The Whistler Podcast

Episode 18: What makes Whistler, Whistler? (with Feet Banks)

• Mayor Jack Crompton with special guest Feet Banks • Season 1 • Episode 18

Share episode

Whistler personality Feet Banks joins Mayor Jack Crompton on Episode 18 to discuss the characteristics that make Whistler a one-of-a-kind place to live and visit. 

 They cover the draw of the mountains, making and losing incredible friends, and community building in Whistler. Feet shares his secret for writing a great story and explains that time and space are necessary for the next generation to reach their full potential.

 Feet is a longstanding member of the Whistler community and Editor in Chief of Whistler-based Mountain Life Magazine. He is also the co-creator of the Heavy Hitting HorrorFest. He has been a familiar face and voice in the Sea to Sky Corridor for decades as a writer and filmmaker, public speaker and host for many prominent Whistler events.

Narrator:

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

Mayor Crompton:

Hellp everyone. Welcome to the Whistler Podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Jack Crompton. As always, I want to acknowledge that we live, we work, we play on the traditional unceded territories of the Lil'wat Nation and the Squamish Nation. We are grateful to be able to do this here. I also want to thank Mountain FM for their support in producing the Whistler Podcast. Today, I am so excited to be chatting to Feet Banks. Before we do that, give you some Whistler news. The RMOW and COVID-19 reopening update was provided to counsel earlier this week. Whistler has worked very closely with the provincial government to deliver a physically distanced, but hospitable visitor experience now that travel was encouraged around British Columbia. One of the goals we have is to make sure that people can remain physically distanced, that they get the message to stay home when sick and that they wash their hands. Dr. Henry has been very clear that where physical distancing isn't possible people should consider wearing a mask. Whistler Village is one of those places where on a weekend, physical distancing is challenging, so please consider wearing a mask when you are in the village. It's a great summer for the people of British Columbia to visit Whistler. The fact that there will be fewer people in our town and that there are big open spaces. So in alignment with Dr. Henry's suggestion, that we look for fewer faces and open spaces. I hope to see a lot of British Colombians visiting us here. Please set aside the days of July 14th, July 16th, July 20th and July 23rd for our Whistler Community Conversations. We're going to be hearing from our community and talking with our community about our shared experiences through the COVID-19 pandemic. The four conversations will focus on the four characteristics of Whistler's shared vision, our sense of place, the importance of our environment, our tourism based economy and the community. CEO, Ginny Cullin, and I will host the conversations along with a guest community community member for each of the sessions. Community members are also encouraged to contribute their ideas through a digital tool called thought exchange in advance of the sessions. You can view a detailed set of information about these events at whistler.ca/communityconversations. Thank you for your patience and respect for the trail closures over the last couple of months. Wastewater infrastructure and trail work improvements continue along the Miller Creek trail, which began on July 6th and continue for the summer. This trail will be closed until November when the new paved section of the Valley trail will be open for public use, and we can all travel on the Valley trail, right to function junction, sewer relining work between blueberry and the village along the Valley Trail there is complete. And the Valley trail reopened on July 1st,

Narrator:

You are listening to the Whistler podcast. Candid conversations on current events, local government and everything Whistler.

Mayor Crompton:

Today I am pleased to be speaking with Feet Banks. Feet is a longstanding member of the Whistler community. See the Sky community. He's the editor in chief of the Whistler based Mountain Life magazine. He's also a co-creator as people who know him are aware of the heavy hitting HorrorFest. He has been a familiar face and voice in the Sea to Sky corridor for decades as a writer and as a filmmaker public speaker, and a host for many prominent Whistler events. Welcome Feet. Thank you for doing this. I have to warn you. I also read your LinkedIn profile. I want to talk about that later, because you say some very, what's the word sort of serious things about yourself and your LinkedIn profile.

Feet Banks:

Yeah, I was forced into doing that and I have no recollection of it. So I'll plead the fifth until we get to that part of the conversation.

Mayor Crompton:

You do realize you cannot plead the fifth in Canada right now.

Feet Banks:

You can do whatever you want, right. We're not on the stand. So I'll plead the figurative fifth. Okay. That sounds, that sounds good. Yeah, no, it's great to be here, Jack. Thanks for having me.

Mayor Crompton:

Hey, you looking into your profile, I've always sort of thought that you were always here, but you grew up in Northern BC. Tell me about that. It sounds like Whistler was going from a smaller town to a larger town. Was the big city for you guys when you moved here.

Feet Banks:

It totally was. My parents grew up in the lower mainland, so they had been coming to Whistler since the sixties, you know, they would come up here and ski, they would scuba dive in Porto Cove and they would,you know, they just were city kids that enjoyed the wilderness. But in the early seventies, they left the city and moved up to Fraser Lake, lived off grid for six years while lived in an 18 by 16 foot cabin with no electricity, we just had a hole in the Lake for water and while they built their, you know, their house, they built it by hand, no mortgage. So it took six years to complete it. We basically lived on a little five acre patch of land at the end of a dirt road.

Mayor Crompton:

And were their neighbors?

Feet Banks:

Yeah. There was neighbors, you know, about,, a kilometer up the Lake. There'd be neighbors. It's kind of a fishing community in the summer. So there's fishing resorts and stuff, but there was definitely full time residents. It's about 45 minutes of dirt road outside of a mill and mining town called Fraser Lake. So, my dad was a mechanic. My mom worked in healthcare place up there and then at the mill and we'd ride the school bus, you know, wake up, get on the school bus in the dark, in the winter and get home in the dark. I remember when, when it was minus 40, you didn't have to go to school, but it was also minus 40. So you'd stay home to play. And if you spat, it would freeze before it would hit the ground.

Mayor Crompton:

Have you been back?

Feet Banks:

Oh yeah, they still have that land up there. They go back every summer and the house that they eventually ended up building, that had power and water and it's a beautiful log cabin kind of place that my folks built and they spend every summer up there and that's sort of our family cottage, I guess, if you want say.

Mayor Crompton:

And so do you spend a month up there every summer?

Feet Banks:

I like to try and spend as much time as I can up there. My son gets a little bit bored, but I definitely will. We'll probably spend two or three weeks up there this year. It's generally around two weeks. Last year we didn't make it up at all, but this year it's a good place to isolate up there.

Mayor Crompton:

So tell me about moving to the big city.

Feet Banks:

I mean, we always skied, you know, like I said, my parents were skiers. So up there, it was, you could drive an hour and a half to Murray Ridge, which is Fort St. James along the bar in Canada. That was it. Or you could drive three hours to Smithers,, which was an incredible Hill, really great snow. And they had a chairlift and a couple of T bars. So we would ski as often as we could. You know, it's not a super affordable sport, but they did their best. And then one day my old man was, I guess the mine had closed down t hat he worked at, h e w as a mechanic and my grandparents had come to visit and they brought a Vancouver newspaper with t hem. And as he was making c rumpling up paper to make the fire, he saw an ad in the paper that said, mechanic wanted, Blackcomb Mountain. And this w ould h ave been 1987. And he said, Oh, w ell b ad. Maybe we should go down there. And they know he knew all about W histler from the sixties. So the next week, my buddy Brian and I, we were in grade five, grade six, maybe we packed into the car with my dad. I remember it was a winter Epic. It's about a 10 hour drive down here and we were watching cars slide off the road, hit lampposts and Cornell and, and p ower a nd through. And we came down, he went for the interview. He was the only person who showed up in person for the job interview, Blackcomb, and B rian and I, he dropped us off at the bottom of the wizard. And I'll meet you guys at lunch. I g ot t o go through this interview. And I d on't k now. I remember we wrote the wizard. We'd never been on a chairlift with a bubble. W e'd never been on anything even close to about that big. We just did wizard l aps all morning. C ause we didn't even l ike, I don't know if we were scared to go higher up the mountain or what. Then we met up with my dad and went up to the Roundezvous and got into Jersey Creme and got into some real powder. And we were hooked for sure. We definitely had a bit of a learning curve there with the Pow. But, my dad got the job. He moved down that summer, lived in the KOA campground across from Nesters. My mom and I came down that fall and I started grade seven at Myrtle P hilip.

Mayor Crompton:

So do you think you are, I mean, obviously we're all shaped by where we've come from, but do you, how do you think you're shaped by having those first 12 years living so remotely?

Feet Banks:

Yeah, I think it actually, it worked out really fortuitously for me. I mean, when you're a little kid, you just want to run around in the Bush and build forts and you know, there were a few other kids along the lakes. I had friends, but it wasn't like I had to, you know, there wasn't such a drive to be social as there is when you're a teenager, you just want to adventure. And I had that. It was nothing but adventure u p t here. And then to come to Whistler at age 12, I mean, granted, we lived in Pine Crest, that was a bit more affordable and we were only supposed to be here for a year, but of course, like everyone knows that one year plan goes out the window pretty quick. But yeah, to spend my, y ou k now, teenage years in Whistler and my young adult years, I think that was really fortunate just because you get this exposure to the world, you know, the, the whole world, even back then the whole world would come to Whistler. And so you get to eat Japanese food and meet people from other countries. And, you know, we are that much closer to the city a nd, and the Whistler kids w ere the ones that were born and raised here. There wasn't a lot of them, but they were all really extraordinary kids. It just seemed like they knew a lot more about what was important and what was, you know, what they wanted to do with life and how to get the real value out of e very day then the kids up North did where, y ou k now, the days w ere short. So it was harder to get the value o ut o f t hem. Maybe. I don't know. But yeah, I think it worked out really well for me, for sure. I kind of had the best of both worlds.

Mayor Crompton:

And growing up here then in your teens, how is a kid who grows up in Whistler's view of tourism shaped? Like when you're 16, are you just tired of new people rolling through town or is it just something that's part of life?

Feet Banks:

It goes in waves, for sure. And especially, you know, I can't speak for kids now where it's sort of always, you know, quite a lot of people around, but back then in the late eighties, there was definite slow seasons. And, you know, you could, on the ski Hill, you could go to your secret spots like the next day after a big dump and still get great turns. Whereas now, like I'm rushing to my old, wh at I would go to the next day and grade eight or nine, I'm heading there on my first run now to hopefully get some turns. So that as, as that sort of busyness picked up and, you know, just being, I think a teenager, you get a little bit of resentment because it feels like being taken away from you and you don't have a larger view of the big picture of what's being given to you. Like, Hey, I remember when we didn't have a transit system. And then now we have a transit system. And I remember when we didn't have a pool and now we have a pool and a rink, and I think for, for my generation or myself, anyhow, we didn't always bridge that gap. That one begets the other. And for sure there was waves of like, Oh, you know, man, it's the weekend. Like, I'm not, it's only 10 centimeters of fresh. They're like, I'm not going to go. Right. I'll just stay here and read a book. Ri ght. Whereas, you know, that's the privilege of growing up with deep powder all to yourself all the time wi th y ou and your friends, your whole life. But, I found it came in waves. There was times in my early twenties where you'd see a huge Peak chair li neup a nd it would really bother you. And then, you know, you get a little bit more mature and you realize like, wh atever, look where we are, look what we're doing. Like if the peak chair is lined up and let's go he re a n d s ki some trees off of a g arbanzo, right. Or, whatever it takes. So there's always fun to be had. And, I eventually learned to realize tha t li ke, even cruiser runs, you kn o w, y ou can ha v e a really good time. It doesn't have to be that fresh pow der, e very run that we used to go after when we were younger.

Mayor Crompton:

Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, you talk about those days when, um, we'd have breaks. Like I remember Bavaria, Joel, they closed Bavaria for three months, do a renovation where they paint some blue paint on the bar and then they would open up and everyone would have this sort of natural break in their life. That was sort of built in and it gave this sort of rhythm cycle where you could almost recover from how busy your town had become and reconnect with other people. And that kind of thing, which is In some ways gone, it's funny, this pandemic has kind of given three months of that kind of feeling.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. I mean, even more dramatically when it's a fully empty village. And I remember walking through the village in the rain, like in late October when I was a kid and you literally would see like four or five people. And it was, it was nice because, you know, if you scoop ice cream, eight hours a day all summer, and it's a steady lineup of ice cream and milkshakes, right. The worst milkshakes, cause it takes so long. And then you've got to clean the stupid thing. And there's 50 people deep in your lineup, it wears you down. I mean, there's a reason kids do that job, right. Because it wears you down and you need that youthful energy to pull it off without, you know, snapping a nd those b reaks were nice. And that was also when we would have community events, like, you know, there would be the ski races and the cheetah challenges and the great snow earth water races and stuff like that. In those slower times that would unify the whole community. It would either celebrate a n outgoing season or prepare everyone for an incoming season or a little bit of both. And I feel like, you know, we still have huge events, but they're not as communal as those, those little cheetah challenges and stuff w ere,

Mayor Crompton:

Was be great a shoulder season event originally?

Speaker 3:

Be great was always the night before Halloween. So yeah, technically technically a shoulder season event, just because we would have cameras, you know, the ski filmmakers aren't filming, in the fall, Summer camp's over at the end of June. And so it was like, okay, summer camps over use your ski film, or use your camera from now, you know, there wasn't so much mountain biking when we started. And, yeah, it was basically just an excuse to use your camera in the slow season.

Mayor Crompton:

And, you say start inJune. Like, would you take four months To shoot a B grade film now?

Feet Banks:

No, but you would start talking about it. And then they would slowly get stuff figured out. And almost every time for Chili and I, anyhow, it would be, you know, mid to late September before we finally were like, Oh man, we'd better start shooting this. We've got a bunch of outside and water shots and it's getting cold. And the prep about the preparation and the ideas and stuff in there. And lots of people would shoot in the summer that better planners on us.

Mayor Crompton:

Tell me about canceling this year.

Feet Banks:

Well, you know, it doesn't bother me that much just because it's a ton of work be great. I think this would be year 17 or something. You know, in the start it was Chili and I, and now I've gotten great, great help with Chantelle stepping up to do a lot of this stuff that I'm poor at, like communicating with the venues and all that stuff. But it's still, it's a huge undertaking for, you know, little to no financial reward. And, I don't mind taking a break. You know, it just makes people hungrier for next year and hopefully gives people more time to work on their ideas and maybe even start working on their films and doing two year projects or whatever. So I'm oka y. I don't know. It's always a lot of fun when it happens, but the, the lead up is a bit of a slo g, s o I can focus all that energy on doing something else.

Mayor Crompton:

You're older now, when you were starting out the work to get it all going was fun.

Feet Banks:

It's still fun. I mean, making a movie is really fun and, but, you know, it's a bigger thing. There's more, you know, in the old days we didn't have any sponsors or anything like that. And there was no real obligations and venues were a lot cheaper and people were more excited to work with us. You know, I like to say we've been kicked out of every venue in town, but that's not exactly true, but it's definitely a different world out there. the venues aren't as hungry as they used to be. They may be are now, but they haven't been in the last few years.

Mayor Crompton:

Do you have a list of venues that you need to still get kicked out of?

Feet Banks:

We definitely do. And some of them don't officially kick us out. They just make it difficult to have us back.

Mayor Crompton:

How have you been shaped by Whistler?

Feet Banks:

It feels like I've been, you know, almost totally shaped by it, whether I realize it or not, but definitely, you know, I inherited a love for the outdoors from my folks and I grew up in the bush, but the landscape here is so much more impressive and dramatic and enjoyable than anything that I had ever experienced before in my life that, I think it's hard not to be given this appreciation for nature that just comes and you don't even realize it until you get a little bit of hindsight and perspective on the life that I've had, but just the sheer beauty and the power of, you know, these mountains and the rivers an d t he forest. And I always say in Whistler th at t he mountains are the great equalizer. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what you think, you know, th e m ountains are in charge. And so I think that sort of understanding of, you know, lack of control that comes with respect, I think that's been probably the most positive thing that I've been shaped from living here is just the, t he ability to not want to be in total control all the time. And knowing that you're not, th at trickles down into a lot of other aspects of your life and it c an help, you know, grace under fire in, in other parts of your life.

Mayor Crompton:

As a community, I think part of it, of being in the mountains and being so sort of stuck in the mountains as far as our just desires is this attachment to the well people dying in the mountains. But also that sort of respect, I don't know whether it's fear, but this connection that is tenuous. And in some ways you can't stop yourself. You want to be a part of what's happening, you know, that these are not to be taken lightly. And yet they sorta, it sounds strange to say, but fill your soul. Like, there's a draw that is sort of almost, I think, impossible to restrain, even though you know, that you're putting yourself at risk. I remember when, I think up above purple haze and I had just had our, my wife had had our first child and I was up there and it's a place I'd skied 30 times before or more. And I had this moment of just my fear filled my soul, that I knew that, wait a sec, if I go, I leave other people. And that's never sort of entered me before in that fashion, but it really gave me a sense of there's something about us that, is filled by this love of connection too, and, inability. Well, no, and I guess that connection to death and people dying.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. And I mean, whistle is interesting in that way, because most people make an active choice to come here. Right. And so a lot of them, I mean, Blake Jorgensen said, I think people that end up here either running from something or looking for something. And a lot of people that choose to come here are choosing because they love that, you know, walking the edge and that singularity of focus and that flow state that they can, that they can easily get through the mountains and the nature out here. I never really made that choice. I was brought here and it was against my will at the time. Right. You know, when you're, when you're 12 years old to, t o pack up your entire life and m ove to a new town that already has i ts established social pecking order, i t w as tricky, you know, for a little bit. And then of course it was fantastic, but I still was able to find that, but I always wonder, like, why didn't I become, you know, why you all my buddies that m oved here from places like Kamloops and Winnipeg and even Alberta, why are they so much better skiers than me that grew up here? Right. And the problem is because those guys were driven here by that desire to really get on that e dge. Whereas I just grew up being able to go there and didn't have as strong of a will. But I understand what you mean where, you know, once you have a kid, it definitely changes the way you look at the mountain, even though you're totally comfortable, you can see, you know, this is a no fall zone. Right. Whereas before it never didn't matter if it was a no fall zone. And I think with age comes a sort of, hopefully a sort of wisdom about that. And I think about, you know, u m, the time I've spent with Eric P, and he'll say, well, there's these lines I want to do, but they only shape up like once or twice a decade. And so just being able to know that I still want that, but I'm not g onna do it until it's ready. I think is a thing that, that comes with just time spent in the mountains and with experience and with insight, but death. Yeah. I mean,, by the time I was 30 years old, I'd lost way more friends than my parents, you know, like I think, Colin Right wrote a story for a snowboard magazine that said, you know, I'm 27 and the only people that have more dead friends than me a re like gang members in South Central Los Angeles. But, y eah, you grow up with it, you know, but people, you know, it didn't, it doesn't stop me from going t o the mountains. It doesn't stop anyone really. I'm sure there must be some people that lose a friend and m ove to the city and become, you know, a financial analyst, but I don't know them.

Mayor Crompton:

Yeah. How do you think you're different as a result of your friends who have died in the mountains?

Feet Banks:

Yeah. It's tough to think about that. I'm, I'm always the guy, that speaks at the funerals. Right. And I mean, part of that's because I'm a decent speaker, but part of it is because I'm used to it. Right. Which isn't something you really want to be used to. But I also, like, I don't know, I feel like I've come to terms with the fact that this is a step in whatever the journey is. Right. And my metaphysics and religion degree must have fallen off the wall because I don't have one, but I always say, you know, you think about your reality. You think about your reality when you're a little kid and you add your whole reality is y our h ouse and then your whole reality expands i nto your yard, and then it expands, and then it's your neighborhood, then it's your community. And then you go to university and your reality expands a little bit further. And then you travel the world and your reality expands a little bit further. And basically since the moment we are born, all our reality does is expand and expand and expand and expand. So it seems weird that it would just stop expanding all of a sudden, just because of that. Ri ght. An d I always sort of held on to t hat and thought, you know, this is one part of the journey, and you know, whatever it is next. I remember moving to university and being scared about having to be there alone. Don't know anybody. I just left literally like the coolest place in the country. And I had a sick job at sushi village and I co uld h a ve j ust written that forever. And now here I am, I can't even find the cafeteria. I can smell it, but I can't find it. And you know, it was a freaky thing. And I feel like, you know, maybe just understanding that whether there's something else out there or not, I might as well just assume that there is, it helps me deal with, yo u k n ow, losing all these people there that are special to us. And I feel like that's sort of the effect that's had on my life. Prove me wrong, no problem. It's not going to matter because I'll be dead anyhow. But in the meantime, if I'm stuck here for the next, however many years, it's nice to not have to dwell about that stuff.

Mayor Crompton:

Do you imagine a place where everybody's hanging out?

Feet Banks:

Yeah, I do. For sure. Yeah. It looks a lot like the top pf the Kyber.

Mayor Crompton:

Yeah. That's, it's funny. Like, I think one of the pieces for me, that's most interesting about sort of Judeo Christian thought anyway, is the idea that heaven is not like a way in the clouds, but it's a lot like earth. It's a lot like a party. It's a lot, like, It's flesh and blood and around us, Which,, you know, as I've gotten older, I have far less certainty about any of this stuff than I've ever had as a younger person, which is kind of freeing. But certainly that's more compelling, like yeah. Then harps and heaven.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. Philadelphia cream cheese angels on clouds. Right. But I mean, there's always people that are more tapped into that than others. I've not tapped into the spirit world. C hili was more than me, but I definitely h ave had dreams where I, you know, I've had dreams where my friend turned C olbert. H e was fantastic. You know, in, in the late nineties, in a free ice climb, I had dreamed about her not long after she passed. A nd, and you're always like, J esus, how come I can't l ike, d ream a boat you guys every night. And I did have a dream once where Chili was in. And I mean, I generally kind of understand that dreams might just be your brain filling up with fluid and then cleaning out t he dead proteins and stuff. Like, I understand the science behind it, but I did have a dream about Chili. A nd I was like, well, I'll t ell you, w e a re hanging out. I was like, dude, this is so awesome. L ike, why don't we do this more? And he's like, A w man, d o you know how much paperwork it is to come down here? And I was like, fair enough! And we left it at that.

Mayor Crompton:

That's good. Um, so we talked about how you've been shaped by Whistler. You've certainly shaped Whistler yourself. Was that ever conscious?

Feet Banks:

You know, I don't know that it was. I went to Pemberton High and I mean, that's how I started my writing career was by working on the yearbook at Pemberton High. And I couldn't really do too many sports or anything cause I lived in Pine Crest and I went to school in Pemberton and that's, you know, an hour and 40 minutes away. So there was no like Greyhound bus where you could stay after school or, and then get the bus back to Pine Crest. But starting in grade 10, when we moved into Whistler proper on Blueberry Hill, I could get a ride back with Mr. Titus because he'd be out there basically just running around the track for four hours and then we could do the yearbook and then get a ride back to Whistler with him.

Mayor Crompton:

By the way, I'll be riding my bike through lost Lake and he will run past me.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. And I mean, that's what I'm talking about is 27 years ago. Right. And he's still running that hard, but yeah, I think working on that yearbook, I had maybe not a desire to better the community, but at least to record it. And I think once you start recording something, maybe it's natural that you want to make it better. I think also growing up a bit and realizing how good we have it here and how lucky I was or, or fortunate, I guess you can say as a kid makes you w ant to help keep it that way for the next group of kids. Generally if I can help somebody, I want to, for sure.

Mayor Crompton:

You and your hroup of friends are true community builders. And that's why I a sked that question about, was it ever conscious? It seems like it was bringing people together. It was fun. But is the community building part of it ever a conscious piece and can it be, a nd feels like it y ou'd be faking it A little bit.

Feet Banks:

I mean, I feel like there comes a point where you realize like this is good for the community and I want to make sure that the youth or anyone has the same opportunity that we had. I mean, definitely we focus, you know, with our film festival, we focus on the community. You can't win the award if you're not presently there, even though we get submissions from all over the world, like the best in show prize was for someone around here and the tickets, you know, if you make a film, you're going to get into the festival. And so as the people that worked on the film with you and we're trying, and that's a conscious decision, right when we started it, of course it was like, let's just have fun and everyone's going to have a great time. But you know, I look at somebody like ACE who is an even greater community builder than me. She for sure knows that her h ot d og party is a huge and important piece of the community that we care about. Right? Some parts o f community doesn't care about it at all, r ight? The parts of the community and of the culture that we care about. For sure. She's well aware that that's important to a segment of people. Because again, that's a labor of love, right? A lot of these community building things are labors of love. The Whistler Writers Fest is a labor of love, even though it does get support and they pull it off by the skin of their teeth. Anybody that was a spreadsheet master would look at any of these events and be like, well, look at the amount of what you're putting i n t o what you're getting out. Like, it doesn't make sense on paper. And then if they still h aven't, I think they have to. I don't know that I feel like I owe it to the town, but I feel like the town deserves it or needs it.

Mayor Crompton:

Yeah, no, I agree. And maybe you become conscious of the value that has been created as you move forward. You do it originally to be with your friends. I heard you say, you know, at one point you B grade was created to show your own movies. So you start with this idea of, Oh, I just want to do this. And then you become more conscious about how important it has become to the community.

Feet Banks:

Yeah, totally, totally. And I mean, that's part of growing up too, right? We were 22, 23 years old when he started that festival. I think so, you know, as you grow up and you realize that other people like it, it's important to these people, like one year it doesn't happen and people are bummed. And so yeah, you want to give back, if you can.

Mayor Crompton:

Tell me about growing up at Sushi Village.

Feet Banks:

Man, again, super fortunate, you know, like that place is a special, special place. And I think,, the community has always recognized that and, with the challenges that we're facing right now with the corporate fiasco that's happening over there. I think the community is gonna gonna rise up when called upon. And everyone's g oing t o see just how special that place is. But yeah, I got a job there, actually, my buddy Mike got a job there first, Mike T eraza. He was a local kid here and we a re working, at the Mad Cafe, which is where Basalt is now. You don't make a p izza and s elling ice cream and he needed another and somehow applied to be a dishwasher at Sushi Village. And within the first month he was like, dude, m an, you g ot t o see like there's t his, this place is so awesome. And if the food is so good and the owners are Japanese are so awesome. So then he's like, dude, there's a bus boy position. And he, and like poor Mike, like he's just stuck in the kitchen and then a bus boy job comes up and I get to slide into that and eventually become a waiter. By then he was a temporary Chef and he was one of the greatest temporary chefs he ever had in there. That's tempura Mike, but still the salary gap was noticeable. And the fun gap was a lot noticeable too. I definitely lucked out on, on that operation, but yeah, that place was so fun and welcoming and popular and you get to meet everyone in Whistler, eats at Sushi Village and loves it. So you get to meet basically your entire community on a, on a pretty regular basis. You know, I remembered when Matt, the alien moved to town, he'd be coming into sushi to watch four or five times a week for breakfast. Right. If I at five o'clock they open, but not even being there for breakfast because he'd been out playing records all night and, and yeah, the staff was so fantastic and, and the owners, Koji and Toshi and Mickey were, they understood like we don't want career waiters here. We want people that are on the road to somewhere greater. So you have, you know, people like Chili who was going to be an artist, but just needed a bit of money until he could make that happen. And someone like me, who I paid my way through school, by working all summer at sushi village, going to school, coming back, writing my exams early in December, coming back, working 21 doubles, lunch and dinner, make enough to last till April come back or, you know, Dave Barnes, incredible artists. Mike Douglas, you know, became the godfather of skiing when he was a bartender at Sushi Village. Ross Rebagliati. Travis Tetro in the film industry, there was always people that were there. Intelligent people, but they had drive and they had a bigger goal. And when you needed time off to go to make your ski movie, then you would get time off. And everyone worked together. I think a lot of credit to Koji and Vi cki a nd Toshi for rent for recognizing that this is the kind of people we w ant to attract to work here. Not somebody that just wants to be a waiter for 30 years, because if you're a waiter for 30 years. Very few people in the world can do that job for 30 years ago, being unhappy.

Mayor Crompton:

Have you chatted a little with that? Was that like intentional in the way they did things or was it just the kind of business that they had?

Feet Banks:

I haven't chatted about it. And the much of that would be, would lie on Koji Shimizu, one of the original owners, b ut he sold it to Mickey, shortly after the millennium, but Kosi and Toshi bowed out. So I hadn't put that much thought into it back then. And I haven't talked to him about it, but it seems like they, whether it was just an instinct that they had or whether they luc ked ou t and hired one person like that, and then just kept hiring that person's friends or I don't know, but it definitely, it played out that way, especially back in those glory days. And I think that brought a lot of energy to the, to the restaurant and then thus to the town.

Mayor Crompton:

It's a place where nicknames become etched on people deeper than the names your parents gave you.

Feet Banks:

I feel like Whistler in general is that, and it goes back to what Blake said about chasing something and running from something. And this is a place where you can reinvent yourself. If not, sometimes the town will reinvent you, whether you like it or not. You know, this is a town of stinky and dirty Pete and, and, you know, Feet and Chili, right? Like Chili's real name is Michael, but there was already another Michael and he's from Chilliwack. So he was called Chili. Right. And like, my name ended up being Feet. It has a couple of versions of the story, but it ended up being Feet. We'll just say, and once you get a nickname, you stick to it, like it sticks to you. Right. I mean, you can fight it and I'm sure some people do, but also a lot of the times the names, you know, they work, right. That's the thing of like the community has given you your new identity in it. I mean, there's a guy that does that at burning man, but it's weird. Like two people that don't even know each other name, Mike, like Mike Baron and Chile both ended up with the same Playa name. And that sort of thing happens up here too. Like people just fall into these roles and characters and part of it, you get to be someone else a little bit. And part of it is maybe you get to be who you want to be instead of who your history told you you're supposed to be. That's a great time for nicknames.

Mayor Crompton:

It is. I want to talk to you about writing. I read an interview that you did with Blake and you asked him how to make a good photo. And I need to understand how to do a podcast well. So I will ask you, how do you do a good interview?

Feet Banks:

Yeah. I mean with a podcast, I have hosted only one, but I think about it all the time. What I look to for podcasting is similar to how I do it in writing, but it's a loop, right? And you look at the best standup comedians is who I look to. And they'll have a joke almost seems like a throwaway joke early in the podcast that they'll come back to at the very end and use again. But it'll have a new meaning shone onto it, or it'll have new relevance. And that's how I write. I try to write like a snake eating its own tail, where you start with something and you go through the loop, you know, the gravity fed loop of it, you can't stop. And then you get back to right where you started, but you've got a new sense of insight or y ou've brought a new perspective to the beginning. And that's, to me, that's my trick. Right. I don't always pull it off, but when I do, I feel like that's stuff that people respond to t he most of the stuff that I'm the most proud of. The snake eating its tail. Just always say that to yourself and then make it happen.

Mayor Crompton:

So at the end of this interview, it has to come back to Fraser Lake. And somehow i t has to be like super insightful.

Feet Banks:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's what it would be. Right.

Mayor Crompton:

Start thinking about that now.

Feet Banks:

It's a lot easier for me though, because I do the interview and then I go back and I fit it into the formula. Whereas, you know, you're doing it live. You're not, same with standup comedians it's written, right. Whereas to do it live, you've got to be really quick on your feet. But even when I host events and stuff. Everyone loves to be surprised. And then they also love to be surprised by something that they already know. So if you can reference something that's already been said, but it's, but it's a surprise that you've got them.

Mayor Crompton:

And do you, how long do you prepare for a interview with Mike Douglas? Um, I guess that's a bad example, you know, him fairly well.

Feet Banks:

I mean, not as long as I should. If you look at the best interviewers, like Nardwuar right. That guy's one of the greatest interviewers in the English language and he does ridiculous amounts of research about people. And I agree with that, the more you research you do. And also again, people like to be surprised. So if you know something about somebody that they don't expect you to know, it disarms them a bit right. And warms them up to you. And then you end up with a little bit more of a chink in the armor to get in there and to find out who they really are. So I'm a huge believer in pre-interview research for sure,and it's so easy nowadays because of the internet. Like you can do it, you can do a decent job in 60 minutes, right. You can do a pretty decent job of researching somebody., that's not to say that there isn't value in rolling in totally blind, because sometimes if somebody is an expert on something, I want to know as little about that as possible so that I can get them to explain it to me in a simplest way possible so that I can explain it to the readers in a simple way. And people will understand, you know, the carbon capture unit down here in Squamish. It sucks carbon out of the air and turns it into juice. Right. That's a complicated chemical process. I don't want to know what that is before I go in. Like, I need to be like, no, wait, I don't understand. And then I'll be able to explain to the people what it means. So, yeah, it depends on what you want, but generally there's no such thing as too much research.

Mayor Crompton:

And so you don't have a specific process on every story you do. It changes with the topic.

Feet Banks:

And as I get better, as I get older, I probably wing it more as I get more experienced, I wing it more and, and don't research as much as I probably should or could, but I don't have a specific. I'll definitely find out, you know, the basics, where are they from read a couple other interviews, if then you can say, well, I read somewhere where you said like, you know, snowboarders saved Whistler. Right. And then the g uy's like, O h yeah, I didsay that. And then you've got a conversation going, right.

Mayor Crompton:

Yeah. Mountain life is very much focused on mountain culture. How do you maintain an interest in that for as long as you have.

Feet Banks:

It's difficult, I'll tell you that. And it comes back to the same thing as the high school yearbook where, I think I recognize that there are all these incredible people and incredible stories here that aren't being told anywhere else. And there's a sense of like, well, you know, we can tell those stories, and there's all these great people that, you know, a lot of times around here, I fall in love almost every time I interview somebody because I interviewed all these people, man or woman, and often, I end up super smitten with them. One of the great benefits of what we're doing interviewing people is you're given this guise of professionality that allows you to ask them anything you want. Right. Whereas if you just met them at a party, there's certain things you wouldn't probably bring up because it would be rude, but under the professionalism of journalism, I'm given green light to really dig into somebody. And because of that, I really get to know important and impressive and amazing things about people in a very short period of time. And I just walk out of there, so often I walk out of interviews being like, wow, what a fantastic person. Right. Amazing. I'm smitten by them. So I think that, you know, being able to bring these kinds of stories of these characters into the magazine and then share them with a community and lots of people already know them, and they're excited to see, Oh, finally, there's an article about Bruce rolls. Like the guy has been here toiling in the trenches so long and doing so much for so many people. And nobody's really recognized that. And now finally, here's a magazine that does, right. So it's again, you know, that there's no lack of stories in mountain culture. I definitely, you know, I'm happy to have had the movie column and other things to express my creativity in, but there's still no lack of great adventure out there. And adventurous stories and adventurous people to talk about.

Mayor Crompton:

Is there anything you're daydreaming about writing?

Feet Banks:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just firing u p my own website again. So i t's going to be a place where I can put the stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else. I get a creative break. You know, the fact that mountain life only comes out three times a year gives me a bit of a break. I definitely like there was a time where I'm like, okay, if I see one more photograph, that's blue, white, person, right. I'm g onna lose my right. I definitely am the skateboard photographers because they are able to get so much more visually creative stuff in a city than i n a mountain. Right. Mountains are amazing and beautiful, but after the 700,000 mountain photo that y ou've looked at, which I'm sure w e w ere getting close to that now after 17 years of Mountain Life, you're like, man, I just wish there was some graffiti in there, o r like a guy with a bucket on his head. Right?

Mayor Crompton:

Mountain graffiti is something that, you know we have found.

Feet Banks:

I'll tell you, I think about it every winter when you're driving in between function and Spring Creek. And there's those icicles that come down to the road, you could go in there with a little spray, aerosol food coloring right, non toxic, and you can color up those icicles. It has to be good for the environment. Right. I feel like food grade, I'm quite sure that we shouldn't eat a whole bottle of food coloring, but I think if you diluted it into a huge icicle thing, it wouldn't be that bad.

Mayor Crompton:

That's a cover right there. You've created a cover. Are magazine is going to be around in 10 years. Like I touch, I feel, I smell.

Feet Banks:

I think they are. I mean, it's, we're coming up on 10 years ago when people said they wouldn't be and they still are. I feel like it's a niche thing. we're very lucky in the Sea to Sky to have the number of free publications that we have. That's worrisome, I don't know how long the advertising model is going to work. But the fact of the matter is like, when you check into a hotel and you're woman or men, children, or whoever is doing whatever it is that they're doing, and you're just trying to go for dinner, but somebody's blow drying their hair or, you know, typing away on the internet or whatever. And there's a magazine on the coffee table. You pick it up, right. Like people on holidays have been picking up magazines on the coffee table of hotels, since there has been coffee tables. So I feel like we're very fortunate here that we have that base to sell into. And then from there, you know, I don't know. Maybe magazines are going to have to be something you pay for in the future. I don't know if the free model will last forever, but it's certainly done okay so far. You know, we've weathered the economic slowdown. The new Mountain Life comes out today. So we weathered the COVID and we're still able to put out a sick magazine, you know, thanks to the community support. The Pique is still running. Right. They weathered the COVID. So I feel like in the bubble, like where we live in the bubble, which, Scott Musgrave would say I'd way rather live in the bubble than in the box. I think in the bubble, we're going to do okay with magazines for, for longer than some places will.

Mayor Crompton:

You know, five years ago I thought everything would become surface journal just because you know, that sits on your wall. We'll just have a whole bunch of coffee table books. But it seems like that hasn't happened. The magazine still exists.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. I mean, we'll see what the kids do. Right. Apparently kids don't read. Right. That's what everyone always says. But, all of a sudden, you know, there's a website with long form journalism doing just fine. So yeah. I don't know. We'll see.

Mayor Crompton:

Back to Heather, Paul, I reached out to her and she sent me something she wrote about you.

Feet Banks:

So how many pages was it?

Mayor Crompton:

It's short.

Feet Banks:

Oh, wow. First time. First time for everything.

Mayor Crompton:

I want to read it to you and then I want to hear what you have to say. These days when I see Feet. Have you heard this already?

Feet Banks:

I don't think so.

Mayor Crompton:

Okay. These days, when I see Feet, I keep hearing the tantric voice of the London tube Mind the gap, mind the gap. I think there's a space missing and Feet since Chili died. What I'm trying to say is that those two had a connection and the word's best friend doesn't do it Justice. Chili and nationally recognized artists who could paint the Sea to Sky corridor as if your heart had escaped your breastplate and told the canvas what it saw had cultivated a tribe of best friends, but anyone in the presence of the Feet and Chili show witnessed a cosmic spooning of personalities. Feet, the cynical ying with the gooey center and Chili, the sunny yang who struggled in dark times. When I see Feet, if I'm not hearing London calling me to mind the gap, I'm seeing Chili as a Viking. Feet is Hunter S Thompson hearing every Beastie boys songs mashed up with Josh Groban crooning You raise me up. Call it written in the stars or true love, but to set the record straight, I say that their connection was bigger than best friends. One day when Feet stops juggling all the projects and voices he takes on depen, he will type out a novel about their cowboy love story, curmudgeonly except the governor General's award for literature, set it beside his jar of Chili's ashes and finally fill the gap. I can't wait for it to happen. Did you feel a gap?

Feet Banks:

I'm sure it's there. Yeah. You feel it? I mean, I deal with it my own way. Let's let's first start by giving Heather credit for a nice piece of writing and very succinct, but she's, she's continuing to excel at that, which is great to see. I wouldn't say that she's wrong in everything there. I mean, of course, you know, like keep Chili's ashes in a Ziploc bag. I don't have a jar, but yeah, there's a gap, but also, I mean, I speak to Chili every day, right out loud. Whether he can hear me or not, it doesn't really make a difference. The fact that I take the time to speak to him you know, helps fill that gap because you just feel it when you're talking to somebody eventually long enough, you feel like they're still kind of around. Right. And I mean, I've got all his records piled in my house when art garden art store closed down here, guess who inherited all the prints that were in their store that are still piled in my bedroom, waiting for people that bought them to come pick them up. Like I can't escape them by any sense. So, yeah, definitely there are times when it's like, Oh man, like how, what knot do I need to tie the stupid thing onto the roof of my car? Right. And, and at times you're like, God damn, I wish I could, you know, Chili was here or I could call him and ask him something. Or, you know, you're going through a tough time and, you know, you could call it your other friends, but sometimes you get a guy, actually it would have had Chili would have handled this with me or whatever. Like, yeah, there's a whole, I think anyone who's lost, somebody they care about would say the same. You know, is it unmanageable? No, of course not. Right. And that's, that's the way things go. If you let something like that, put a stop to you then, you know, you're not really giving it your all and ride it as hard as you could.

Mayor Crompton:

Would you see yourself writing?

Feet Banks:

Oh yeah, I know I've started that book. I'll probably delay publication till Chili's mother passes and probably my own as well. But yeah, that book has definitely been talked about. After Chili past, I spent a lot of time with a friend named Sarah Woods. She's the one that told me to speak to him and she was way more tapped into the spirit world than I am. And she was really helpful in just coming to terms with that. And she was big on that book. You know, she said there aren't that many tales out there of, you know, male friendship to love connection that people have been afraid to talk about, stigmatized over the years and the generations that nowadays you could, you know, you can pull something like that off, and it would actually be accepted as finally, someone's doing this. So she was a big proponent of that. And I started a few things, a problem with something like that, even when I had to write the mountain life article about Chili after he passed, right? Like where do you start? Right. Once you start, then it rolls. Right. But to find the right perfect start, and I realize you don't have to have the perfect start. You can just start at the perfect start. It might pop up in chapter three or whatever. But, yeah, I definitely kicked even that Mountain Life article around, I kicked it for weeks and weeks and drafts and drafts and all over the place, how it started. And eventually I think I just recycled something that I'd already used because I was under deadline and I'm still quite fraught with grief, but yeah, that'll, I mean, if I can stay alive long enough, that'll happen. If not, there's an outline and a notebook somewhere. I got a box of notebooks.

Mayor Crompton:

An email that gets sent to some person with the work that's been done so far.

Feet Banks:

I mean, I've been, I've been leaning that direction. I haven't dialed it in yet. I always said I want to make a video because it was difficult conversation to have. A nd he didn't really say what he wanted. A lot of the nuts and bolts things. Like, of course we're supposed to drag a broad sword and plunge it into a rock at the top of fissile. Now we need to burn a nd F EG out in Alta Lake in a Jedi funeral style, but we have to shoot it with a fiery arrow, but the arrow has to be lit with a pitch from a tree because we can't put oil in the water. And like, there was all these ridiculous things that he wanted done. And the only one that we really pull off was C orey K had to sing, Air Supply a t his service, but there was no like, Hey, could you play this music? Hey, could you d o, you know, there was a few notes on things, but there was no real solid plan. And I definitely, as one of a number of people that were left to pick up the pieces with that, I think it affected me to be like, o kay, you know what? L ike make a video and lay it down so that people d on't have to wonder. But of course I h adn't made the video yet, but there is, there w as a n email on my last heli ski trip to a silver tip, heli shout out, Oh man. So good. But there w as a n email that went out being like, H ey, here's all my passwords. Here's the files you should delete. A nd h ere's who gets what? But, u m, y ou, y eah, we c ould've used a little bit more guidance. I'm sure Chili was happy with what he got, but.

Mayor Crompton:

21 gun salute wasn't from him.

Feet Banks:

No, no, that was, that was all me that, I mean, I'm sure, of course I knew that's exactly what he wanted, but it was never discussed.

Mayor Crompton:

It was a fun night. It was a really fun.

Speaker 3:

It's too bad. It wasn't longer. We could have used another couple hours up there. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Mayor Crompton:

Does Chile talk to you?

Feet Banks:

No. Well, that one dream. Right. And then just in my own, like, you know, I'm sure Chili wants me to take his kid camping this weekend. I've actually got, whatever, excuse number 17. Right. So, but yeah, no, I don't get, we tried, I man, I have it on camera t oo, where I came up with this brilliant idea to hack the afterlife and, I s urely didn't do it, but the plan was, this is all on camera, but I, I told Chili, listen, take a n envelope, put my name on it. And inside that envelope, I want you to write a number or a word that, you can inundate me with. Seal, the envelope, and then once you die, ca use w e knew Chili was go ing t o d ie. Right. So once yo u d i e, inundate me with that number or word or whatever it is, symbol until I'm like, ok ay, this has got ta be an op e n th e envelope and it's the same. And then ha right. We just saw the greatest mystery. And, but there was no envelope or if there is, we never found, so I don't know. We' ll pa ss that on for the next. I'll do that though. If I know when I'm going to die to go do wn tha t. O kay. We go i ng to se e for sure once and for all.

Mayor Crompton:

All right. Sounds good. I think it's a good idea. We can gain some

Feet Banks:

Certainty about the afterlife. So little of it out there. I know, although, I mean, is that going to be a good or bad thing, right? Like all of a sudden afterlife, hacked world collapses.

Mayor Crompton:

What have you been,, reading, listening to what's inspiring you lately, or in your life.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. I mean, I listen to a lot of old music, just because I don't commute. When I'm working, it's difficult to have music with words, I'm trying to pull words out of the ether and there's words going through this way. It makes it difficult to write. So I don't do a lot of podcast streaming or, you know, playlists and stuff. music festivals, of course, but you never know what song is, what, because it's all just m ashed together. So I listen to a lot of records. I have a lot of records. I buy a lot of records. I listened to m ostly t he old music this summer. It's all about Tina Turner. For some reason, I've been just cranking Tina and loving it. And I mean, if you want to start somewhere with Tina Turner, she's got an a lly, she covers Al Greens Let's Stay Together. It's fantastic. So it's been a lot of Tina, Whitney Houston this summer. Fantastic voices. Big, big voices a bout i t, b ut it's been fun. I'd rediscovered Bonnie Tyler, mostly just to annoy my kid, she's big hair, big voice.

Mayor Crompton:

I have a similar thread there. Big hair, big voice.

Feet Banks:

Yeah. Well, I mean my hair right now, as long as it's ever been. So maybe there's an intuition. There is something I'm always reading. Of course. Um, anyone that I know that can follow me on Instagram, I keep it private, but there's always a book of the week on there. And I'm pumping them out. All those books of the week is going to be on my website, but right now I just finished a book by Liz Plank. She's a Canadian journalist that works in the States. She has a pretty interesting book called For The Love of Men. And she's a noted feminist advocate, journalist, whatever you wanna call her. But her premise is if you want to treat the way women are treated, if you want to affect the way women are treated, you got to affect the way we raise our boys. Right? Because our boys don't know how to be real men. They're taught not to cry. They're taught to be out of there, not in touch with their emotions. They're given this paradigm of masculinity that,, it's not helping anyone. So she has a whole book about that, which I found quite interesting, especially as a father of an 11 year old boy. Right?

Mayor Crompton:

Interesting stack of books, talking about trying to raise boys who are connected to their emotions.

Feet Banks:

Our community is hyper-masculine too right? Like the action sports is very unbalanced. It's mostly dudes and it has been since inception, of course that's changing. But as you know, human behavior takes a long time to change, right. Generations, some would say, but, I grew up, you know, send it, you know, sleep when you're dead, you know, like it was a lot of the stuff that they say is not that good for you. If you're trying to be in touch with the softer side or the, you know, the more caring side. So you read these books, you try to learn what you can, if you know better, you do better. And, you know, try to make sure the kids come out better than we did. We turned out okay. And the Whistler kids that are younger than me are so much more fantastic than I ever was when I was a Whistler kid, their age. So I feel like there's good things happen. I look at the Pettit boys and Allie Builder and Merit Patterson. And these kids grow up in a culture where they know they can succeed and they are given the freedom. You know, the kids are outside at young age, they can explore, they can fail. They're given the ability to fail and they grow. And I am always so impressed whenever I meet a young Whistler kids. We always connect, right. Usually in the old days, it was all the ways your kids would get back together for a wedding. And they'd put us all at one table in the back. And whether you knew them or not, because in high school, five years is a lifetime, but when you're 35 years old, it's nothing right. But here's this 30 year old kid that I'd never met before in my life, even though we grew up in the same town in the same timeframe as the best time at the whole party

Mayor Crompton:

Feet, that was a lot of fun for me. You truly have shaped our town and you continue to do it. And I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for how we're different, whether you're conscious of it or not. Certainly I feel like I'm raising kids in a place that has been touched by your work touched by Chili, touched by Heather, touched by those people who make this special. And whenever I have the conversation about the death of Whistler soul, which I seem to be having all the time, I find it fairly easy to point to those places where we've been made deeper and fuller and a big credit to you for that. I think that there are people that come after us who build on,, the work that we've done. And I think that there are people that are starting to do that, but you've done so well for us. And you continue to do so well for us. So Thank you for chatting today and thank you for everything that you've done to now.

Feet Banks:

Thanks. I appreciate the credit. I always wonder, you know, where's the next Chili, Tom, where's the next Feet Bank. Where's the next Heather, the next o ther people. And these Whistler kids are fantastic, but a lot of them, they leave and some of them come back and I waiting for someone to take all my jobs and do it better because I'm 44 years old. Right. So I'm not worried about the death of the soul, the town, but I think, you know, somebody should be because it's, I don't know, does it come from house parties? Like, I don't even know what the house party scene in Whistler is, b ut that's where I met people like Ace and, you know, D arcy Taylor and Paul Boon and people that kind of showed us the way a little bit, that you can get away with things and still have fun and do it safely, and you don't have to hurt anyone's feelings and everyone's in it together. And I, I hope that there's still kids out there, you know, but I don't know, cause I'm an I'm a middle aged man now, b ut I have confidence in the kids. If we c an find a way where they can afford to live here and have enough time. A nd you know, it's really hard to throw a horror Fest. When you're working two, three jobs. We worked at Sushi Village, we made good money and we had time to be creative. R ight. And Chili even Chili struggled his whole life b y painting these giant paintings in the kitchen, in his bedroom. And it wasn't until we moved to Pemberton until he had his own actual space. So, yeah, as long as, as long as the youth have the time and the space to be who they can be I have full confidence t hat the town will continue to thrive. Right. B ut we gotta make sure those kids have the time and the space to be h ere. They can be another, not just, you know, h elping s erfs.

Mayor Crompton:

And we had that. We talked about that earlier. We had that with those shoulder seasons that were so deep, we saw them as, as sort of times when you wouldn't have a paycheck in your pocket, but who cared,

Feet Banks:

You'd spend the whole month building your Halloween costume. Exactly. Yeah, it was., yeah. And, and I'm, you know, the kids are smarter, they're more creative. They're, they're better to each other. They're better people, but as long as we're not working them to the bone and driving them out, I think the culture can thrive and the town can thrive. I think that you're bang on time and space, time and space, Time and space. All right. Well, okay. Well, thanks Jack.

Mayor Crompton:

Thank you. Appreciate your time today. We'll talk to you soon and have a beautiful day. Sounds good. You too. Thanks, Feet. I also want to thank Mountain FM for their continued support of the Whistler Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Jack Crompton. See you next time.

Narrator:

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