Tag: Toad Hall

Summing Up 2023Summing Up 2023

January 16, 2024 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

The Whistler Museum and Archives Society experienced a resurgence in the past year, marked by a significant milestones. In 2023, the museum achieved its busiest year to date, welcoming more than 16,290 visitors to its exhibits – and increase of 43 per cent over 2022 and 13 per cent over the pre-COVID year of 2019. The museum also engaged an additional 10,400 individuals in a variety of events and programs.

Among these initiatives was the Valley of Dreams Walking Tour, a cornerstone program that imparts knowledge to both residents and visitors alike about the region’s mountain history, evolution of tourism in the valley, development of Whistler Village, and the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Now in its 26th year, the tour operates daily throughout June, July, August, and September.

The Valley of Dreams Walking Tour over ten years ago. Whistler Museum Collection

One highlight from the previous year was the museum’s Discover Nature program, held five days a week, Monday to Friday, during July and August. This program features an interpretation station at Lost Lake. Approachable interpreters interacted with participants through touch table items, fostering inquiries about the natural history of the area. Attendees had the opportunity to explore exhibited items more extensively, revealing fascinating facts about local organisms in Whistler. Each day of the week featured a different theme. The program was expanded this year to include a geology day, with elements of the content developed in partnership with the Fire & Ice GeoRegion. We would like to thank the Resort Municipality of Whistler and the Whistler Community Foundation for their continued support of this great program, now in its ninth year.

The Discover Nature touch tables include a variety of things to look at and pick up, and each day of the week is different! Whistler Museum Collection

The museum developed two well-received temporary exhibits in 2023. In February we launched the “Peak Bros: A Whistler Comic Strip 1979 – 1992” that delved into the creation of the Peak Bros. comic strip by Gord “Rox” Harder. The Peak Bros. comics were originally featured in The Whistler Answer and The Whistler Review. These comics celebrated an outlaw skiing lifestyle, capturing the escapades of a close-knit group of friends as they embarked on adventures around Whistler.

Accompanying the exhibit was the publication of the complete compilation of the comic strips in a book specifically created for the exhibit. A heartfelt thank you goes out to Gord’s friends and family whose contributions made this project a reality and brought the exhibit to life.

From left to right – ‘SO,’ ‘Rox’ and ‘Crazy Harry’ all featured in the Peak Bros. comics. Harder Collection

To commemorate the centennial anniversary of the first documented mountaineering expedition in Whistler, we opened the exhibit “Mapping the Mountains: The 1923 Carter/Townsend Mountaineering Expedition.” On September 9, 1923, Neal Carter and Charles Townsend embarked on a two-week odyssey through Wedge Mountain and Avalanche Pass. Throughout their expedition, these dedicated mountaineers meticulously documented their journey, captured breathtaking photographs, mapped the area, and assigned names to various features, many of which are still in use today by mountaineers exploring the region.

Charles Townsend beside a cairn on the summit of Wedge, with Mt. James Turner in the background (September 10, 1923). Carter Collection

This spring also marked 50 years since the creation of the Toad Hall Poster. We were very excited to be joined at our May speaker series by former Toad Hall residents John Hetherington, Terry Spence, and Paul Mathews to learn more about both Toad Halls (Nita Lake and Soo Valley), what it was like to live there, and how Whistler’s most infamous photo – immortalized on the Toad Hall Poster – came to be.

A volleyball game at the Soo Valley Toad Hall.

One of the biggest developments over the pat year has been the signing of a land lease with the Resort Municipality of Whistler for the development of a new museum facility. We have started to embark on the task of raising money for this endeavour. We are looking to raise $10 million to build a new, state-of-the-art Whistler Museum with mid-2028 as the target date for opening! If you are interested in donating to this initiative, more information can be found on our website at whistlermuseum.org/newmuseum.

Given our lack of physical space in our current location, our Museum Musings column has provided a valuable channel for the museum to share an additional 52 unique Whistler stories in 2023, and we are grateful for the support of Pique. Thanks to everyone who reads our column, attends our events, and visits our exhibits. Your ongoing support is appreciated and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!

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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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Tales of Toad HallTales of Toad Hall

April 10, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

This spring will mark 50 years since the creation of the Toad Hall Poster, which means it will also be 50 years since the last residents moved out of Toad Hall. We are very excited to be joined by former Toad Hall residents John Hetherington, Terry Spence and Paul Mathews to learn more about both Toad Halls (yes, there were two separate locations!), what it was like to live there, and how the Toad Hall Poster came to be.

Event begins right at 7 pm; doors will open by 6:30 pm. Tickets are $10 ($5 for Museum members) and are available at the Whistler Museum or over the phone at 604-932-2019.

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George Benjamin’s Candid WhistlerGeorge Benjamin’s Candid Whistler

May 14, 2019 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

The Whistler Museum’s archive houses many documents, printed material, films, oral histories, and photographs from Whistler’s rich cultural past, from the arrival of Whistler’s earliest pioneers to the journey of hosting the Olympic Games.  It’s a treasure trove of interesting facts and unique stories that are unapologetically Whistler.

One of the first major collections I (Brad Nichols, Executive Director/Curator) catalogued while working in the archives as an intern at the Whistler Museum in the summer of 2011 was the George Benjamin photograph collection.

George Benjamin, originally from Toronto, Ontario, first came to Whistler in 1968 on a ski vacation, staying at the infamous Toad Hall.  George, on “Benji,” as he was more commonly known, would move to Whistler in 1970.

George was a semi-professional photographer.  His family back in Ontario owned a photo-finishing business, and this allowed him to develop his photographs for free – a handy asset in the days before digital photography.

George Benjamin himself holds his catch at the dock of Tokum Corners. Benjamin Collection.

The George Benjamin Collection consists of 8,236 images from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.  Photos in the collection include images of early Whistler Mountain Ski Patrol, Soo Valley Toad Hall, Gelandesprung ski jump competitions, summer days spent at many of Whistler’s lakes, parties, and everyday shots of living and working in Whistler.  This might be the most candid representation of Whistler during this era in our collection.

Photos don’t usually get more candid than this. Benjamin Collection.

Folks living in Whistler during this time would have had more in common with Whistler’s early-20th century pioneers than with the Whistler of today.  Many residents were still using outhouses, had little-to-no electricity, and relied on wood stoves for their cooking needs.  George’s photos capture this pioneer lifestyle, but with the added element of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s – and, of course, people that loved to ski.

George’s residence in Whistler was the infamous Tokum Corners.  This cabin – which was once home to Whistler Museum Board Chair John Hetherington, had no running water, and was often repaired with found materials – would become one of the cornerstones of social life in the valley.

Tokum Corners, as seen across the tracks in 1971. Benjamin Collection.

George, who had access to 16mm film equipment, would often shoot on Whistler Mountain, capturing his days following ski patrol blasting and partaking in avalanche control.  These film vignettes would be screened at Tokum Corners, usually with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon playing over top to ever-growing crowds.

The Photocell, covered in snow. Benjamin Collection.

George opened the Photo Cell photography store in Creekside around 1973.

He later became a commercial fisherman in the late-1970s.  He moved from Whistler back to Toronto in the early 1980s and now lives in Port Perry, Ontario.

George generously donated his collection of photographs and negatives to the museum in 2009.  The bulk of George Benjamin’s photos are available on the Whistler Museum’s website here.

If you  have any interesting stories, films, or photographs from Whistler’s past, we would love to hear from you.

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