Godfather of Freeskiing Mike Douglas joins Mayor Jack Crompton at the Mountain FM Whistler studio for episode #4 of The Whistler Podcast. Find out what brought Mike to Whistler, hear the story of the creation of the first ever twin tip ski and learn more about Protect Our Winters Canada.
Godfather of Freeskiing Mike Douglas joins Mayor Jack Crompton at the Mountain FM Whistler studio for episode #4 of The Whistler Podcast. Find out what brought Mike to Whistler, hear the story of the creation of the first ever twin tip ski and learn more about Protect Our Winters Canada.
Narrarator: 0:02
The Whistler Podcast. Candid conversations about everything Whistler. With host, Mayor Jack Crompton.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 0:08
Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Whistler Podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Mayor Jack Crompton. As always, I want to acknowledge that we live, we work, we play on the traditional territory of the Lil'wat Nation and the Squamish Nation. Thank you to them. I also want to thank Mountain FM for having us here in the Whistler studio. And by us, I mean me and Mike Douglas: Whistler icon, designer of the twin tip ski, godfather of free skiing and five-time Pique News 'Favorite Whistlerite'. Welcome, Mike.
Mike Douglas: 0:44
Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 0:46
Right now. So, uh, what brought you to Whistler? Why are you here? I guess it's skiing, eh?
Mike Douglas: 0:52
I really liked skiing and this seemed to be a really good place to ski. So and I decided...
Mayor Jack Crompton: 0:00
Well chosen!
Mike Douglas: 0:59
I came for a season, and I'm now in my 31st year, so I'm still trying to get over it.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 1:05
Maybe that might be it. Like, if you've been here for 30 years, you become officially a Whistler icon.
Mike Douglas: 1:10
Oh, that could be.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 1:11
Okay. All right. Let's we'll hand that out each year. Sounds good. Ah, Whistler news. So we the way our podcast works is we have front end where we talk about what's happening in town. And then we go a little bit deeper later. Later in the show we're going to talk about, um, skiing, and we're going to talk about climate. But right now, let's talk taxes. Last night, Council passed our 2020 budget, and this year we've moved the whole process into the previous calendar year. So we prepped our 2020 budget in 2019, which you may say to yourself, 'shouldn't that be the way things generally operate?' But in most municipalities or many municipalities in the Province of British Columbia, that process takes until about May. And our Director of Finance, Carlee Price, and, uh, Councillor Ralph Forsythe, who is leading the audit and finance portfolio, uh, decided it would be a good idea that we get this all done so that we go into 2020 with a full budget. So this year's budget has a 2.8 per cent property tax increase, 2 per cent utility increase. Um, which is really focused on our three areas of our three focus areas, which are climate action, um, community balance–which is this idea that the people who work in the tourism industry should should be the beneficiaries of that industry–and third housing. So that's the focus of this budget for us. You'll see a lot of those pieces throughout it. Um, I just wanted to give that to you and ask if you have any questions.
Mike Douglas: 2:49
I'm not gonna lie, Jack. I've heard some grumbling from my neighbors about why? Why the 2.8% increase? I mean, people are, people are tight.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 2:59
Yeah, oh for sure.
Mike Douglas: 2:59
They want to know. I mean, I think I think people around here are reasonable, but there's a little confusion as to where that's going.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 3:06
So every year, the 2.8 per cent tax crease is on the full amount of money we collect. It's not 2.8 percent for each person. It's 2.8 per cent on the full amount of taxation taken. So that will change person to person based on how your home increases in value or decreases in value. And each year we look at the things that we are doing and the things that we aspire to do. We cost them, and then we prepare and consider a budget, and we started at around 4 per cent, as what we thought made sense for this budget, and really tried to cut pieces out of it so that we could accomplish our goals but not be taxing as much. This year, a lot of it has to do with taking seriously our climate challenge. We we need to do things differently than we've done in the past. We need to focus on building more kilometers of Valley Trail. We need to focus on more people riding transit, um, and a benchmark against the rest of the province. That's not a huge number. Vancouver is considering 9.3 per cent right now.
Mike Douglas: 4:26
Yikes.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 4:26
Their challenges around climate, as far as the actions that they are going to take, are going to be more costly than ours. Um, but for us, we feel like 2.8 per cent accomplishes the tasks that we need to without pushing up the cost to be here. And generally, that'll be $75 in real money on a $1.5 million house, so your taxes will go up 75 bucks on a $1.5 million house.
Mike Douglas: 4:56
Right. I mean, it's not it's not really my style to typically defend politicians, but one thing I will say...
Mayor Jack Crompton: 5:02
Hey, carry on, continue to defend!
Mike Douglas: 5:05
...as as someone who is kind of dug in on this whole climate change thing and I work and do a ton of research and I'm connected to a lot of smart people. They say that we need to start investing in adaptation, in mitigating these risks now, because what might be 2.8 per cent now could be 20 per cent in 10 years.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 5:27
The foreshore in any Metro Vancouver city that's on the water is going to be unbelievably expensive if they don't start investing now, yeah, it's true.
Mike Douglas: 5:38
So So, while you know, nobody likes an increase, if I know that it's going towards sort of future thinking, which which I think we need more of, um,
Mayor Jack Crompton: 5:46
you'll pay your $75?
Mike Douglas: 5:48
I'll pay my 75 bucks and shut my mouth.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 5:49
The start of the season. It's thin up there. Have you skied?
Mike Douglas: 5:55
I've skied one day. It is thin. And I'll be honest. My 31 seasons here I am struggling to remember the mountain being open and looking this thin.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 6:07
And how does a person deal with a thin start of the season?
Mike Douglas: 6:10
Well, fortunately, we have a multi-million dollar snowmaking system that...
Mayor Jack Crompton: 6:14
Thank you Olympics!
Mike Douglas: 6:16
Yes, thank you Olympics and the good folks at WB that had the foresight. Ah, you know you can ski. Yeah, and that, you know, is the lifeblood of this town in the winter. So the fact that they've got a slideable surface up there is great. Mother Nature is not cooperating right now. Hopefully, she'll come around and and we'll get a little bit of love, but it's it's challenging, and it's, you know, it's not just challenging, um, from a business perspective. But I think from a motivational perspective. Like people, this is what people people aren't. Most people aren't in Whistler to get rich. They're here to enrich their souls and their bodies and their minds and by doing cool stuff. And so I think, more than anything for me, I'm just missing like those days. I love the days pre-Christmas where you get out there. It's not so busy, and you can kind of have that the time to yourself a little.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 7:08
It'll come. Ah, it always does. Except for 1971 or some people tell the story about the year that the mountain didn't open.
Mike Douglas: 7:18
Yeah, that was pre-snowmaking.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 7:20
Okay, Perfect. So and the mountains open and I bump into people all the time. And if you ask someone from Texas as they walk into the Fairmont how was your day skiing–as I did yesterday–their answer was "terrific!" So people are enjoying it.
Mike Douglas: 7:33
That's the most important thing, if you know what and it and it's we're spoiled here, we expect a lot. But the fact is, if you get out there and slide on snow, chances are you have a smileon your face.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 7:42
Last year was the biggest snow, December on record. And by December 4 we were really, really thin. We'd had some early snow, so it could still be big.
Mike Douglas: 7:55
It'll come!
Mayor Jack Crompton: 7:55
Whistler Film Festival. You have had a film in the Whistler Film Festival in the past. If you had more than one?
Mike Douglas: 8:00
I've had Ah, we've had a film in most years since 2011, I think? Oh, not every year, but most years.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 8:10
Is there one this year?
Mike Douglas: 8:11
We do not have one in this year.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 8:12
Okay
Mike Douglas: 8:13
But But I'm excited. I love Whistler Film Fest. It's
Mayor Jack Crompton: 8:15
Opening tonight, Wednesday, December–what's the date?
Mike Douglas: 8:20
We're the 4th.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 8:22
December fourth. All right, so Wednesday, December 4, we're opening with your film festival. Excited to be a part of that. It's at such a perfect time in the season where that energy is starting to come around skiing, and we get to see some films that are mountain films, as part of the festival.
Mike Douglas: 8:39
Yeah, I I kind of like what I like about the Whistler Film Fest, is it sort of brings Hollywood and the mountain world together, and we all mingle at parties, which is super strange, because it doesn't happen in any of the other events or circles that I travel in at all. So it's it's kind of neat to rub shoulders with these Hollywood directors or Netflix executives or whatever, but also at the same time, be wearing a plaid shirt hanging out with my buddies that you know, I'm up in the mountains with every day and you know there's a few. There are a few good local films this year. One that I'm looking forward to is ah, Call Me Crazy, which is about Mike Wiegele, the heliski pioneer made ah, by Origin produced by Origin and directed by Andrea Wing. So that's something I'm looking forward to. Also, Reuben Krabbe and Jay Trusler have their new film Nebula. Reuben's is crazy mad scientist photographer that went after this crazy shot. Um, and there's quite a bit of, actually local-ish sort of mountain content. So I'm I'm stoked.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 9:42
Yeah, a lot of credit. So Whistler Film Festival for...this is an international film festival, but to include our community–credit to them on that. Ah, a couple other things. I just want to note Wister Housing Authority rental buildings have been opened at Bear Paw and in Cheakamus Crossing. So that's great.
Mike Douglas: 9:59
Amazing. So good.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 9:59
So that a couple more pieces of housing. Skating is open at the Whistler Olympic Plaza.
Mike Douglas: 10:05
Saw that yesterday.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 10:06
Get out there. Those little hockey sticks that are like this long, I'm–terrific. You should see some of the moves that, like I can score goals.
Mike Douglas: 10:16
I was, yeah, I was out there. Ah, yesterday and I'm not gonna lie. I stole the kids toboggan and a couple of rips on the little snow dome there. So uh...
Mayor Jack Crompton: 10:24
Great Mike, thanks for talking Whistler news with me. I think we live in a great place and this time of year–so exciting. So it's neat to hear thoughts.
Narrarator: 10:36
You were listening to The Whistler Podcast. Candid conversations on current events, local government and everything Whistler.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 10:43
Mike, I've one of the reasons I was excited to have you on is to talk about skiing, obviously. But your interest in your work on climate has been something that's been really interesting to me. And I feel like it's something that you share with our community. You share with me, um and so I think that connection between skiing and our climate is an interesting one. So tell me a little bit about your history with skiing and how that finds you in a place where your passionate and and and and making the case for why we, as communities and ski industry in the world, need to to respond?
Mike Douglas: 11:22
Well, I mean, I skiing is what brought me to Whistler. So coming here and and fulfilling that ski dream I had, and then going up onto the Horstman Glacier on Blackcomb and training and becoming sort of the the high level skier that I was able to become. It all happened here, and as I was training on the glacier, I realized "man over the years, this is changing a lot", and it's it's not just changing linearly, but it's actually accelerating with the change. That glacier was deteriorating and that kind of woke me up to the the whole climate change thing. And and then, you know, as you dig deeper into it, of course, I think we should all be concerned about climate change. Humanity's future depends on it, but more immediately we're a community that depends on having snow on the mountains, to put food on the table. I mean, let's face it, our economy here depends on on climate, so it's a big deal, and it's in our faces every single day.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 12:23
And where did you learn to ski? Where your first turns?
Mike Douglas: 12:26
Well, I grew up on Vancouver Island, so Mount Washington is kind of where I first learned to ski, and Whistler was always that place just just over the Coast Mountains. I could actually see the Coast Mountains from my house that I grew up in and I knew that Whistler was back there and this big sort of emerging ski resort in the eighties. And, ah, you know, I'll never forget pulling into this town for the first time. And it was like, oh, this is the big leagues. This is where I want to be.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 12:52
There's big mountains if you're if you're, if you're ski touring on Vancouver Island, you can find yourself–Strathcona Park–there's there's big stuff out there.
Mike Douglas: 13:02
Yeah, for sure. I mean, physically, the mountains on Vancouver Island were significant, but ah, but this was the ski scene. Sure, like you know, is a big deal is like there was like Aspen and Vail in Sun Valley and Jackson Hole, and Whistler was becoming one of those iconic spots. And as a young skier who's just pouring through magazines as soon as they come out, I wanted to be in one of those spots and and that's more what it was about for me.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 13:32
Being with your people.
Mike Douglas: 13:34
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was cool. Like I moved to this town where all of a sudden, like, yeah, year round. All these people that are just like you and think like you and get excited the same way you do. And that was, that was the start of it.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 13:45
Yeah. Tell me the story. Why? Why is there this? Tell me the story of the twin tip ski. Quick about it. I want to understand that I've heard it talked about in relation to you, but tell me the story.
Mike Douglas: 13:57
Yeah, I mean, the cliff notes version is I was a freestyle skier. That's well–I was a free skier back in the day. I just love skiing. And then I got in a mogul competition, ended up doing well, made it to the Canadian Freestyle Team, took a run at the Lillehammer Olympics in '94. Didn't make it, but but got that far. And then I went into coaching and started coaching moguls. But through the mid-nineties, skiing was really in a hard spot, because the energy was was coming out of. It was viewed as an old person sport. Snowboarding was new on the scene. Anyone who was cool and young was getting into snowboarding. And as a lifelong skier, I love the energy I saw in snowboarding, but I still wanted to ski. And so we looked at snowboarding it's like, well, why can't we do the same kind of tricks on skis? And the first thing you know, once we started doing that, my buddies and I, we realized that, you know, if we had a ski that was actually made to do the stuff, that we could go backwards and hit jumps and had the right kind of shape and profile, we could actually do something with this. And so we ended up coming up with the idea for the twin tip ski, shopped it around the ski industry, Salomon jumped on board, created the 1080 ski, which now is regarded as one of the best-selling skis of all time, and everything kind of launched from there.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 15:09
Do you remember your first times landing backwards or taking off backwards on a twin tip ski? Did it change the way...
Mike Douglas: 15:16
It was, I mean, it was it was such a not only was a unique shape of ski, but it had a really simple was this yellow graphic with just simple logos on it that looked not like anything else before. And ah, you know, everywhere we went, people were just like whoa! And it was, ah, you know, there was a year or two there that that it was like, you know, you're you're on the crest of the wave and it's just you're just riding it and those were good times.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 15:43
It's interesting. I mean, it's it's neat to hear the story of being a part of something that really it fundamentally change the industry. And when you're doing it, you're probably dreaming of that big change. But really, it's you and a couple guys and prototypes of the ski trying to find out whether landing and taking off backwards is something that's going to catch and take off across the...
Mike Douglas: 16:09
Yeah, I was, I mean, and and keep in mind like we went to nine ski companies with the idea with the sort of the proposal to make this twin tip ski. Eight of the nine laughed at us and told us we had no idea what we were doing, and it would never work. And the funny thing is, is now you know, here we are 20 years down the road and I'm working with Protect Our Winters Canada as a, you know, working on trying to fight climate change. And everywhere I go to speak, there's always people in the crowd that are like "this is never gonna work. You're wasting your time"
Mike Douglas: 16:40
Totally!
Mike Douglas: 16:40
And I just keep coming back to that honestly. And I'm like, "Nno, we've gotta believe, like, there is a way to do this." And if if we want it bad enough, if we can convince enough people that this is the way forward, I think it could work.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 16:54
Wave skiing have hasn't taken off, you know?
Mayor Jack Crompton: 16:57
And you know what? Yes, I went and skied on waves in Hawaii, which was scary and interesting. It was an experiment. Um, but I remember coming back from the trip and going, Yeah, no one's ever gonna do this like it's absurd. You know, it's a totally absurd. Like you need a jet ski. You need have you need to have a lot of water sense like we had, you know, the Red Bull Big wave team supporting us on that trip. And, um, but I I remember both Cody and I were like, yeah, that's not gonna work. It was cool to try. Like, it's like one of those things. Like, you dream of something really crazy and then you go do it, but yeah,
Mayor Jack Crompton: 17:30
What did you...I mean it's not gonna happen. But did you enjoy skiing on waves? Like, was it?
Mike Douglas: 17:35
I enjoyed skiing on waves when I wasn't terrified, which was about half the time.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 17:42
All right, right on. Let's get back to to our current context around the climate–you were talking about the changes that you've seen on Blackcomb Glacier. I grew up as a kid coming up here in Dave Murray summer ski camp, and we were skiing on Whistler in the summers. Which is amazing to say now. I mean, you can go stand in the middle of, uh and there's no snow. Um, so tell me about the work of Protect Our Winters. Uh, how did how do you find yourselves where we are today? How did Protect Our Winter start? And I know Canada's fairly new as far a POW's concerned. Tell us the story.
Mike Douglas: 18:21
So Protect Our Winters was founded in 2007 by Jeremy Jones, sort of legendary pro snowboarder from Lake Tahoe, California. And he was basically like a lot of us–was out in the mountains and started to see the actual effects of climate change happening before his eyes. And he I looked around and said, "you know, nobody's really taking this seriously or doing anything about it." And so he decided to form, Protect Our Winters, got a bunch of his buddies together, and they started, uh, you know, speaking out, getting active. And in those 13 years since then, Protect Our Winters has become a huge organization with 13 employees in the U. S. They go, ah, two to three times a year to Washington, D. C. to lobby Congress and the Senate and really speak up and say, "climate is an issue that affects us all." But it really affects us, is mountain people are livelihoods depend on winter, and, um, and they've been quite effective in turning the tide and winning some key political battles down in the U. S. And it's become quite a a big global organization. Now I think Protect Our Winters is in 13 countries now. We started the Canadian chapter just over a year ago and have already, um, created quite a good movement here. We now have, um I think we're up to around 30 professional athlete ambassadors that are out speaking and a lot of Whistlerites. Um, we also set up 10 chapters across the country. So we've got regional chapters and there's one right here in Whistler where locals can get involved in local issues because, as sort of like, I'm I'm the Chair of the Board of Protect Our Winters Canada. I focus mostly on the organization as a whole nationally, and, um, but there are, a bunch passionate people here in Whistler is led by Deanna Duggan, who works at Origin. And she is taking a passionate group of people here in town and getting involved with local issues.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 20:22
And local issues. As far as climate actually concerned are what? Education? What kind of work is POW doing locally?
Mike Douglas: 20:30
Yes. Oh, so Pow has sort of three pillars that we operate under: um, educate, advocate and inspire. And so when we talk about educate, we take professional athletes to schools across Canada, and we we bring ah, curriculum created by the climate scientists at the University of Waterloo. That sort of digs into the science and, you know, shows how this is happening. And then also we we've, learn to sort of focus a lot of it on what you could do, and so we've kind of created this this curriculum around how to take action on climate. And a lot of it is, is really about speaking up and getting vocal, because we need a lot of people doing it imperfectly rather than just a few people trying to be perfect. And so that's that's one big pillar. Um, advocate. I mean, you're the Mayor of Whistler. You've heard from us!
Mayor Jack Crompton: 21:24
Yeah, for sure!
Mike Douglas: 0:00
We go and we talked to local council and try to get local issues regarding around climate to the forefront of your thinking. And we're doing that all across the country. And then inspire. And and this is an interesting one. One thing that we've learned is that you can't scare people into taking action. By talking about all the doom and gloom of climate, um, we find that people tend to tune out and turn off. It's it's just too overwhelming to think about. So what we're trying to do is is look at the positives around making change. Making changes in your diet, vegetarian lifestyle. Most of our athlete group now is vegetarian, or at least mostly vegetarian, and they're seeing the health benefits of tha. Electrification of transportation. Ah, few of us are now driving. EV's or riding e-bikes or this kind of thing. We're changing the way we move. And not only that, it's not a hardship, and this is what we're trying to show people. This is actually super positive. I mean, I love my electric car, like I love it. I rode my bike in here today. To do this and being outside on this rainy December day is is this feels good.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 22:34
You know, it's an interesting, um, challenge and opportunity in that we, as governments and as communities, are putting infrastructure in place that allows that shift in behavior to be taken by individuals and the work that you do to inspire people to take advantage of those additional tools toward action are crucial because one of the things that we see in government sometimes is that we put in infrastructure that will one day allow a modal shift away from driving, uh, internal combustion engine vehicle towards driving a uh, EV, or it'll we put in trail infrastructure to allow you to commute on an e-bike. And the uptake is sometimes slower than we'd like to be. That inspiration, those stories that that, um of the successful modal shift for people in the way they live in the way they commute in the way they do things is great, because what it does is it takes those tools and puts them to work. I think about the bike lanes in Vancouver. It took five years or six years for them, really to sort of start to take a handle and change the way people commute. And you can get to work now quicker on your bike, then you can in a vehicle. And that's a story that was told, maybe imperfectly at the beginning, like you say, and and it is continued to be told in perfectly. But the uptake starts to happen and change is realized, which is a big deal. So I think that inspiration pieces is fascinating.
Mike Douglas: 24:19
Yeah, I mean one of the challenges of local politics, and you know, this probably better than anyone, is that you work in in three or four year cycles, and it's really hard to get to make a change in in that time period and get it to stick and see have everyone have the naysayers see the positives of the other side before you don't get re-elected. And and I think the issue I see with that is that, um it's really hard to gain traction in those short term cycles. I remember bike lanes going into Vancouver, and the grumbling like, "this is gonna ruin business and Burrard Street" and all these these things that we'd hear and yet now, you see it work. I was in the city last week and drove along there, and there were almost equal number of bikes in those lanes as there were cars on the road. And that's to me that's beautiful.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 25:09
There's a great photo I showed to you a couple days ago of Finland of 1000 children in winter, their bikes in front of a school in Finland. Look it up. Just search Finland bikes school. And it's one of the most inspiring photos I've seen of just what a change in the way our communities operate can actually do. Kids ride to school. 1000 of 1200. It's pretty impressive.
Mike Douglas: 25:36
Absolutely.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 25:38
So, speaking of inspiration, tell us about electric Greg.
Mike Douglas: 25:42
Well, we I, um I mean day job these days is, is being a filmmaker and I have ah little team we work company called Switchback Entertainment, and we make usually adventure film short films, short documentaries, sport kind of stuff and and film it. We just had release recently on online on Salomon YouTube channels called Electric Greg, and we sort of follow Greg Hill through his mission to try and ski and climb a 100 different mountain peaks without burning any fossil fuels in the process. So ah, it's called Electric Greg because he purchased an electric vehicle. He also has an electric bike, and he used only those and his own foot power to tackle these peaks. And while the film is sort of about Greg doing that, it's much more about Greg making this personal transformation in the way that he moves through the mountains and and in an effort to sort of inspire people and show them that it can be done a different way. And I know you know, it's the film that has just come out and seems to be getting good feedback. But I know for me just working on the film and being a friend with Greg, he inspired me. He's part of the reason why I switched to electric vehicles. Why I've stopped Heliskiing. Why I've kind of changed the way I move in the mountains.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 27:04
Uou don't help the ski anymore?
Mike Douglas: 27:06
Uh, no.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 27:07
Wow, that is a huge change for you.
Mike Douglas: 27:10
Yeah, I mean, it was it was one of those things where I I realized, like, "do I need to do this?" I mean, there's certain things I need to do to do my job, unfortunately, like air travel is something I can't get around. I'm trying to cut down on it, but I still do use airplanes. Um, but if there's something in my life that I don't have to do, I try to cut that out. And I tried, I've made an effort over the last about six years now to try and reduce my personal carbon footprint every year in some way.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 27:43
That's great. We're just talking earlier about this moment for you. That was fairly interesting and seminal around this discussion and how Whistler has had some success. And we've made some big transitions. So tell us about that 2003 downtown Vancouver conversation that you were a part of.
Mike Douglas: 28:03
well, back and I think was 2003 Whistler Blackcomb put together sort of a think tank. It was, ah, two day summit where they brought in all these interesting minds from around BC and business community and forward thinkers. And fortunately, I got to be part of it. The big topic of discussion is "what do we want Whistler to be, or Whistler Blackcomb to be in 20 years?" And and I mean, we're almost at that 20 year point now. And in that I remember the big greatest threat that we identified to Whistler as a resort was climate change. I mean, we are a place that makes most of our money in the winter. Depends on snow. If the snow is not here, the people don't show up. And how, you know, assuming that we can't stop climate change–I mean, I think we can slow it down–are we going to stop it? Probably not. We have to adapt. Adaptation is key. And so, um, at that point, Whistler Blackcomb really made a shift toward it definitely in their planning, about how to turn this place into much more of a year round resort. And how do we get people on those lifts in the summer. And if you go back to that time, you would see a big shift in the way the bike park worked, for example, and and the promotion that went behind that, the investment that went into that. It was also, those were the early days when the Peak to Peak started popping into people's minds. And we all know how contentious of an issue that was back in you know, the late first decade.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 29:31
It still amazes me that I was a person at the time that thought, this is such a dumb idea. And now I, like, use it every single day.i f I'm skiing. It's, it's– I was wrong.
Mike Douglas: 29:42
I know it' it's a massive tourist attraction. I heard a stat. I was in a ski industry event, and I heard this stat from the President of Jackson Hole. He told me that Whistler sells more lift tickets in the summer than Jackson Hole does in the winter.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 29:57
Wow
Mike Douglas: 29:58
That's a few years ago now, but it shows how that transition and adaptation has worked in our favor, and I think you know, it's one oftThe things I love about this community is we're not afraid to think forward, to do things a little bit differently, to take that chance. And I think we're you know, we're kind of sitting at a little bit of a crossroads here again where you know, Whistler, how are we gonna to fight climate change? What is going to be our stand as a community? What are we going to do?
Mayor Jack Crompton: 30:31
Yeah, it's interesting. Um, British Columbia is in an interesting spot where there's no coal fired power plants to take off the grid. There's no big, shiny climate actions to take, but the ones that we can take are massive in their impact. So plugging in the full EV er fleet in British Columbia, you're plugging into hydropower, not into coal fire power like you would be elsewhere. So B. C's set up really well for success. They might not have the big, shiny pulled down a coal fire power plant, but they're well set up to take action, and I think the same is true in Whistler. There's a tremendous amount of work that's been done over the last 20 years through things like Whistler 2020 and the people that have advocated for our our environment like AWARE and who have made those investments, like adapting to a full year round business and have put their minds to setting us up for success. And in some ways, I think what's most important for us is just a take advantage of those tools and put them to work. Which is what I'm eager for us as a as a government to do, and eager for us as a community to do, is just put those tools to work. And it's exciting because, like I say, if you plug in the full vehicle fleet of British Columbia into hydropower, you are going to make a change in in the world and the same is true here. If we're going to do tourism in a different way that inspires people to think differently about how they travel, it's going to be a global change which is is exciting to be ableto think about being a part of.
Mike Douglas: 32:18
Well and you guys is as as government, um, be it municipal, provincial federal, have a responsibility and and the ability to shift the way that people do it. I mean I'll be honest with you. I could not have afforded to have bought an EV this past summer without the government incentives. When when the federal, and the provincial government stacked those incentives all of a sudden I was like, you know what? This is gonna cost us a little bit, but I believe in this. And with this little help that came, you know, it was a $10,000 kickback I got actually, which I guess was little in the price of the car, but but it helped to the point where I went, okay, I think I could do this. And that stuff makes a difference. And it's the same when we talk about carbon pricing, carbon tax. It's like we have to commit to incentivizing the things that we want and and penalizing the things that we don't want it. And I mean and that really on a scale that will make a difference, that has to come from government. And it is working because a report I just read a couple weeks ago here said that 10% of new vehicle sales in British Columbia are now EV's, which is, I think, the highest adoption in North America,
Mayor Jack Crompton: 33:33
And that's gonna go through the roof now that cyber truck...
Mike Douglas: 33:36
Cyber truck
Mayor Jack Crompton: 33:38
...is is around. I was looking at yesterday, $50,000 US for a cyber truck. So price parody is coming close. And then you were telling the other day that your brake pads you don't change your...
Mike Douglas: 33:52
Well this is something that people, you know, When people look at EV's, they often say, okay, well, you don't have to put fuel in it. All right? So you save 100 bucks so every week or two or whatever, however often you gas up your car, which is true for sure. But one thing that people often overlook is the lack of maintenance. Yeah, so EV's are incredibly simple. They don't have an exhaust system. They don't have a coolant system. They don't have a transmission in the way we think of transmissions. There's no fluids floating around. You basically have brakes and your little electric motors that drive your wheels. And, um, the funny thing is, I recently did ah, road trip to Banff and back in my EV, and I swear on the drive between here and Banff– like 800 kilometers or whatever–I think I touched the brakes less than 10 times.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 34:39
And it's because they're regenerating the battery and that slows the vehicle?
Mike Douglas: 34:43
It's because we have these paddles in mine–it's a Kia Nero– and it's got these paddles and I can go down... I drove down the Duffy down all the switchbacks of the Duffy, I touched the brakes once. I thought I could get to the bottom without touching the brakes, I had to touch them once.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 34:56
One other thing I want to finish up with is, ah, you were telling me yesterday about steady state batteries and that there are people working on allowing jets to fly with batteries.
Mike Douglas: 35:11
Solid state batteries are are in the works, they're being running labs right now, they're not being tested in the field, but they are coming. And you know, a lot of people, alot of the naysayers when we talk about EV's or electrification of anything to do with transport are saying "well, lithium is not good". There's cobalt. There's all these these materials that are difficult to mine, they're damaging to the environment. There's truth to that, no question. But if I've learned anything about innovation in my time and and, you know, through the twin tip skis and all the skis and ski equipment I've worked on, you never get it right on your first attempt at something. But you learn from that attempt and you make it better. And then you make the next one better, and it usually takes three or four or five tries before you end up where you want to be. And I was really encouraged hearing about solid state batteries, because if the tests are going well, from what I hear and if if they continue to go well, they could be a reality by 2025. And they will absolutely revolutionize the world. They're made out of simple materials, glass and and saline, and it's like common materials that are found everywhere. They last five times longer than the current batteries. They hold three times as much charge. It's you know, but this is this is what this lithium ion system we're using now is something ...this is a stepping stone and we need to embrace it. We need to invest in it so that we can get to the next level.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 36:37
And you told me the one challenge we have now is that one in 100 explode something.
Mike Douglas: 36:41
Yeah, it's like there's volatility in all these batteries. But I also heard something really cool. So Harbor Air, who's sort of our local regional floatplane airline I guess you could call them. Ah, they are testing, I think it's like this week, they are testing an electric airplane, and they hope to turn their whole fleet electric by 2025.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 37:05
Maybe one day, Mike Douglas will heliski again.
Mike Douglas: 37:11
...flying my own drone and dragging myself up there, yeah.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 37:15
Um, Mike, that was fascinating. Uh, I'll be taking away this idea that, um when people say change is impossible, we won't make it through this–that sticking in your head–yeah, same thing I've seen twin tip skis be delivered to the world. And it obviously it's a little bit smaller than taking on climate. But I agree with you, like I think that we can be a part of addressing this challenge. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you for your work for our community around skiing, but also, I think, more importantly, for me anyway, around climate. I'm I'm grateful for it.
Mike Douglas: 38:00
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Mayor Jack Crompton: 38:01
Thanks for tuning in. Please come back. Looking for talking too soon.
Narrarator: 38:06
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.