Every so often, a question will pop up in one Sea to Sky Facebook group or another about the lit-up Christmas tree perched high above Highway 99, about halfway between Whistler and Squamish.
Each time, it brings a smile to Drew Dodman’s face, and the memory of his friend Jeremi Lindstrom to mind.
“He always said, ‘That looks like the perfect Christmas tree on the cliff,’” Dodman remembered. “After he got diagnosed, I drove him to the city and he went for the first visit with the oncologist, and on the way back up, he said, ‘If I ever pass, you have to definitely turn that into a Christmas tree.’”
That was on a spring day about 12 years ago, when Lindstrom was working as a cook at Whistler’s Westin Resort & Spa. Lindstrom died in an Ontario hospice on July 4, 2011, after a short battle with melanoma. He was just 29.
Three-and-a-half years later, just in time for Lindstrom’s Dec. 17 birthday, Dodman, Andrew Vervaeke, John Wallace and a small crew of friends finally made the steep, arduous trek up to the 30-plus-metre evergreen, armed with hundreds of twinkling Christmas lights, solar panels, batteries and a lockbox.
“One of the other challenges with [the tree] is that there’s no branches on the bottom, like, 25 feet,” Vervaeke explained. “So to even get yourself up into it is a whole kind of mission.”
Still, they managed to bring Lindstrom’s Christmas tree dream to life. For a couple of years, at least.
“We did get a working product going on up there, but we quickly learned that we needed much better gear, because it gets so windy and weathered,” Dodman explained. “We quickly realized, ‘OK, we’ve got to put some more money into this.’”
The friends launched a GoFundMe in 2016 to raise funds for higher-quality equipment. The campaign more than doubled its $1,000 goal in just one day, and caught the attention of some professionals who offered to donate time and expertise.
“Now we have a really good setup there, and the only maintenance that we really require nowadays is replacing the lights, because they don’t seem to last,” Dodman said.
With the existing bulbs flickering out within the past year, the friends have recently fielded a resurgence of offers of support, donations, and suggestions to launch another crowdfunding campaign from locals and visitors who’ve come to treasure the tree almost as much as they do. Dodman and Vervaeke say those offers are appreciated, but unnecessary. A self-sustaining system is in place, and earlier this month, Whistler’s Home Hardware donated a few new strings of lights that the friends plan to drag uphill and hang over the tree’s branches as soon as Mother Nature cooperates.
“They’re just standard Christmas lights again, but they’ll probably last us another five years or so,” said Dodman. “It’ll be great to have them on again … It’s just a good reminder. Every time you drive by, you can think of Jeremi.”
For Dodman and Vervaeke, the twinkling tree will forever remind them of one of their closest friendships, forged in a Grade 4 classroom in a small town outside of Hamilton, Ont. Dodman and Vervaeke eventually made the move west, while Lindstrom followed a short time later. He lived in Whistler for about five years before his diagnosis.
The men remember Lindstrom as a positive, jolly soul who “didn’t have an angry bone in his body;” a passionate cook and a great friend who left a lasting impression on those who knew him.
The tree has “been a way to share his story and make sure he’s remembered. I think it’s been awesome for his family to know he had enough of an impact on people that they want to keep going and doing this pretty crazy thing, to keep this tree running,” said Vervaeke.
“When I see people post about it and ask about it, and 12 people jump on and tell them, ‘Here’s the backstory, here’s an old Pique article, and here’s a YouTube video,’ it’s super cool.”
The continued support, he added, “is the reason why I think we’re still so dedicated to keeping it going.”
But the tree isn’t the only way Vervaeke is honouring his friend these days.
“Jeremi’s nickname, believe it or not, it was Lily,” Vervaeke explained with a laugh, “which is a long story.”
Vervaeke and his wife welcomed their first child, a baby girl, earlier this year. Her name is Lily.
“That’s given me a little extra motivation to really keep it going,” he said. “Because I think that’ll be such a cool thing one day, to tell her, you know, there’s the tree we did for our friend that you’re named after.”
