We’ll be taking a look at the history of snowboarding with Ken Achenbach and Graham Turner in our first in-person event of 2022! Snowboarding is an important part of Whistler and, though it is a younger sport than skiing and was in fact banned in the area until the late 1980s, has a rich history in the area. Despite this, we still have limited information about snowboarding in our collections – but we are working to change this!
Event begins at 7 pm (doors open by 6:30 pm). Tickets are $10 ($5 for museum members) and are available at the Whistler Museum.
*There will be limited tickets available for in-person Speaker Series in accordance with the capacity of the Whistler Museum. There will be no cash bar for this event and guests will need to show proof of vaccination upon entry.
*Speaker Series events will also be streamed live – contact us to register for the livestream at 604-932-2019 or events @ whistlermuseum.org.
The year 2021 was one of fluctuation for the Whistler Museum. With a few COVID restrictions on occupancy and mask mandates, we were able to keep our exhibits open to the public six days a week throughout the year.
Over the course of 2021, the museum welcomed 6,513 exhibit visitors. This is an increase of 28 per cent over 2020, but still down 55 per cent over pre-COVID numbers in 2019. In addition to exhibit visits, we also held several events and programs online and outside the museum, which attracted approximately 13,232 people. In total, the museum provided direct services to approximately 19,745 individuals. We also had increased traffic and interactions throughout 2021 on our social media accounts including Instagram, YouTube, and our online Whistorical blog.
Offering online programs has led us to new ways of putting together programs, such as filming craft tutorials to accompany craft packages.
Our popular Speakers Series was delivered completely online in 2021. These events shifted from in-person events held at the museum to 20-minute mini-documentaries that were streamed live to an online audience and followed by a Q&A with the speakers. The first of these was with Dean Nelson, a longtime organizer of the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival, exploring the history and evolution of Pride in Whistler, including Pride House during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the first such LGBTQ+ space at an Olympic Games. Our next discussion was on the history of journalism and publishing in Whistler and featured speakers Paul Burrows (founder of the Whistler Question), Charlie Doyle (co-founder of the Whistler Answer), Bob Barnett (co-founder of Pique Newsmagazine), and Clare Ogilvie (then-editor of Pique Newsmagazine).
Our third Speaker Series event looked back at one of Whistler’s most endearing races, the Great Snow Earth Water Race that was held form 1975 to the mid 1990s. Race organizer Bryan Walhovd was accompanied by race participants from the first year of the race including Trudy Alder, Nancy Greene Raine, and Joe Csizmazia. Recordings of these Virtual Speaker Series events can be found on the museum’s YouTube Channel and on our social media platforms.
As we were not able to host many of our in-person family programs, we also adapted these to be delivered remotely. Our popular Crafts in the Park program continued as a video series and was developed by our summer programming student. Each video explored an aspect of Whistler’s history and was accompanied by a craft that families could complete at home. This program was presented in partnership with the Whistler Public Library.
Developed at the end of 2020, our Kids Après Activity Booklet was designed to replace our in-person Kids Après program. This activity booklet features colouring pages, mazes, crosswords, and various other activities. The 20-page booklet is still available (for free!) at the Whistler Museum. This program was made possible with funding from the Province of British Columbia.
Our Kids Après Activity Book was developed as part of our 2021 Family Day programming.
In terms of in-person programs, we were grateful to be able to offer our long-running Heritage Walking Tours through Whistler Village (June through September), and our Discover Nature program at Lost Lake Park (July through August). These ongoing programs are staples of our ever-expanding program lineup; they contribute to community and visitor outreach and education that are essential to our mandate.
We are currently developing our program schedule for 2022. We hope to see the return of our Mountain Bike Heritage Week in 2022, as we have been unable to produce it over the last two years. More details on these programs will be available in the coming weeks.
I would like to take a moment to thank our funders and supporters: the Resort Municipality of Whistler; the Province of British Columbia; the Community Foundation of Whistler; Canadian Heritage; British Columbia Museum Association; and our museum members for their continued support over the years.
I would also like to say a special thank you to everyone who has visited our exhibits, attended our events, read our Pique column, followed us on social media, and otherwise helped spread the word about Whistler’s fascinating people and history. Your support helped us make through a very challenging year!
Our 2021 Virtual Speaker Series is back at 7pm on Thursday, March 25 with a look at how journalism in Whistler has changed with Paul Burrows, Charlie Doyle, Bob Barnett, and Clare Ogilvie. Whistler has been served by multiple publications with varying aims since the 1970s despite a relatively small population, but how did it all get started?
You can attend our 2021 Speaker Series events on Zoom for free by registering here or contacting us at the Whistler Museum. Events feature interviews with our speakers followed by a live (virtual) Q&A with the speakers and audience.
Our Virtual Speaker Series is being held using Zoom. To attend the event, you do not need to have a Zoom account or a camera on your device. If you register through the Eventbrite link, you will be able to attend the event through the online event page on Eventbrite. If you register by contacting us directly at the museum, we will send you a link to the event via email. You can then attend simply by clicking on the link after 6:55 pm on the day of the event. If you have any questions about attending any of our Virtual Speaker Series, please contact us!
We are also excited to announce that the traveling exhibit Land of Thundering Snow from the Revelstoke Museum & Archives has been extended through Saturday, April 17th! If you haven’t been able to see it yet, you now have over two extra weeks to fit in a visit to the museum!
Back in September 2020 we posted photos on our social media of exploratory trips taken by the UBC Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC) in 1964 and the construction of the VOC Cabin from 1965. The photos were donated by Karl Ricker, a VOC member who had substantial involvement in the VOC Cabin. Recently, Ricker brought in copies of the VOC Journal from 1964 to 1968 to add to our research collection and, though we’ve only taken a quick look so far (and are looking forward to examining the journals more closely), they appear to be a very valuable addition.
One of the photos posted on our social media, showing the construction of the Cabin by VOC members. Karl Ricker Collection.
The journals cover a period during which the VOC was exploring the possibility of a cabin in Whistler, constructing the cabin in Whistler, and beginning to put the cabin in Whistler to use. According to the VOC Journal of 1964, the VOC Cabin on Mount Seymour was rarely being used as a ski cabin, as members could drive right up to the lifts, and skiing on Seymour was becoming increasingly crowded. They also found that Seymour was “inadequate as an area for ski touring, for hiking, or for mountaineering,” the “most important activities of an outdoor club.” Building a cabin in the Whistler area was thought to be an improvement as the long drive from Vancouver ensured most skiers would stay overnight, there was a proposal to develop lifts on Whistler Mountain, and the surrounding mountains would “present spectacular opportunities for touring and hiking.” Members of the VOC made their first reconnaissance trips to the area throughout 1964 and began construction of the cabin in 1965.
Skimming the journals, mention of progress on the VOC Cabin are frequent and, as far as we’ve seen, optimistic. In 1967 then VOC President Paul Sims wrote in his report of the upcoming completion of the cabin, saying: “When the last shake is nailed to the wall, and the last stone mortared into the fireplace, the construction at Whistler will be of a different nature. The shaking will continue but from dances, pots and pans, sing-songs, laughter and conversation. The building will bulge with eager and exhausted outdoor groups instead of construction crews.”
Karl Ricker in the midst of a socially distanced recording session (anyone not in front of the camera is also masked at all times).
The journals were brought in by Ricker when he came to the museum to record an interview for an upcoming exhibition by the Museum of North Vancouver. We were excited to help facilitate the recording as it gave us a chance to try out equipment we’ve now been using in our virtual events. This past weekend marked our first BC Family Day Kids Après: At Home Edition. Rather than invite families to the museum, we created Kids Après Packs that brought parts of the museum to you. Packs were picked up for free at the museum and included materials for two crafts and a Kids Après Activity Book, which combines stories from our exhibits with colouring pages, mazes, trivia and more. We released craft videos online so that participants could craft along from home, creating their own skiing snowpeople and a (non-edible) mug of hot chocolate, a staple of Kids Après.
The same equipment was also used to create the craft videos as part of BC Family Day Kids Après: Home Edition.
Tomorrow evening we’ll be hosting our first Virtual Speaker Series of 2021, kicking off the series with Whistler Pride: A Look Back with Dean Nelson. Though the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival was not able to go ahead this year, you could still see the spirit of the festival in the flags along Village Gate Boulevard – we’ll be learning more about how the festival started and how it has grown and become more visible with one of its long-time organizers. You can register for the free event here. Find out more about the rest of our Speaker Series line up for 2021 at our website here.
