We won’t be hosting our annual Kids Après at the museum this year, so (like last year), we’re making it possible to take some of the museum experience home! Our Kids Après Activity Book shares some of the stories from our exhibits alongside colouring pages, trivia, mazes and more that the whole family can enjoy.
For the Family Day Weekend (February 18 – 21), we’ll be creating more Family Day Kids Après Packages that will include an Activity Book and the supplies for two Kids Après crafts. We will be posting craft videos (similar to the craft videos created by our amazing students over the past two summers for Crafts in the Park) online here on February 18 so that you can craft along with us at your convenience at home.
Family Day Kids Après Packages are free and will be available at the museum from 11 am Friday, February 18. Please note that packages will not include scissors, glue or colouring supplies. If you do not have these, please contact us.
In the 1980s the Whistler Question began posing a question to three to six people and publishing their responses under “Whistler’s Answers” (not to be confused with the Whistler Answer). Each week, we’ll be sharing one question and the answers given back in 1983. Please note, all names/answers/occupations/neighbourhoods represent information given to the Question at the time of publishing and do not necessarily reflect the person today.
Some context for this week’s question: We’re pretty sure this one is self explanatory.
Question: Is Valentine’s Day important to you?
Sharon Berry – Manager, Husky grocery store – Gondola Area
Yes, I think it is if you have someone special in your life. It’s just another opportunity to remind them how much you care.
Dorothy Stenger – Lifite, Blackcomb Mountain – White Gold Estates
Sure it is. It’s the only time of year you have a possibility of getting flowers! It’s also nice because it’s the only day of the year that’s totally devoted to two people who are in love.
Don Turner – “Pacheena” stage manager – Alpha Lake Village
I think it’s important because it’s a good day to be close to your family and other people you like. I always give my mum and my sister something just to remind them I love them.
Last month, the Whistler Museum opened our latest temporary exhibit, Pride & Progress: From the Grassroots Altitude to the Fearless Whistler Pride and Ski Festival, which looks back at the thirty year history of the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival. One of the most public and visible events of the festival is the Pride Ski + March, where skiers and snowboarders and rainbow flags make their way down Whistler Mountain towards Olympic Plaza. The first march through Whistler Village, however, took a shorter route and happened not during the festival but during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. It was led by the first Pride House.
Pride House in Whistler. Photo courtesy of Clare Johnson
The idea of an LGBTQ2S+ space modeled on the hospitality houses set up by national Olympic committees took a few years to come together. While attending the 2007 InterPride conference in Zurich, Switzerland, WinterPRIDE (now the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival) organizer Dean Nelson was inspired while learning more about what pride meant in other countries, especially nations more hostile towards LGBTQ2S+ communities.
Three years later, with a lot of hard work, organization, and dedication, the first Pride Houses opened in February 2010, one in a portion of the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre and another in Vancouver (Pride House hosted a daily in QMUNITY, BC’s Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Resource Centre, while the sports bar SCORE on Davie St. served as a celebration space). In both locations, Pride House was designed to have multiple functions. They served as educational centres, with resources on many topics including homophobia in sport and Canadian immigration and refugee protection. They were also a welcoming space for LGBTQ2S+ athletes, coaches, officials, family, friends, and fans. Additionally, Whistler’s Pride House hosted a media room for unaccredited media, to which Nelson credits the high exposure of Pride House, as it offered a new Olympic story and a chance at more airtime. Over the 2010 Games, 5,000 people visited Whistler’s Pride House, including skeleton gold medallist Jon Montgomery and Olympic swimmer Mark Tweksbury.
The parade down Village Stroll to Whistler Media House. Whistler Pride Collection.
Whistler Pride House’s march through the Village came about in response to disparaging remarks made by two commentators about American figure skater Johnny Weir, in which they questioned his gender and the example he set for young skaters. Pride House contacted Whistler Media House (located in the Maury Young Arts Centre) to arrange a press conference with accredited media (Weir held his own press conference in Vancouver to respond to the remarks) and, quite literally, marched over with rainbow flags and banners.
Their march took them from the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre, down the stairs, along the Village Stroll, down to Celebration Plaza (today Olympic Plaza), around the Olympic Rings, and back to the theatre in what Nelson described as “probably the most dramatic press conference that the Whistler press team held during the Olympics and Paralympics.”
The parade takes a pause on the steps outside Pride House. Whistler Pride Collection.
With a few changes to the route the following year, the march became part of WinterPRIDE. According to Nelson, “We’ve held onto that tradition ever since and I think it’s really important to have that visibility.” The festival has grown increasingly visible within Whistler over the past thirty years, from the Resort Municipality of Whistler raising rainbow banners in the Village to businesses putting flags in their windows.
You can learn more about the growth of the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival and the legacy of Pride House at Pride & Progress, which will be on display at the Whistler Museum through April 19, 2022.
In the 1980s the Whistler Question began posing a question to three to six people and publishing their responses under “Whistler’s Answers” (not to be confused with the Whistler Answer). Each week, we’ll be sharing one question and the answers given back in 1983. Please note, all names/answers/occupations/neighbourhoods represent information given to the Question at the time of publishing and do not necessarily reflect the person today.
Some context for this week’s question: Students at the original Myrtle Philip School often remember helicopters landing on the field near the school in the early 1980s. There was no municipal airport, though a tri-service airport facility had been under discussion. At the beginning of 1983, a helicopter pad was proposed for the roof of the Tantalus Lodge, in order to have a site near to the Whistler Village.
Question: Where do you think a Whistler helicopter landing pad should be?
Warren Borden – Shipwright – North Vancouver
This is not a matter of convenience but of safety. The maximum period of danger with helicopters is during takeoff and landing so they just must be away from people. Ideally they shouldn’t be landing near tall buildings because of the updraft. If you’re going to land outside your medical centre they should cordon off an area as well.
Keith Dalley – Lift Maintenance Supervisor, Whistler Mountain – White Gold
The roof of Tantalus parking structure seems fine to me because it’s handy to transport injured people from the medical centre. My next choice would be Function Junction. The thing you have to remember is that no matter where the pad is, in a real emergency, a helicopter will land wherever the pilot wants.
Frank Thiessen – Professional Pilot – Alpine Meadows
The critical thing with helicopters is that they stay away from congested areas. I don’t think either the practice fairway or Tantalus are particularly good spots for a landing pad around here. Although the odds of something going wrong are small – they are really safe machines – you’ve just got to be away from crowds. I suggest they move back to the school or to Function Junction.
