Tag: Whistler Mountain

Full Moon over WhistlerFull Moon over Whistler

May 6, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

In January 1988, Whistler Mountain announced a new event for the lift company to coincide with the full moon on February 2. Over a hundred skiers could buy tickets to a Moonlighting evening that included a full-course dinner at the Roundhouse and a moonlit ski down to the valley guided by patrollers and instructors, followed by a “moondance party” at Dusty’s with live entertainment. The idea for the event reportedly came from Bernie Protsch, a ski patroller, and Werner Defilla, vice president of food and beverage, who had both seen similar events while working in Switzerland. The first full moon event would seem to have gone well, with another planned during the World Cup Week in March. When the participants did not know, however, was that theirs was not the only part on Whistler Mountain that evening.

A full moon over the Coast Mountains. Greg Griffith Collection

At a recent Speaker Series featuring mountain caretakers, Janet Love Morrison, Laird Brown and Colleen Warner shared stories from their time living on Whistler Mountain in the 1980s. Laird and Colleen spent over two years living at midstation and Janet and Gord Harder lived at the Alpine Service Building at the top of the Red Chair. According to Janet, while guests and staff (including Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation President Lorne Borgal) were enjoying a fine dining experience at the Roundhouse, she and Gord decided to have their own party at their place.

At the time, Laird had built an ice rink between the Roundhouse and the Alpine Service Building and, according to Janet, they “just wanted to go outside and go ice skating.” Knowing that the event was still ongoing, however, their party of six to eight people decided to stay inside until those at the Roundhouse had departed. Once the official guests had headed down the hill, the unofficial party went for a moonlit skate, had a few more drinks, and then decided to go skiing.

The Alpine Service Building also housed the alpine caretakers. Whistler Question Collection, 1978

With the help of two ski-dos driven by Gord and another friend, the party did multiple laps of Upper Whisky Jack before rolling one of the ski-dos, breaking the flag, the key and the windshield. It was about 4 am by the time they got the machine back up to the Alpine Service Building and Janet stayed up to do the 5 am weather reading, a daily duty of the alpine caretaker. Later that day, Janet and Gord went to the office of Jamie Tattersfield to confess what had happened to the ski-do. He looked at them, asked if everyone was alright, and said, “Ok.”

Being out in the alpine during a full moon was far from a new experience for Gord and some of his friends. Prior to the construction of the Peak Chair in 1986, the Peak Bros. would camp on the peak for every full moon, hiking up for about an hour from the top of the T-bar at the end of the ski day and setting up tents. According to Shawn Hughes (also known as SO), this tradition went on faithfully every winter full moon for over six years.

Peak Bros from left to right: ‘SO’, ‘Rox’ and ‘Crazy Harry’. Harder Collection

The construction of the Whistler Express Gondola in the summer of 1988 made the alpine caretaker position redundant and the mid-station and valley caretaker positions were phased out over the next few years. Whistler Mountain’s full moon dinners at the Roundhouse, however, continued into the 1990s.

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Before Whistler KidsBefore Whistler Kids

April 22, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler 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.”

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It’s a Small WorldIt’s a Small World

April 1, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 2 Comments

Last month we shared a story about Whistler residents encountering each other while traveling when, in 1984, Inge and Jens Nielsen discovered Chuck Blaylock was piloting their flight back from Europe. It’s also not uncommon for visitors or residents to come across someone in Whistler who they know from outside the valley, often long before they moved to the area. In the 1990s, this phenomenon happened to Karen Vagelatos when she dropped her kids off at ski school.

Karen grew up in the Vancouver area and first visited Alta Lake as a teenager in the summer of 1963 when she, her cousin Bob Calladine, and their racing coach Lorne O’Connor were part of a group that climbed up Whistler Mountain and were filmed skiing Whistler Bowl. Karen learned to ski at the age of three (not surprising as her father had a popular ski shop in downtown Vancouver for many years) and was a member of the Canada National Ski Team from 1964 to 1968, competing in two Olympic Winter Games.

Karen is seen next to Nancy Greene during the 1969 Toni Sailer Summer Ski Camp. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation Collection

After retiring from racing, Karen coached for the Whistler Mountain Ski Club and the Toni Sailer Summer Ski Camp and even when living in Vancouver continued to visit the area regularly, first staying with friends and then buying a cabin. Her family moved up full-time in 1995.

By 1995, Karen and her family had moved over to Blackcomb Mountain and were members of the Blackcomb Ski Club. When asked why she made the switch after such a long history on Whistler, Karen explained that is was not as much about the terrain as it was the chairlifts; Whistler was still running double chairs while Blackcomb had triples, which meant that she and her husband could each take two of their four young kids instead of sending them up with other skiers.

A Kids Kamp lesson on Blackcomb Mountain. Blackcomb Mountain Collection

This switch meant that her children attended Blackcomb’s Kids Kamp and when taking them in one she came across none other than Florence Petersen at reception. Karen happened to be with someone she went to high school with who pointed out Florence as “Flossie,” their PE teacher in Burnaby for grades 11 and 12.

It might seem strange to some to call a teacher by a nickname, but Florence was known to quite a few of here students as Flossie. Florence attended Burnaby North Secondary School before doing her teacher training at the Vancouver Normal School. At the time, most new teachers would spend a few years teaching at a one-room school after completing their training before they applied for positions in the larger city schools. However, there was a shortage of trained PE teachers in the late 1940s. Florence was one of only a few in her year who completed the extra course to be qualified, meaning she went straight into teaching at city secondary schools.

Florence’s first position was as a PE teacher at a school in Coquitlam, where she was only a year older than some of her oldest students. After two years, she moved to Burnaby North, her alma mater, where she taught for the next fifteen years. When she first arrived back at Burnaby North, she found herself teaching former schoolmates who had been young students when she graduated. Looking back in 2007, she recalled “I have to thank them all for being very respectful” and calling her Ms Strachan in class and Flossie outside of school.

Florence and Don Gow on the Burnt Stew Hike in the 1950s where Burnt Stew Basin was given its name. Gow Collection

Florence later transitioned into counselling and went first to Moscrop Junior High and then Burnaby South Secondary School before retiring in 1983 after 36 years as a teacher.

In 1955, while teaching at Burnaby North, Florence and fellow teachers and friends Betty Gray (Shore), June Tidball (Collins), Kelly Forster (Fairhurst) and Jacquie Pope purchased Witsend, a cottage on Alta Lake that they would visit regularly until it was destroyed by a fire in 1965. Florence moved up permanently when she retired, joining her husband Andy Petersen who had already been living in their Whistler property full-time.

As well as becoming Whistler’s first marriage commissioner and a founding force behind the Whistler Museum, Florence could sometimes be found working in places such as the Kids Kamp building, where Karen Vagelatos came across her. Though Karen had not known about Florence’s connection to Alta Lake, after this first meeting she would regularly see her around Whistler. Looking back, she recalled Florence as a great but demanding PE teacher with high expectations of her students.

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Lounging in WhistlerLounging in Whistler

March 25, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 2 Comments

Jack Bright first arrived in the Whistler area with his wife Ann in 1967 as the new ski area manager, responsible for everything for the lift company that didn’t move (mountain manager Dave Mathews was responsible for the things that did move, such as lifts). In 1975, while Jack was still working for Garibaldi Lifts Ltd., the couple opened the Whistler Inn, described in its first season as “ultra modern yet rustic accommodation,” right near the shores of Nita Lake within walking distance to the lifts. After a seemingly successful first season, a restaurant and cocktail lounge was added onto the Inn in preparation for the winter of 1976/77.

In its first year, JB’s Dining Lounge featured some familiar faces in the area, as well as some new ones. Roger Systad, who had previously worked at the Brandywine Falls Restaurant, the Cheakamus Inn and L’Apres, was hired as the head chef and John Reynolds, manager, barman and fixture of the Cheakamus Inn, returned to Whistler as the barman at the Whistler Inn. A few months after opening, JB’s also hired Michael D’Artois who, though he had been visiting the area to ski for years, was at Whistler for his first season as a full-time resident.

The Whistler Inn as seen from the tennis courts next to Nita Lake. Whistler Question Collection, 1979

Michael had previously worked in the front office at Chateau Lake Louise until the general manager heard him singing and playing guitar at a staff contest. He was hired as a resident entertainer at the hotel for the next winter, playing in various spaces throughout the day. In the fall of 1976, when he decided to move up to Whistler, Michael left a demo tape at the Keg restaurant at Alta Lake and then returned to Vancouver. When he returned to Whistler, the Keg asked him, “Where have you been? You’re hired.” Although the Keg had been known as the place to go for disco, apparently the staff were not disappointed to come in and find Michael playing folk music for a change.

Michael D’Artois, Laura McGuffin, Rod MacLeod & Mark Sadler entertain at the Alta Lake Community Club’s Children’s Christmas Party at the Keg. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

The early winter of 1976/77 is still talked about today as very dry and cold, with little snow. Michael played at the Keg while Whistler Mountain was operating through the holidays and the beginning of 1977, but the lack of snow forced the lift company to close down in January. With no skiing, not many visitors were coming to Whistler, though residents embraced activities offered by the frozen lakes.

When it had finally snowed enough for the mountain to reopen in February, Michael was hired by Jack to perform at JB’s, similar to the position he held in Lake Louise. He played three 45 minute sets between 9pm and midnight, mostly to a local crowd who soon knew his repertoire and were happy to put in requests. According to Michael, “Not infrequently, Jack would call last call [and] people would leave, except those people that knew they didn’t have to leave.” They would have one last drink and Michael would play one last set.

After Michael moved on to other opportunities, JB’s continued to hire musicians to perform. Here, Annette Ducharme, accompanied by Jamie Boyd, plays while regular performer Betsy Chaba took a leave to play at the Folk Festival in Vancouver. Whistler Question Collection, 1981

Not wanting to work late nights again the next winter, Michael opened the Valley Inn in a building on Nesters Road he rented from Rudy Hofmann. He stayed in the hotel business for a few years, even living onsite in the Whistler Village while still under construction, before getting his real estate licence and starting a long career in real estate.

The Whistler Inn and JB’s are still standing in Creekside today, though they have changed some over the past five decades. The Whistler Inn is today known as the Whistler Resort & Club and JB’s has changed names a few times. The space became Hoz’s Pub under Ron Hosner in the 1980s and Karen Roland began working there in the 1990s. She took over the space in 2008 and today JB’s restaurant area houses Roland’s Pub while JB’s bar area has been transformed into the Red Door Bistro.

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