In February 1981, Whistler Mayor Pat Carleton was informed the post office would be moving into the (still-under-construction) Whistler Village. This announcement that a three-year lease for a space in the Rainbow Building had been signed came from Senator Ray Perrault on behalf of the postmaster general, the Honourable André Ouellet, and it was made clear this was to be a temporary location until a more permanent home for the post office was built.
The post office had already moved around the Whistler Valley a few times, starting out at Rainbow Lodge in 1914 and ending up in a building provided by the Valleau family at Mons. After the Resort Municipality of Whistler was formed in 1975 and planning began for a town centre, it was expected the post office would eventually move to a more centrally located site near other services such as a grocery store, bank, and more.
In his Feb. 17 letter to council, Perrault reported improvements to the space would begin shortly and the post office would open May 1. As of mid-March, however, work had not yet started on any renovations to the space across from the Gourmet. The May deadline came and went and the post office continued to be located outside of the town centre.
Looking back, 1981 was an eventful year for post offices and sorting facilities in Canada. On June 30, more than 20,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) went on strike over one of the union’s key demands, which was the provision of 17 weeks of paid maternity leave for their members. While small rural offices such as the one in Whistler were still open, mail was only delivered to other rural offices in the region and larger offices such as the one in Squamish were shut down.
By mid-July, Beth Pipe, the postmaster/mistress, was the only employee working at the Whistler post office and hours had been reduced so that the office was closed for lunch each day and closed on Saturdays (post offices were already closed on Sundays). In the meantime, work had begun on the renovations at the new post office space and it was hoped the move would be able to take place during the strike, as there would be little traffic to either location and so minimal disruption to operations. It was proving difficult, however, to find a solution to an access problem, in that lock boxes needed 24-hour access and putting a public doorway in the stairwell would also provide 24-hour access to the private condominium units on the second floor. The Whistler Village Land Company initially objected to the eventual solution of turning one of the external windows in the post office space into a door for aesthetic purposes and the location of the door had to be negotiated.
When a national vote by members of CUPW on Aug. 10 (after the Treasury Board had agreed to their demand for 17 weeks of paid maternity leave, setting a precedent that would soon be followed by other unions) ended the strike and postal service resumed on Aug. 11, the new post office in Whistler was still not ready for occupation. It was not until mid-September that the move occurred and the post office began operating out of the Rainbow Building on Sept. 21.
The move came with a couple of surprises for post office staff. When arriving at the new location the Saturday prior to the move to get some work done, Pipe found the public access door locked. As an employee, she was able to gain access through the back door and found a couple “well ensconced in their sleeping bags” in the lock box area who had locked the door from the inside.
Operating in the new space also turned out to be very different from the post office’s previous location. According to Pipe, “It’s like moving to the big city,” and in some ways she missed the quiet setting of the old office. The new space had an additional 260 post boxes, with space for another 312 to be added, which meant there would be fewer people having to queue to collect their mail.
The Rainbow Building was not the final stop for Whistler’s post office, and mail service has continued to change. Even with the additional space and lock boxes provided by the new location, there was an extensive waiting list for lock boxes by 1985 and other solutions such as boxes in the subdivisions were put in place. The post office’s current location in Marketplace opened in the 1990s, and at certain times of year additional locations are sometimes opened in other areas of the valley to help meet demand.
