there was a pack of Weasels’.

The Whistler Weasels were a volunteer organization that began as a group of six, led by Bob Parsons, who prepped the courses for the first World Cup Ski Races on the mountain. The crew earned their moniker  – not for being ‘deceitful or treacherous’ as the name implies when referring to a person – but, rather due to their work on the ‘Weasel’  section of the Dave Murray Downhill which was too steep for the snowcats of the time to make it up. These weasels would flatten the course by foot. The organization was formally registered as the Coast Alpine Event Club in 1984, but the name didn’t stick.

What did stick around was the continued volunteer efforts of the group. The Whistler Weasel numbers soared into thousands during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, proving the polecats to be a vital and invaluable component for the execution of the Games. 

Weasels, simply put, form an integral part of the historical, community-sustaining efforts of this place. 

The Whistler Museum’s current Special Exhibition is titled Building the Spirit: Whistler’s Volunteers of the 2010 Games. The Weasel Workers feature as part of the exhibit. We look forward to welcoming you! The exhibit runs until March 29. More info: www.whistlermuseum.org

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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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Before Opening DayBefore Opening Day

December 3, 2019 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 3 Comments

One of the most-talked about topics in Whistler each November is opening day: when it will be, what the conditions will be like, and how the rest of the snow season looks.  Often this causes us to look back at previous opening days, but this week we thought we’d look further back, and see what the community of Alta lake was talking about 60 years ago, years before lifts started operating on Whistler Mountain.

Alex Philip stands on the snow he’s been clearing from the door. A fascination with snow and weather was just as popular in the early days of Whistler. Philip Collection.

According to the Alta Lake Echo, the (more or less) weekly newsletter of the Alta Lake Community Club (ALCC), those living at Alta Lake in 1959 found the topic of November weather just about as fascinating as we find it today.  The newsletter of November 3 reported clear skies, a brisk north wind, and snow within a couple hundred metres of the lake, with a chance of flurries int he afternoon.  Don Gow was even reported to have said, “This is the year of the big snow.”

The next few weeks didn’t seem quite as promising.  A lack of snow, however, didn’t seem to be as unwelcome as the thawing ice on Alta Lake.  By the beginning of December, there was reportedly “beautiful” ice forming on the lake, but rain and warmer temperatures washed it away with the snow.  This, it would seem, was particularly frustrating for some “would-be skaters who got their Christmas presents early.”

Though ice stock sliding came later in the 1970s, Alta Lake residents spent many winter days out on the frozen lake. Petersen Collection.

Unlike today, when many people arrive for the season in November and businesses are busily preparing for a bustling winter, Alta Lake residents were looking ahead to a slower pace after a full summer.  Rainbow Lodge officially closed for the season soon after the Armistice Day Holiday, and the fishing season would appear to have been finished.  Bill and Phyllis House, who visited Alta Lake each November to fish, determinedly went out in the snow but reportedly caught nothing, a first in 20 years.

Some Alta Lake residents took the slow winter season as a chance to take a holiday, visit friends and family, or even return home after seasonal work, such as Ivor Gunderson who returned to Norway once Valleau Logging ceased operations for the winter.  Alex and Audrey Greenwood, the owners of Rainbow Lodge, left for two weeks to San Francisco, and Russ and Maxine Jordan, the proprietors of Jordan’s Lodge, left to wait out the cold season in warmer climes.

Many of the cottages and lodges on Alta Lake were built for the summer, and were not always winterized to keep occupants warm through the winter. Photo: Mitchell

There were few evening entertainments at Alta Lake once the summer guests left and the days grew shorter.  The ALCC began organizing poker sessions in November.  Participants took turns hosting, and some games were played at the Alta Lake School building.  Though scores and winnings were not printed, the Alta Lake Echo did give a fair impression of how the games went, reporting on December 8 that, “Last week saw a good turnout at Cruickshank’s Casino.  This week, Kelly & Dick [Fairhurst] are going to win their shirts back.  They’ll use their own cards.  Come one, come all…”  Interestingly, these reports were printed in the newsletter’s “Wildlife” section.

We, and many others, are looking forward to a busy winter, but it was not so long ago that winters meant something very different in the Whistler valley.

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Summer Preparations at Alta LakeSummer Preparations at Alta Lake

June 25, 2019 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

With last Friday (June 21) officially marking the beginning of summer, we’ve reached the time when all the plans and preparations for the season come to life.  This change of seasons would have been a particularly busy and expectant time for the residents of Alta Lake in the first half of the 20th century.  Long before Whistler became known internationally as a ski resort, Alta Lake was a popular summer destination that drew short-term visitors and summer residents to join those who stayed in the area year round.

For Alta Lake, summer was the busy season of the year while winters were very quiet. This would change dramatically with the development of Whistler Mountain in the 1960s. Fairhurst Collection.

Sixty years ago Alta Lake had no local government, no newspaper and certainly no Facebook groups to notify residents of the goings on (official or unofficial) in the area.  Social gatherings and community initiatives were often organized through the Alta Lake School and the Alta Lake Community Club (ALCC), founded in the early 1930s and 1926 respectively.  When it came to preparing for an eventful summer, the ALCC played an active role in preparations and kept its members up to date on community efforts through its newsletter, the Alta Lake Echo.

First Alta Lake Community Club picnic on the point at Rainbow. Philip Collection.

The Echo was published from 1958 to 1961 and ran weekly through the summer months of 1959.  At this time it was edited by Don Gow, who brought a personal touch to the sharing of news, the description of events and updates on comings and goings, seemingly of everyone in the valley – this led to some entertaining issues. (In one issue calling for newsletter subscription renewal, Gow threatened to cut off the circulation or, even worse, “we will print your names in the paper and let everyone know how cheap you are.”)

Members of the Alta Lake community began preparing for summer in May with a dance at the Community Hall to kick off events for those in the area.  Before this could happen members of the ALCC were reminded of a “Hall Clean Up Day,” the main purpose of which was to wash and wax the floor.  Those planning to pitch in were urged to bring their own tools and reminded that “the more who show up the quicker we can get fishing.”

By May preparations and repairs were also also underway at the lodges around Alta Lake as they looked forward to welcoming their first guests.  Jack and Cis Mansell returned from a winter presumably spent in warmer climes to ready Hillcrest for the season, and Russ and Maxine Jordan improved the porches at Jordan’s Lodge.  Smitty and Don (surnames were rarely included in the Echo) had plans to rebuild the Mansells’ raft in front of Alta Lake Station, used to ferry guests across the lake.

The first dance of the season, scheduled to start at 9 pm and end “when we’re dang good and ready” over the May long weekend, was well attended and a good time by all accounts.  While Rainbow Lodge had not yet opened, the other lodges and accommodations around the lake were full.  Though many people returned to Vancouver and other cities after the weekend, the ALCC continued planning events through the month.  Weekly dances and shows were scheduled to begin in June and the annual Fish Derby was set to run from July 1 through September 6.  A $10 prize was on the line for the largest Rainbow Trout caught in Alta Lake “by any legal method.”

This Rainbow Trout came out of Alta Lake in the 1980s but is a good indication of what the Fish Derby was looking for. Whistler Question Collection.

Summer was in full swing by July as families returned to their summer cottages and the lodges were filled with those escaping the city.  Work days such as the “Hall Clean Up Day” would resume in the fall and the lodges might undergo more renovations, but until then those at Alta Lake were too busy enjoying all the area had to offer, and the events they had planned for so long.

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