Three decades. Fifteen-hundred columns. One-million, two-hundred-thousand words. By sheer output alone, G.D. Maxwell’s long-running column for Pique has been a titanic achievement, a monument to Whistler written in weekly instalments.
But Max’s contribution to this paper, and by extension, this community, defies easy metrics. His column, which saw its final regular instalment last week, has an almost gravitational pull to it, readers eagerly flipping to the backpage the moment they pluck a Pique off the rack.
And for good reason. Love him or hate him, Max was appointment reading every week. Whether it was a powder-filled bluebird day up the mountain, waxing philosophic from his offseason hideaway at Smilin’ Dog Manor, or getting the skinny from his (fictionalized) private-eye pal, J.J. Geddyup, you could be sure wherever Max was taking you, it was bound to be a wild ride.
Unless you’re an avid consumer of community news, I don’t think most Pique readers grasp just how unique Max’s column is. After impressing founding publisher, Bob Barnett, in the early days of the publication with his entertaining letters to the editor, Max was given the chance to write his own column, which put Pique in the rare position of effectively having two anchor editorials at each end of the paper. This led to a certain equilibrium where, if the frontpage editorial leaned more informational, you could be sure Max would come out swinging on the backpage, never one to pull punches. Call it a flaw of small-town journalism, but there are certain things an editor or a reporter simply can’t get away with saying. Outside of the odd legal threat here and there, Max never had that problem.
Once, when a reporter from the now shuttered Whistler Question asked him why he hadn’t got the mayor’s take on a particular hot-button issue, Max told her, “I’m not a reporter, I’m Everyman. I’m the person reading what you reported or watching the news and responding to it, calling it out, perhaps calling bullshit.”
Some may accuse him of rabble-rousing—and I’m sure he’d be the first to say he enjoys ruffling feathers from time to time—but Max’s hot takes were always rooted in a deep appreciation for this place and what it could be. Whether you agreed with him or not was almost beside the point. The fact there was someone with his insight, intellect and encyclopedic knowledge not only bearing witness to the goings on of Tiny Town (a favourite Maxism), but making sense of them, was essential. Every community needs its truth-tellers, but especially in a highly corporatized tourism town where transparency isn’t necessarily the top priority. No one has done more, over a longer period, to help Whistlerites understand themselves.
Max is an invaluable asset behind the scenes at Pique, too. Quick to share a news tip or fill in historical gaps, he was never too busy to jump on a phone call with a reporter when the need arose, something he surely didn’t have to do after nearly 30 years in the role.
Speaking personally, I think what Max has taught me the most is courage, courage to say the hard thing, to speak truth to power, to call out the bullshit. When I learned I would be tasked with writing the first post-Max backpage column, I struggled for days with how I was going to follow his incredible run. So, I figured, who better to ask than the man himself?
“No tips except to appreciate the substantial difference between opinion and reportage,” Max wrote in an email. “The former starts in the gut and heart, the latter in the head. If you think something is interesting enough to opine about, you can bet a lot of other people do too. Be fearless for them without forgetting they need to be entertained, not just lectured.”
As Max settles into a well-deserved retirement from the weekly Pique grind, I hope this is the lesson we can carry forward. The rotating lineup of writers tasked with filling Max’s gargantuan shoes will surely bring their own distinct voice to the backpage, but we will be doing him, Pique and this community a disservice if we don’t bring the same fearlessness that he did, week in, week out, for a generation.
Thank you, Max, the ultimate Everyman, for being our beating heart.
