Tag: Whistler history

Opening Pride & Progress in 2022Opening Pride & Progress in 2022

January 25, 2022 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

The 29th annual Whistler Pride and Ski Festival is right around the corner! This week of January 23 – 30, 2022 will be chock-full of events dedicated to diversity, inclusion, and fun. Coinciding with this year’s festivities, the museum is pleased to announce the launch of a new temporary exhibit titled Pride & Progress: From the Grassroots Altitude to the Fearless Whistler Pride and Ski Festival.

Opening to the public this evening, Tuesday, January 25, 2022, the exhibit will take visitors through a visual and descriptive history of Whistler Pride.

Whistler’s rainbow crosswalks are just one example of increased visibility mentioned by Dean Nelson during our online talk in February 2021. Photo courtesy of Dean Nelson.

The challenges and triumphs leading up to the world-renown festival we know today weave a fascinating narrative. The story begins in 1992, when Altitude – as it was known then – covertly hosted around seventy participants for a gay ski week at Whistler Mountain. From these humble beginnings, the festival continued to grow, welcoming more guests and hosting increasingly renowned performers with each year, all the while working to create a safe space for the LGBTQ2s+ community in our mountain town.

The story of Whistler Pride wouldn’t be complete without an exploration of the relationship between the LGBTQ2S+ community and mountain sports. Centering on Pride House, the LGBTQ2S+ pavilion established during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games was a beacon of courage, visibility, and support for queer athletes to be their authentic selves. As the struggle for acceptance continues, this section of the exhibit invites visitors to reflect on the presence of homophobia in sport, and the importance of safe spaces to create awareness and encourage important conversations.

Whistler’s Pride House was located at the Pan Pacific Village Centre and was very visible from outside. Photo courtesy of Clare Johnson.

The exhibit will also feature artifacts, photographs, and films from the past 29 years of the festival in its various forms that will give insight to these historic Pride events. Thanks to Dean Nelson, former festival director (2008 – 2018), for donating many of the artifacts and archival materials being used for the exhibit.

We’re also happy to announce that our extensive collection of Whistler Pride records and materials have now been officially catalogued, rehoused, and published on our online database. Here you can find descriptions on various events, promotions, photographs, and audiovisuals to name a few. Please browse through at your leisure for more information on the history of the festival.

Some of the materials donated as part of the Whistler Pride collection.

We will be celebrating opening night of Pride & Progress: From the Grassroots Altitude to the Fearless Whistler Pride and Ski Festival on this evening, January 25, 2022 with evening hours from 6 to 9 pm. We will also be open from 11 am – 5 pm on Wednesday, January 26. As ever, entry is by donation and masks are required for all visitors to the museum – we hope to see you all here! Otherwise, the exhibit will be on display during our normal operating hours until April 19, 2022.

Not quite ready for an in-person visit? Our 2021 Speaker Series conversation with Dean Nelson is also available to watch on our YouTube channel here.

Chris Monaghan is the assistant archivist at the Whistler Museum and Archives. He has been here on a Young Canada Works contract through the fall and winter.

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Whistler’s Answers: January 20, 1983Whistler’s Answers: January 20, 1983

January 20, 2022 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

It’s a new year, which means we are on to a new year of Whistler’s Answers!

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: In 1980, when the Town Centre was still in relatively early stages of construction, the Labour Relations Board ruled that Whistler Village was a common site, meaning only union workers could be employed. By 1983, however, as some construction had been completed and more businesses were opening, this policy was being reexamined in a different context.

Question: Do you think Whistler Village should drop its union policy and become an integrated site like Tumbler Ridge?

Roger Moxley – Union Labourer – West Side Road

Whistler Village as a whole concept cannot afford to go union. I’ve been in the restaurant business and know that it would be difficult for these places to survive if they’re going to have to pay union wages. It should be up to the employer. The unions are going to have to realize that times have changed.

Stan Hammond – Non-union Carpenter – High Forest

Yes, because I don’t think there should only be unions in Whistler Village. It doesn’t go along with the free enterprise system. It also doesn’t give employers a chance to find the least expensive way of getting their building completed or business done. I actually don’t see why they insisted on unions here in the first place.

Dave Lalik – Union Carpenter – High Forest

Now that the major construction of the village is finished I don’t think it should be a general policy but should be left up to the tenants of each building to make their own decision. That’s just a common sense approach, it seems to be.

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Exhibit Opening TuesdayExhibit Opening Tuesday

January 18, 2022 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

One of the larger donations to the archives in 2020 was a collection of materials from the Whistler Pride and Ski Festival, charting its evolution from the 1990s to the 2010s. That donation forms the backbone of our next temporary exhibit, looking at the history of Pride in Whistler.

We will have extended hours for the opening evening of Pride & Progress on Tuesday, January 25 from 6 – 9 pm and will be open 11 am – 5 pm on Wednesday, January 26. The exhibit will run through April 19. We hope to see you there!

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A Look Back at 2021 for the Whistler MuseumA Look Back at 2021 for the Whistler Museum

January 18, 2022 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

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!

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