Tag: Ski Scamps

Before Whistler KidsBefore Whistler Kids

April 22, 2025 Whistler Museum 2 Comments

For many kids who grew up skiing on Whistler or Blackcomb Mountains in the 1980s and ’90s, attending ski school could be an important life experience that formed unforgettable childhood memories. Whether you attended Kids Kamp or Ski Scamps depended on which mountain you (or, really, your parents) skied and, though it wasn’t something that most students noticed, the two schools were part of the competition between the two ski hills.

Ski Scamps was introduced on Whistler Mountain for the winter of 1983/84 in response to Blackcomb’s Kids Kamp, a ski school designed specifically for children. According to Mike Hurst, who began working for Whistler Mountain as a marketing consultant by 1982, Blackcomb was “a very competitive entity” from its early operations. This meant that if Blackcomb had a program targeting families, Whistler had to have one too. Whistler was able to find space and reorient some of their existing instructors with the help of ski school director Bob Dufour while Hurst secured sponsorship for the program from 7-Eleven.

Ski Scamps on Whistler Mountain in the program’s first season, 1983/84. Greg Griffith Collection

Though Whistler already had a ski school and offered lessons, Ski Scamps was a bit different. Instead of a private or small group lesson, it offered a full-day program throughout the season with different levels based on ability and special events, and included lunch. It was designed for children aged three to twelve and season pass holders could even buy a $190 Scampers Pass that, along with their lift pass, offered unlimited access to Ski Scamps programs and lessons. Parents could drop their young skiers off in the morning and pick them up again at the end of the day after a full day on the hill.

One of those young skiers was Mercedes Nicoll, who began attending Ski Scamps in 1986 at the age of three. Though her family lived in Toronto at the time, her parents had had a place in Whistler since the 1970s and they would always come back for Christmas holidays and spring break. Whenever they came back, Mercedes would go skiing in Ski Scamps. According to an oral history interview in 2024, Mercedes loved Ski Scamps, though apparently her parents and babysitters might remember it a little differently. As hard as it might have been to get her there in the morning, Mercedes recalled coming home with a huge smile on her face.

A Ski Scamps skier shows off her green circle bib. Whistler Resort Association Collection

Ski Scamps had different difficulty levels through which skiers would progress but, because her family did not stay for the entire season, Mercedes remembered she was “a red star forever, there was no getting rid of that bib.” She fondly recalled the structure at the learning area where they would eat lunch, often grilled cheese or hot dogs. According to her, “I remember it just smelling of sweaty gloves, but we were all in it together and it was amazing.”

One of Mercedes’ memories from her Ski Scamps days happened (as many do) on Pony Trail one Christmas Eve. She couldn’t remember exactly how it happened, but she knocked out one of her front teeth with her pole, leaving blood everywhere on the run. Luckily for her, her next door neighbour in Whistler was a dentist who told her family that they had to go to the dentist in Squamish as she had knocked it back to the nerve and could feel it every time she breathed. As Mercedes put it, “There’s little bits of the mountain where I have childhood core memories from, good or bad.”

Halpipes like this one built on Blackcomb’s Horstman Glacier in 1994 were a great training ground for new snowboarders. Blackcomb Mountain Collection, Randy Lincks, 1994

This incident and her time spent as a red star didn’t hold Mercedes back on the mountain. After her family moved to Whistler permanently in 1995, she began snowboarding with some of her friends. She started entering local competitions and doing well, leading to a long career as a professional snowboarder and a four-time Olympian competing in the half-pipe.

After Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains merged under Intrawest in 1997, Kids Kamp and Ski Scamps came together to form Whistler Kids. Mercedes still sees some of her Ski Scamps instructors out on the mountain and, when she sees classes of kids skiing or snowboarding, can’t help thinking, “Oh, they’re living their best lives, they don’t even know it yet.”

Helmets on the HillHelmets on the Hill

March 1, 2022 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

Whistler is a hub for adventure sport and, if you have been here long, it is likely you know someone who has been affected by a head injury. With helmet use so standard on the mountain today, I found it surprising to see the following question asked in a 2011 museum oral history “Do you think that sometimes more people get injured when they are wearing safety gear? They suddenly feel empowered and attempt something far beyond their abilities?” Similar sentiments are echoed throughout many publications at this time.

Ski School instructor leading students in Whistler in the 1970s.
Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation (WMSC) Collection.

Unlike today, helmets were initially far less popular on the slopes than while riding a bike (helmets have been mandatory for cycling in BC since 1996 and you can be fined up to $100 for non-compliance). Looking at photos from skiing in the early days of Whistler Mountain, it is unusual to see people wearing helmets on the mountain even into the 80s, and they clearly gained popularity throughout the 90s and early 2000s as designs improved and they became more ingrained in local mountain culture.

Helmets were recommended on the slopes a long time before any mandates were introduced. There are stories from Whistler Blackcomb orientation where employees were asked to put their hand up if they wore a helmet. Those with their hands up were acknowledged as the smartest of the group.

*Spot the helmet. Willie Whistler with Ski Scamps on Whistler Mountain, February 1982. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation (WMSC) Collection.*

Helmets became compulsory for all people under 18 attending ski or snowboard lessons in the 2009/10 winter season (requirements for children under 13 occurred earlier). Employees and anyone in lessons were also required to wear helmets in the terrain park. At this time, Whistler Blackcomb also began to make a conscious effort to feature skiers and snowboarders wearing helmets in their promotional material.

Easily the most contentious decision around helmets occurred in April 2013, when Whistler Blackcomb was allegedly told by WorkSafe BC that they were not in compliance with Section 8.11 of the Workers’ Compensation Act. This act mandates that safety headgear is required for any employees where there is a risk of head injury. Until then, this decades-old regulation had never been enforced on ski hills. According to Director of Employee Experience Joel Chevalier “The WorkSafe BC officers told us that at any time during or after the meeting, they could go outside, see one of our employees on skis or a snowboard without a helmet and write us an order, which from our perspective was quite a serious statement to make.”

Whistler Blackcomb took this discussion very seriously and announced that all employees on skis or snowboards were required to wear a helmet at work from May 4, only two weeks after the meeting with WorkSafe BC. To ensure all employees were able to meet this regulation there was a helmet borrowing policy for the rest of the season and staff could get 45% off when purchasing helmets from Whistler Blackcomb-owned stores.

*Ski school in 1991. Helmets optional. Blackcomb Mountain Collection, *Tom Ericson*.*

Some members of Whistler Blackcomb management and staff were incensed with the swift decision by WorkSafe BC because there were still concerns about the safety of wearing helmets in certain situations, particularly during avalanche control when Ski Patrol are required to listen for hazards. (According to a survey around this time, patrollers were evenly distributed, with one third always wearing helmets, one third sometimes wearing helmets and one third never wearing helmets.) Headings such as “Helmet policy riles workers” and “Ski hills question ‘helmet rule’ for employees” dotted the local and provincial newspapers. Still, the greatest controversy surrounded whether it was appropriate to mandate helmet wear, or whether it should be a personal choice.

Despite helmets remaining a choice for visitors, the tide has turned. A Statistics Canada survey from 2017 found that 78.6% of skiers and 76.3% of snowboarders always wear helmets (and this is likely higher in Whistler), while helmet use amongst cyclists is lower at 45.5% Canada-wide. Today you can often tell approximately how old a photo is based on the number of helmets you see on the hill.

Whistler Mountain’s 20th BirthdayWhistler Mountain’s 20th Birthday

February 22, 2022 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

On February 9, 1985, Whistler Mountain decided to celebrate its 20th birthday with events and contests held on the mountain and at the Gondola Base (today known as Creekside). The Whistler Question stated that the goal of the celebrations was to “make everyone remember the good old days of ’65,” with food prices in Pika’s from 1965 and an Apres Ski party featuring music and styles from the 1960s. There was just one problem with this plan: in February 1965, no lifts had been built on Whistler Mountain yet. Whistler Mountain officially opened to the public on January 15, 1966, nineteen years before. This did not stop the lift company from throwing itself a 20th birthday party and inviting everyone to join in the festivities.

On the mountain, the lift company organized a scavenger hunt, a special Ski Scamps and Parents race on Ego Bowl, and a Celebrity Masters Classic on the Lower Gondola Run (today part of Dave Murray Downhill). This last competition pitted celebrities of the ski industry against Whistler Mountain skiers, as well as allowing in “selected members of the media who can wear skis – and think at the same time.” For those who wanted to watch a spectacle rather than compete, the ski school performed a synchronized ski demonstration and on the Saturday evening 175 skiers participated in a torchlight parade down the mountain.

*Some participants in the adult portion of the Gondola Stuffing Contest. Whistler Question Collection, 1985*

At the Gondola Base, the Gondola Stuffing Contest saw 27 kids stuffed into one four-person gondola and at Dusty’s the 1960s themed air band contest was won by Cate Webster’s group The Exciters. Outside, people danced to live music and the lift company cut into a giant 12 m birthday cake.

*Just part of the 12 m birthday cake. Whistler Question Collection, 1985*

The day before Whistler Mountain’s “birthday,” VIP meals had gathered together executives and staff from both Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains to cut a much smaller cake. Though some invitees couldn’t make it (Seppo Makinen, whose crews cut the first runs on Whistler Mountain, was detained in Vancouver and missed “the first time in 20 years the lift company was going to pay for a meal”), President of Blackcomb Skiing Enterprises Hugh Smythe, himself a former Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. employee, was spotted wearing a Garibaldi’s Whistler Mountain t-shirt for the occasion.

Blackcomb President Hugh Smythe (left) sports a Garibaldi’s Whistler Mountain shirt next to Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation executives Peter Alder (middle) and Lorne Borgal (right). Whistler Question Collection, 1985

Whistler Mountain’s 20th birthday was also a chance for the company and the community to reflect on the past twenty (or nineteen) years and the changes they had seen in such a short time. Three founding members of the lift company were asked how they felt about the milestone for the Question’s “Whistler Answers” column. Makinen said it felt “really good. It’s nice to see,” and Franz Wilhelmsen, the founding president of Garibaldi Lifts Ltd., told the paper “I think it’s fantastic. It has fulfilled everyone’s wildest dreams I think.” Stefan Ples, however, believed that at twenty years the ski operation was still young compared to European resorts and had plenty of potential. Ples told the paper, “It’s hardly started.”

*The Exciters perform as the winners of the lift company’s 1960s-themed air band contest. Whistler Question Collection, 1985*

According to a member of the lift company’s marketing team, the fact that Whistler Mountain hadn’t been operating for quite twenty years yet was not important. The economy was coming out the other side of a major recession that had hit tourism and the town of Whistler quite hard, and hosting a birthday party seemed like a great way to celebrate. The community seemed to agree, with over 1,500 people joining in some part of the festivities and showing that age really is just a number.