de·co·rum
/dəˈkôrəm/
n. -behaviour in keeping with good taste and propriety.
Whether it’s from our parents, our schools or other childhood influences, good manners are an important part of any human’s upbringing. Respect your elders, especially those who helped raise you. Don’t pry into people’s business. Don’t stare at people who are visibly less fortunate than you.
At some point in late teenage years or early adulthood, maintaining good manners becomes a decision for the individual to make. It’s you who decides whether you hold the door open for that stranger or help the mom when she drops her shopping bags while juggling two toddlers. Most people would pass these daily tests of social decorum. But when we start speaking or acting in a heightened emotional state, that decorum can easily be thrown out the window.
It’s not like our societal leaders are setting the best examples. The recent White House meeting between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the president and vice president of the U.S. didn’t just make me feel embarrassed for America, it made me embarrassed for Western society as a whole. Young people all over the globe were tuning into news coverage (likely shared through a biased social media filter) to witness this “world leader” dressing down a strategic ally like a mob boss. The following week, Trump addressed a joint session of congress and went so far as to question why the democrats—the people he’d been publicly insulting, demeaning and threatening for the better part of a decade—weren’t adhering to the political decorum expected of elected officials.
I’ve always seen Canada as the more polite nation of the English-speaking world. When I came to North America (to start what was supposed to be a short-lived ski-bum career), I worked at a Californian resort first. While on the surface it seemed friendly and welcoming, under the surface there was a fierce competitive nature to the people from the southern part of that state, even in the ski towns. When I moved to Whistler the following season, I experienced little to none of that.
But that was a long time ago, and time can’t hold progress. Whistler has grown in population, just as the sport of skiing has grown. There’s more competition here than ever for our housing, our lakeside spots, our powder.
March 8 to 10 was undeniably the storm of the year. A total 87 centimetres of snowfall in the space of a weekend is enough to get every skier out of the woodwork, creating traffic congestion, long lift lines and even longer waits for alpine terrain to open. And unfortunately, it’s this passionate froth that brings out the worst of Whistler ski culture. Decorum seemingly evaporates on a pow day. The bigger the snowfall, the bigger the attitude, the bigger the bravado.
Where the heightened emotional states are most likely to spill over on big snow days is in our lift lines. Specifically, the first lift of the day to access the mountain, and a few hours later, the alpine lifts. People camp out for hours to be first, or at least in the first wave. Depending on the day, the wait can pay off for what might be your best powder run of the year. Waiting for lifts to crack can be a cold, uncomfortable affair—it’s not for everybody. Some people would rather keep moving and ski tracked-up snow on other parts of the mountain.
Others try to have it both ways, arriving late to the lineup party and expecting that cutting in front of hundreds of people is fine, because their friends have been waiting it out on their behalf. This is the first act showing an obvious lack of decorum. It’s not about having one more pair of tracks in front of you, it’s the fact that we waited, and you didn’t.
The reaction from the lift-line early birds can either be to ignore the snake, heckle the snake or confront the snake. If you choose to confront with aggression and hostility, that’s the second lack of decorum.
From there, what’s supposed to be a fun and fulfilling pow day on one of the best ski hills in the world can degenerate into petty arguments, name-calling and even physical altercations. I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I get up early on a Whistler pow day for. The backcountry is currently a haven away from this crowd-fuelled nonsense, but make no mistake, it’s coming for us there, too. Best we maintain a more refined decorum to keep the backcountry peaceful.
In the wake of the March 8 to 10 storm and resulting on-hill chaos, I’ve seen footage of the biggest Spanky’s Ladder lineup in years (with an equal and opposite Dirty Line); I’ve read a local meme-generator opine how cutting into a pow day line to join your friends should be socially acceptable; and worst, I’ve seen footage of a fight kick off in a Whistler lift line which apparently had nothing to do with powder at all. Whistler has grown in popularity to the point where decorum matters little, and if you don’t like it, your only option is to go skiing somewhere else.
And for those who think joining their friends at the front of the pow day lift line is somehow socially acceptable, it isn’t. It demonstrates that you’re in it for you and your cohort alone, not the greater community around you. Lift-line cutters are the MAGA of the ski world.
This is Whistler. We can do better. Let’s do better.
Vince Shuley does his best to maintain decorum in the town where he lives.
