Tag: Whistler Village

Whistler’s Silver BookWhistler’s Silver Book

November 17, 2020 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

When talking about the creation of the Resort Municipality of Whistler in 1975 and the early development of the Whistler Village through the 1980s, one of the documents that is often mentioned is the “Silver Book,” also known as the Community Development Study for the Whistler Mountain Area.  The Silver Book was put together in 1974 by the Planning Services Division of the Department of Municipal Affair of BC and contained a study of the current state of the area, thoughts on potential growth, and a recommended framework for creating both a short and long term community development plan.  The report was a key factor in the formation of the RMOW and was one of the first documents to recommend a single-centred Town Centre on the site of the garbage dump.

The aptly named “Silver Book”

The Silver Book also, included plans for residential development, infrastructure such as sewer and water systems, further recreational development, and transportation both to and within the area.  Reading through the report, it is clear that some of the transportation woes experienced by Whistler in the past few years are similar to those thought of back in 1974.

At the time, almost all travel between Whistler and Vancouver was done by private automobiles on the two lane highway.  According to the report, “At peak times, particularly winter Sunday evenings, traffic on the highway is almost bumper to bumper.”  The capacity of the highway in winter conditions was calculated to be about 500 vehicles per hour, but with many skiers arriving and leaving at the same time the traffic slowed to a crawl.

Snowy winter days could already lead to backed up traffic exiting the Whistler Village by 1984. Whistler Question Collection.

The idea of building a new road with a different route to Whistler was dismissed as too expensive at $80-100 million (adjusted for inflation, $400-500 million), as was a proposal to expand the existing highway significantly.  Using rail to expand transport capacity was considered, but it was concluded that the railway, designed for moving freight, “does not lend itself to the operation of high-speed passenger trains.”  A weekend ski-train was proposed but this would have removed only 600 skiers per day from the road.  Though increased bus service was expected to provide only a modest increase in capacity, it was considered the most effective solution.

Buses were also an important part of the transportation plan within the Whistler area.  The community was expected to develop in a linear fashion along the highway and be “somewhat sprawling.”  The plan for a single Town Centre meant that municipal and commercial services would require traveling outside of the different subdivisions, which, if all trips were taken in a private automobile, could lead to excessive traffic noise, air pollution, and “aesthetically inappropriate large-scale parking lots” at the Town Centre.  Instead, the recommendation was to develop an efficient public transport system within the valley.

A bus picks up skiers at the Gondola base, today known as Creekside. Whistler Question Collection, 1979.

The Silver Book outlined several ways of encouraging the use of public transport, but only one was marked “not workable” by the donor of one copy in our collections: toll gates and restricted parking.  The idea was that toll gates at the north and south ends of Whistler would encourage visitors to take a bus or train, while residents could apply for an annual windshield sticker that would allow them through.  These “stickered” vehicles would, however, not be allowed to part at the Town Centre during peak periods, thereby “forcing” residents to use buses and reducing the size of parking structure needed.

The Silver Book provides an interesting look at what the Province thought Whistler could become from the early 1970s.  Some of the plans and predictions of the report (such as the linear development) have been realised while others either have never come to fruition (toll gates) or have far exceeded these early plans.

READ MOREREAD MORE

Blackcomb’s DIY WiringBlackcomb’s DIY Wiring

October 20, 2020 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Today we take the ability to receive or make a call for granted, but for those preparing to open Blackcomb Mountain in 1980 it would not have been as easy as picking up the phone.

It appears that months before the mountain was set to begin operations their phone system was already under quite a bit of stress.  In the first week of March, the Whistler Question reported that “Blackcomb Skiing Enterprises were growling a lot on Saturday, when their only overworked telephone was out of action for the eighth time this year!”  For the small team working out of the Blackcomb offices in construction trailers on the Town Centre site, the phone system was operational for the summer, though Blackcomb was still having some telephone woes.

Big office… small desk! Blackcomb’s accountant Larry Osborne sits behind his temporary desk in a deserted Blackcomb trailer before moving to permanent offices.  Whistler Question Collection.

On July 17, 1980, all union work on the Town Centre site (including the operation of the liquor store) stopped as the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) set up picket lines for two days.  The dispute was over telephone lines and a power line being installed from the valley to the buildings at the top of the first lift by Blackcomb workers.  Blackcomb wanted the lines installed on a weekend, as they had to cross eleven different road crossings on their way up the mountain, which would have stalled or stopped other construction work happening during the week.  BC Tel claimed that they couldn’t supply workers to install the lines on the weekend due to a ban on overtime by the union, while the TWU claimed they were willing but that BC Tel refused to schedule overtime.  Relations between BC Tel and the TWU had remained tense since a lockout and labour dispute a few years earlier.

In 1979 BC Tel and the TWU had failed to reach an agreement on the 1980 contract and by July the TWU had begun a “Super Service” campaign where they provided customer service while working to every rule and regulation, including ones that were usually deemed non-essential, and thereby slowing down productivity.  On September 22 the TWU began selective strikes, where construction and other workers would report to work but refuse all assignments except emergency repairs.  This included the pre-wiring of communication lines in new buildings, creating a backlog of construction jobs.

Technicians at work inside the new BC Telephone Whistler office earlier in the year – the wiring looks far neater than what transpired at the Blackcomb offices.  Whistler Question Collection.

For Blackcomb Skiing Enterprises, who were meant to move to their permanent offices at the top of Lift 1 in December, this presented a problem.  They had managed to get lines laid to the building, but the ongoing labour dispute meant that they could not get TWU workers in to set up the individual office lines.  Instead, Lorne Borgal, Blackcomb’s Administrative Manager, got to take a crash course in phone installation.

According to Borgal, the TWU was able to install phone blocks, but they could not do the wiring.  A local phone company employee showed Borgal how it worked and he was left to wire phones for each of the offices, most of which had three separate lines.  The building had a room where all of the cables came up from the main line and then split up to the various offices and, by the time he was done, Borgal described the contents of the room as a “big mass of wire” coming out from the wall by almost a metre.  Protection was built around the mass to prevent anyone from accidentally touching it and shutting down all the phones, as the wire were thought to be liable to falling out.  Despite his inexperience (as Borgal put it, he was “not a phone guy, at all”) the phones were operational for Blackcomb Mountain’s opening.

Lorne Borgal poses outside the Blackcomb “offices” soon after his arrival in Whistler. Whistler Question Collection, 1980.

Eventually the TWU workers were able to return to the building and install the phone lines properly, putting an end to Blackcomb’s phone problems.  When shown the room of wires, their reaction was to howl with laughter and, according to Borgal, he was laughing right along with them.

READ MOREREAD MORE

Eldon Beck Comes to WhistlerEldon Beck Comes to Whistler

October 13, 2020 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 2 Comments

It is a commonly held belief that Whistler would be very different today if it were not for the influence of Eldon Beck.  Beck, a trained landscape architect from California, is often credited as the visionary behind the Whistler Village, which he began working on in 1978.

In 1972, Beck’s firm was hired by Vail, Colorado, to consult on a community master plan.  The plan aimed to resolve some of the community’s traffic issues and create a pedestrian-centred village.  From 1972 to 1978, Beck worked with Vail as their primary consultant, a time he described as forming the bulk of his early mountain planning experience.

Eldon Beck stands in the centre, discussing the Whistler Village with an unidentified group. Eldon Beck Collection.

By 1978, the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) had spent three years discussing, consulting, planning, and working hard on a town centre to be built on what had been the dump.  The site and funding, from both the provincial and federal governments, were secured; the RMOW, however, did not yet have a final plan for the site.

Terry Minger, who had been the general manager of Vail and would become the president of the Whistler Village Land Company, introduced Beck and Al Raine, the provincial appointee to the Whistler municipal council.  Though Beck described the existing plans for the town centre as a grid plan “like a little city” which “felt like a mini-Vancouver,” there were parts of the council’s plans that excited him.  They wanted to build a pedestrian village (the early plans included a pedestrian spine that was intersected with vehicle crossings) with lots small enough that they could be bought and developed by local developers.  Beck was asked to come take a look and modify the plans, which he felt imposed a building plan on the natural environment rather than letting the land guide the plan.

The Whistler Village under construction, under Beck’s watchful eye. Eldon Beck Collection.

Beck first arrived in Whistler in September 1978.  According to him, his first impression of the area was not of the mountains but of being overwhelmed by the fragrance of the forest.  It was cloudy, as can often by the case in September, and Beck had to trust Raine when he “swore up and down there were mountains.”

The weather did clear up and Beck was able to gain an idea of the site’s natural surroundings, though the site was somewhat overgrown and some of the sightlines were hard to make out.  To get a good view of Fissile Peak, Beck decided to “elevate” himself, or climb as high up a tree as he could (he later claimed this blew Raine away and ensured he got the job).  As he remembered it, he was then taken to someone’s garage where he was introduced to the council and asked to come up with something for their next meeting.

Eldon Beck and Drew Meredith speak at the event on the development of Whistler Village in 2019.  Whistler Museum Collection.

In the foreward to Beck’s book Edges, Raine claimed that the Village Stroll and some of the buildings of the Whistler Village began to appear on Beck’s sketch book within the next 24 hours.  His plans were presented to council three days later and quickly endorsed.  What was supposed to have been a modification of the existing plans had become a wholly new design.

Beck’s visit to Whistler in 1978 was the first of many (he was most recently here last October, when he participated in a speaker event on the development of the Whistler Village) and the beginning of a longstanding relationship with a town he describes as “a happy place.”

READ MOREREAD MORE

Burning Down the HouseBurning Down the House

October 6, 2020 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

To many, the photograph of a group posed around and on a rustic house is a familiar image of a different era in Whistler, when the nearest grocery store was often found in Squamish and only one mountain had any lifts operating.  In 2011, Sarah Drewery, then the Collections Manager at the Whistler Museum, conducted an oral history with Andy and Bonnie Munster, and asked about the history of the house in the picture, which Andy called home for about five years in the 1970s.

The house before its demolition and eventual burning. Greg Griffith Collection.

Andy first came to Whistler in 1971 to ski.  He had been expecting something bigger and drove straight through to Green Lake before realizing he had passed it.  According to him, in his first four years in the area he ran into problems finding a place to rent and so in 1975 he and two friends, Randy and Dave, decided to squat and build their own cabin.  Randy, who came from California, chose the site near Fitzsimmons Creek and decided that they didn’t want anything plastic in the house, preferring wood and natural materials.  With little money to spare amongst them, the cabin was built almost entirely out of recycled materials.

Construction began in the spring or summer of 1975, often relying on what they could find in the dump.  They found lumber that had been thrown away after another construction project finished their foundations, old fashioned windows that somebody no longer needed, and couches in pristine condition.  Other items were donated by people they knew or sold to them cheaply, such as a cast iron cook stove and wood heater that Seppo Makinen sold to them for $20.  Andy estimated that by the time they finished the house it cost a total of $50 and included an upstairs, a sunroom, a large woodshed, and an outhouse.

The house just before it was set alight. Whistler Question Collection.

The house was comfortable but keeping it running was a lot of work.  All of the heating came from wood and each fall they would have to cut at least eight cords of firewood.  Water had to be hauled from Fitzsimmons Creek in buckets, though in summer they could use a water wheel, and heated on the stove for showers and washing.  Andy recalled that there were a few times when they decided not to have the wood stove on and then woke up with frost in their mustaches and beards.  Luckily, the house was quick to warm up and stayed warm for quite a while.

In late 1978, most of the squatters on Crown land in Whistler were served with eviction notices.  According to Andy they were shocked and seeing the notice “your heart kind of sinks down,” but they were able to meet with the provincial and municipal governments and negotiate a year’s extension.  When it came time to leave the house, they gave away furniture, took out the windows and any reusable materials, and talked to the fire department about what to do with the shell.

In a speaker event last fall, Jim Moodie mentioned that, as part of the team managing the village construction, he was partly responsible for burning down Andy Munster’s home.  The eviction notices were served around the time that the first ground was broken on the village site and, as Andy put it, “We were actually just moving out when the pile drivers and everything were starting in the village.”  The shell of their house was used by the fire department for fire practice and, after trying a few different things, they let it burn to the ground.

The fire department controls the burning of the house while its inhabitants and friends look on. Whistler Question Collection.

The fire was documented in another series of photographs, depicting what many felt to be the end of an era.  The next few years saw the construction of Whistler Village and the opening of Blackcomb Mountain not far from the site of that house, where Andy said if you were to walk past today “you’d never know it was there.”

READ MOREREAD MORE