Episode 2: Legends of Whistler (with Bradley Nichols and Allyn Pringle)

Mayor Jack Crompton talks to the Whistler Museum’s Director and Curator, Bradley Nichols and Events and Community Manager Allyn Pringle about the community’s new emergency notification system, the history and now almost completion of the Valley Trail and the importance of capturing Whistler’s oral history by hosting events like their Legends of Whistler Tell the Stories: Community Tales event.

Transcript

Intro music 0:01

[inaudible]

Narrarator 0:02

The Whistler podcast, candid conversations about everything Whistler with host, Mayor Jack Crompton.

Mayor Crompton 0:11

H ello everyone. Welcome to the Whistler podcast. Thanks for joining us. I am Mayor Jack Crompton. I w ant t o first acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Lil'wat Nation and the Squamish Nation. I also want to t hank Mountain FM for hosting us here in t heir Whistler Village studio today. U h, we have the privilege of chatting with Executive Director and curator of the Whistler Museum and Archive Society, Brad Nichols and our events and community manager Alan Pringle. Thank you guys for joining me here.

Brad Nichols 0:43

Thank you for having us.

Mayor Crompton 0:44

It's good to, uh, chat. I'm looking forward to, uh, at the end talking about the Legends of Whistler event and um, the stories that were told and uh, it was such a wonderful, uh, thing to participate in. I just want to thank you guys for that. I thought you did a wonderful job putting it on.

Brad Nichols 1:04

And I think you did a wonderful job hosting.

Mayor Crompton 1:06

Aren't we all wonderful? Um, so I, I want to start by asking you why Whistler, why do you live here? Why is a Whistler home? What makes you love this place and stay?

Allyn Pringle 1:21

You want to start Brad?

Brad Nichols 1:22

Yeah. Uh, I ended up in Whistler. Um, I did, uh, heritage resources in university and I kind of worked at museums across Canada and, uh, um, my partner, Jeanette Bruce, who actually works at the Whistler Public Library was doing her Masters at SFU and I have a first cousin that lives in Whistler who works for the Housing Authority. And, uh, I decided to come out and do an internship out here and then I happened to like biking and skiing a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So I kinda stayed, but, uh, I'm originally from Newfoundland, so I kinda made my way across the country. And did Jeanette, was Jeanette doing school at SFU while you were living up here? She was, yes. Wow. And then she, we both moved up here in December of 2012.

Mayor Crompton 2:05

And have you done any time, have you done any schooling in BC or was all your schooling?

Brad Nichols 2:08

No, all my schooling was, uh, back at Memorial University in, uh, Newfoundland.

Mayor Crompton 2:12

Ah, so when you're doing the degrees heritage, heritage resources, and is that studying archives and museums?

Brad Nichols 2:21

Museum spaces and like, uh, heritage, um, places and yeah, and kind of like how museums function and operate and how to, to run them essentially.

Mayor Crompton 2:32

Interesting. And Allyn, how did you end up here? It's an interesting story, I think, hey?

Allyn Pringle 2:36

It's not that interesting. I didn't really have much to do with it. I was born here, um, and then grew up here, left–cause a lot of people do–and then ended up back here in 2016, 15, one of those years. Yeah. And yeah, did a history degree. So if you're going to live in Whistler and use a history, the museum is kind of a nice place to do it.

Brad Nichols 3:01

It's true.

Mayor Crompton 3:02

It is very nice place to do it. So we'll start, uh, just talking about some, uh, topics that are happening around town and, and uh, then we'll get onto the legends of Whistler at the end. Um, I want to start by talking about last night at Council, we had a full house. We, uh, were doing third quarter report on the Community Energy and Climate Action Plan. Um, and there's a lot of interest building in that work and how we respond to the very real challenges that we face with climate. We have, uh, as you probably know, uh, glaciers receding, uh, we're having longer hotter summers–although this was a bit of a, uh, a good one for us–and this report kind of lays out those actions. Um, and it was a full house, lots of questions and a, um, uh, interest in, in, in the work and what's going on. One of the ones that jumped out at me, one of the actions that's exciting is that, uh, starting sometime before the end of the year, transit will be free for high school students. I think if we can beat Victoria to the punch, we will be the first community in British Columbia that's doing free transit for high school students. And although it's one small step amongst many that we need to take, I think it's an important one, because it gives people tools to take action themselves. Um, in the same way building Valley Trail connections to Function Junction, uh, are some small steps towards giving the tools to our community to respond. So, um, any when you're around town talking to people, what's the chatter that you hear about climate and, and, and what the community's doing and what, uh, what are people saying when you chat about climate?

Brad Nichols 4:52

Uh, well, back to the bus thing, I think that's kind of really important in getting, um, you know, a future generation to kind of get the habits of kind of using public transit and kind of being less reliant on using individual cars to commute back and forth. Uh, I also think Whistler is ahead of the curve for, um, you know, with the Valley Trail that, uh, Trevor Roote helped design, um, in the early days.

Mayor Crompton 5:14

Look at your going right back to history immediately. Tell us about Trevor Roote.

Brad Nichols 5:19

Uh, well he helped, uh, kind of design the, um, the Valley Trail that we all know and love today. Uh, yeah. Apparently he didn't like walking to the, to work along Highway 99 and kinda came up with this idea of implementing the, uh, Valley Trail that, you know, now we can all cycle and walk and we don't have to be on the road. And it makes it a lot easier for people to commute and get back and forth throughout all of Whistler.

Mayor Crompton 5:43

And what was his involvement in town? What was work? Whar was he walking to? Do you know?

Speaker 5 5:48

Uh, he worked for...

Allyn Pringle 5:50

I can't remember.

Brad Nichols 5:51

Yeah, he worked for the RMOW. I can't remember his position cause I had a couple of different positions. I can't remember what his position was at the time. That's that.

Mayor Crompton 5:59

And if memory serves the, the concept was to put the, uh, Valley Trail over top of existing, below-grade infrastructure, I think was one of the things that he wanted to accomplish.

Allyn Pringle 6:12

So when they were developing the Valley Trail, it was about the same time that they were starting to put the sewer lines in. So part of it was following the right of way that the sewers got. And then from there it's gone on to get a lot bigger than just the sewage.

Mayor Crompton 6:27

Yeah. It's so neat. We're getting near the end. Like we're, we're actually patching this thing together. It's like a quilt that I think is almost completed where we'll connect it from, uh, south Function Junction all the way up to Emerald, which I think is a crucial tool for, um, taking climate action in our community. So yeah, I'm, I'm thrilled that we're able to go down that path of, of free transit. And I, I connected anyway to a lot of the advocacy that's been taking place in our community, marching to municipal hall and, and, and, and sending letters. And that kind of advocacy changes the way governments do business, um, in important ways. So. All right. Uh, also, uh, we're opening some new housing. Uh, what are you guys hearing about housing around town is, it's interesting. I was at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday and every time I go to one of their meetings, housing is the number one issue. Uh, nothing's changed, but it was nice to be able to announce some new housing coming online.

Allyn Pringle 7:27

Well, I mean, most of what we hear about housing is not incredibly positive. It's a lot of people having trouble finding a place to live. Um, especially short term. We had trouble getting students this summer because finding a place to live in Whistler for four months is almost impossible.

Mayor Crompton 7:45

In the summer, it's tough, hey–on short term. Wow. And did you reach out to businesses that had housing organized already?

Brad Nichols 7:54

No, we just kind of reach out to kind of our network of people that we knew. But uh, yeah, it was, it's the first time this year was the first time that we've had a students that, uh, we weren't able to find a housing for them.

Mayor Crompton 8:06

Yeah. Because one of the things I'm hearing is businesses get housing and generally they need it for the winter and then they hold on and it's empty in the summer. And so the, it's a challenge where I think businesses are stepping up and taking control of the housing challenge that they have. Uh, but then it's a cost that often sits on their books through the summer. And it would be good to try to, uh, move towards some coordination between, uh, businesses and groups like yours who have that inverse need in the summer. I know that there's, there's, um, there's room in, in Whistler Blackcomb staff, housing as well in the summer that sometimes it sits empty. So some coordination I think would be an interesting conversation to have.

Brad Nichols 8:49

And I, I think too, I really liked the idea. I think the mandate has been around for a while that Whistler having a sense of community and having at least–is it 80% of the workers or is it...

Mayor Crompton 9:00

The goal is 75, but we're at 81.

Brad Nichols 9:03

Yeah. To like live in the community and kind of, I mean a lot of other ski Hills, they might have I think less–20%, 18% like people that actually live there–and then they're all commuting from their respective Squamish or Pemberton. So, like, the town itself kind of feels empty or a ghost town. And I think having that and having people live here and that sense of community has really benefited Whistler. I mean Whistler now is like a mountain bike Mecca and that was all from people going out and cutting trails and it's, the people weren't living here, would we have had the same impact in the cycling world and people coming here for cycling if there wasn't a community of people living here?

Mayor Crompton 9:42

Yeah. And you wouldn't have people like Allyn born and raised coming back to jobs that are, are our real jobs in our community, which is I think a credit to the people who stayed and then to that vision to build housing for the local community to live and work in. And, and that's what's exciting about the launch of 1020 Legacy Way and some other housing is that that commitment to housing people locally carries on. And it's a huge motivator for me personally, that we need to continue to invest in housing and, and not get to the point where we're satisfied with, um, the, well, I shouldn't say that. I, I, in my opinion, this is not something you fix, and then it's done. You need to keep your eye on the ball at all times. And that's part of what we've been challenged with in the past. We think we've fixed the housing problem and then we take our eye off the ball and it's very quick to turn. And so I, um, I think there's a big, uh, need to keep our eye on the ball on housing. Uh, new study tables and privacy booths at the library. Have you heard about this?

Allyn Pringle 10:53

I've heard about it...

Mayor Crompton 10:54

and they're coming. So that means, uh, there's exciting stuff happening there. Um, one other thing I want to chat about is that the municipality has launched, uh, the Whistler Alert, uh, which is a new mass notification system that goes by text, uh, you would sign up, uh, to be added to the Whistler Alert system so that, you know, when there's a problem in town, which I think is a, a big tool for us to just stay safe as a community. And I encourage everyone to get involved with that.

Brad Nichols 11:23

That sounds better than just checking Whistler Winter

Mayor Crompton 11:26

Whistler Winter, or Whistler Roads is was, yeah, there's, there's lots of good Facebook pages, but probably the Whistler Alert is a better tool.

Allyn Pringle 11:34

Somewhat more reliable.

Narrarator 11:37

You are listening to The Whistler Podcast, candid conversations on current events, local government, everything W histler.

Mayor Crompton 11:45

So today we're here to talk about the Legends of Whistler Tell the Story. And uh, I was so gratified to work with you guys on an event that I thought really celebrated where we've been as a community. Just for people who don't know anything about it, i'll give a little description of what we did. But on a Thursday night we had, um, Eldon Beck, Drew Meredith, Gary Watson and Jim Moody talk about the birth of the Village, how that happened, why that happened, why it's laid out like it is. On Friday night, we talked to Mike Douglas, Peter Alder, Hugh Smyth and Julia Murray about the mountains, about Whistler and, and Blackcomb and what we love about them, uh, how they've grown and developed as they have. Um, and how to think about skiing in our community, I thought was interesting. And then on Saturday morning we had Isabel McLaurin, Paul Forney, Joan Richoz and Steven Vogler tell stories about art in our community. And I think those three nights really blended because clearly there's no clear line between the Village and the mountains, or mountains in art. And so it was really neat to hear people bounce off each other day today. And I, I thank you for it. And I want to just hear how you experienced it and what you thought, uh, as you sat as an audience member and as an organizer of the event.

Allyn Pringle 13:11

Uh, well we had a lot of fun with it once it got going. Um, it was kind of a blur by the end of Saturday afternoon cause we added in the film screening of the Spearhead after the speakers and I think we hit about two o'clock on Saturday and realized that we'd actually finished. Which was something. But we had a lot of fun.

Mayor Crompton 13:35

Yeah, that's was good.

Brad Nichols 13:36

And it was great hearing people's stories and oral histories are such an important part of kind of like documenting a community. Um, and something that's funny with oral histories is that, you know, you get different perspectives on the same, same thing and then have, you know...

Mayor Crompton 13:52

Who is telling the truth here?

Brad Nichols 13:54

Um, but yeah, it's, it's just, it's a really great way for people to kind of reflect on their experiences and how in specifically Whistler, how Whistler shaped them and how they potentially help shape Whistler that we know today. And I think having that kind of varied group of people speak, you got to kind of good understanding, um, of what the community was like, uh, Eldon messaged us afterwards. Um, and Eldon was the, um, the architect who was hired by the municipality in the late 1970's to help design the village. And he messaged back and he said it was a one of my pleasures of my life to be one of the speakers at this. And he said he felt of a stronger sense of connection to Whistler than he ever had before.

Mayor Crompton 14:38

Wow.

Allyn Pringle 14:40

Well, I think he's come to Whistler a lot, but he doesn't usually get the community coming to talk to him about what the Village has meant to them. So he usually sees it from the municipal point of view, not so much the community point of view. So I think he had a lot. Very great experience.

Mayor Crompton 14:56

It was so tremendous to have him here. And he, and he, they showed up to everything and they, they, it was neat to see people sort of like, he's a bit of a rock star circle around him after events and, and just tell the stories back to him about, um, how they've been impacted by how the Village is laid out and the stories they remember about, uh, how it's been used. It was, uh, it was neat. Uh, you said oral histories, the word oral histories, are oral histories, um, dealt with differently in the museum world than documentary history. And are they becoming more a part of...

Brad Nichols 15:39

I think a lot of'em it's just, uh, a good way of like, kind of documenting people's experiences. And in a museum, you know, it is kind of slightly academic and you kind of keep them kind of in line of certain things that you kind of want explained that maybe things that we don't understand that we kind of want to get out of them. So you kinda try to guide them instead of, cause you kind of have people that just might rant on and on. So I mean usually you go in with an idea of what they want to, what you want them to kind of speak on. But uh, yeah.

Mayor Crompton 16:11

And so what were you interested in from Eldon's perspective?

Brad Nichols 16:16

Um, I mean, cause he's done a couple interviews or oral histories with the museum over the years and it's just, um, you know, just, it's, it's always, you could ask him the same question, but he could have a different story or a different anecdote or reflecting on it differently than he has before. So it's always good to sometimes to go back to people and I think he's an important part of Whistler's stories. So it's always good to have him.

Allyn Pringle 16:44

Well, and I think having him with the other people who were on the stage who came at the Village from a very different perspective, they weren't so much designing it as actually trying to build it. Um, it put a different perspective on what he had to say and it was not just this is what we envisioned, but this is how we did it.

Mayor Crompton 17:04

Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was really interesting too to hear Jim and Eldon bounce off each other. Jim, who's doing the planning of all of this and, and, and Eldon who's doing the design side of things and to hear how they worked together and how it finds itself on the ground. How many years later are we now? We're, when was the...

Allyn Pringle 17:26

'78 they broke ground officially. Tthey constructed in 79 so...

Mayor Crompton 17:32

Yeah. And, and, and 40 years later I was telling to, after he says, it's, it's working as I had dreamed, which is kind of a neat thing to be able to say. It's working as I dreamed. Um, the next night was ski. And what jumped out at you from that conversation about skiing?

Brad Nichols 17:52

I think it was really great, um, having the different generations of how people came here and why they came here. Um, I mean with Julia being kind of born here and then growing up here and how Whistler influencer to, you know, become a ski racer and go to the Olympics. Um, and we're Hugh Smyth, like, you know, coming here the first season and working and then the impact that he has had here and like, you know, with Blackcomb after moving from Whistler Mountain and eventually the, the peak to peak. I mean he tells the past 50 years in his story himself. Yeah.

Mayor Crompton 18:29

His life story is 50 years of the ski hill. I guess that's what was the most exciting thing for me is that the builders, the founders of our community, are still here to tell us the stories. And uh, like you say, Hugh's life is the story of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains in a lot of ways.

Allyn Pringle 18:53

That's part of why we enjoy doing the oral history so much is because Whistler as a resort is so young that so many of the people who are here at the beginning are still here and they're still able to talk to you about their own experiences. You're not just going after people who came and heard stories from them secondhand. Yeah.

Brad Nichols 19:13

And sometimes when you have people in these situations, it could be Legends of Whistler or just sitting around and doing an oral history. It's like sometimes you can ask them a question and they might not have ever reflected on that before. And it's kind of interesting getting those answers out of them and like how they kind of feel about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Mayor Crompton 19:31

And then, uh, on a Saturday morning, uh, I thought it was such, it was such a neat different setting to sit and hear one person sit in a chair and, and, and recount stories and have Stephen read sections of his book was really cool too. Um, what jumped out at you from Saturday morning?

Allyn Pringle 19:51

Trying to remember Saturday morning?

Brad Nichols 19:57

Uh, I think, you know, always hearing Isabelle speak, cause Isabelle came here before the idea of building the ski hill and her and her husband Don, who was a forester and kind of, um, you know, they were experiences before the whole hoopla of wanting to build the ski Hill here and you know, sure. Saying that like, you know, they bought their, their, their lot for$800 and they're like, that's a lot of money. Um, you know, and just hearing that and just how different it is from, you know, when they first came up here, I mean when they came up, you could get here by train and I think around 58 highway 99 was, you know...

Allyn Pringle 20:34

Highway would be a stretch.

Brad Nichols 20:34

It would be a stretch, uh, kind of logging roads that intersect with each other. And you would kind of drive up here in about 1958, which I think, uh, I believe Don did, or the late fifties.

20:45

He has photos of it, yeah.

Brad Nichols 20:46

Yeah. So I mean, just their experience in that is just totally different. And you know, her also tying back to knowing a lot of the, um, um, the pioneers that were here at the turn of the century, kind of in Myrtle Phillip and you know, Myrtle Philip who came here in 1911 first time and she lived till 1980, 86. So she saw it took her three days to get here to yeah. Being kind of starting to become an international ski destination and like bridging those kind of two uh, two, two narratives and kind of experiences is, uh, was neat to her to see her reflect on that.

Mayor Crompton 21:26

And Pete, some of the stories we totally missed, like Peter Alder was here in the forties with BC Electric putting up the grid hydro lines. Yeah. You didn't actually get to access them till the 1960s, but they were here. Yeah. There's so many more stories that those people need to tell us. It's like we could do that every week is have that same group of people tell stories and you wouldn't run out.

Brad Nichols 21:51

Yeah. The, the dries not, uh, the wells not dry yet.

Mayor Crompton 21:56

True. Uh, speaking of that, do you have any favorite stories of Whistler that, that you, uh, have heard, told that kind of sit in your brain and your who you are? Oh, I love mine is I just can't get over Gary Watson telling the story and I, I, I've told it a couple times, but, uh, Gary was telling me about his first time coming to Whistler, where he parked his car south and hiked up over the back of Whistler mountain and saw the Valley for the first time. And he said, it's a love affair. And he was there because in 1961 they were talking about the 1968 Olympics. And I asked him, I said, Gary, this, so this is a Vancouver-Whistler bid, just like the 2010 games, which is the way I've always thought about it. And he said, no, it was a, it was a Whistler 1968 Whistler bid. And I said, so you were going to build a hockey rink and a speed skating oval and ski jumps? And he said, yeah, it was preposterous. Like, and yet it's the foundation on which this whole world-class ski resort has been built, which is one of the very first people who dreamed the dream thought and thinks that the concept of it was preposterous. You know? I just love that story. It's cool. It encourages me to think big thoughts and to and to dream big dreams, which I think is important for our community. It's what Whistler has been for a long time.

Brad Nichols 23:23

I like to that it was almost kind of like 50 years of incubating that idea from them going down to the Squaw Valley Olympics in 1960 to them actually hosting it in 2010 it's almost 50 years.

Mayor Crompton 23:36

Yeah. And it happened.

Brad Nichols 23:37

And it's neat that Gary got to see that whole transition from, you know, being a small town with no highway to it. To hosting international, the international sporting event.

Allyn Pringle 23:51

Small town might also be a stretch.

Mayor Crompton 23:55

It was not a small town. No highway, no small town. I mean these were, it was empty.

Allyn Pringle 24:02

It was a fishing resort and some logging camps.

Mayor Crompton 24:05

Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. Just last thing. Yeah. Before we go ahead do, do we have oral histories, uh, or does the museum archives or I do you know about the Lil'wat of the Squamish with oral histories of, of the Squamish and the Lil'wat here? Uh,

Brad Nichols 24:25

We do have some core like, um, documents and stuff that have come through the museum from projects that were done through the Royal BC Museum in the sixties and seventies and kind of like, uh, the, the stories about this area? Um, we don't have a lot, we haven't done a lot of oral, like us going out and doing oral histories, but, um, and that's something that we would, would love to explore.

Mayor Crompton 24:47

The, this was tremendous. Thank you. And the construction of the Village, um, temporary exhibit you had was terrific. I love seeing those photos of, of Eldon and, and the original designs. Um, it's neat to be able to see and live with that history. So I encourage anybody to get into your museum and see, get into our museum and see what's there. What you're open 11 to five every day except Thursdays. We're open til nine. Okay. Nine on Thursday. Anything final you want to ask or say?

Allyn Pringle 25:19

Well, well, I mean, if you can't come to Whistler, you can always find us online. There are a lot of photographs that you can see online.

Mayor Crompton 25:27

Yeah, and in preparing to moderate, I spent a lot of time on the Whistler Museum website.

Allyn Pringle 25:31

It's a rabbit hole.

Mayor Crompton 25:32

Yeah. And there's tons of information. It's amazing.

Brad Nichols 25:35

Well, I mean, being in where we are with the museum space being fairly limited, it's writing stories. We write a log in a story every week. So it's a way to kind of transcend our physical space and to tell those other narratives that might not be in a, in the museum itself.

Mayor Crompton 25:51

Thanks for coming into the Mountain FM studio. It has been a real pleasure to chat with you both and thank you again for all the work that you did on the Legends of Whistler. Thanks again.

Allyn Pringle 26:02

Thank you.

Narrarator 26:03

You've been listening to the Whistler podcast, candid conversations about everything Whistler. To find out more about the Whistler Podcast, visit whistler.ca/ whistlerpodcast.