Growing up on the prairies, I often found myself repeating the same question around the same time each year—usually beginning sometime around mid-January.
“Why does anybody live here?”
It’s a fair question. Why would anyone willingly live where the air hurts your face for several months of the year? Where if you forget to plug your car in overnight, you might be stranded in the morning? Or where a wrong turn down the wrong gravel road could spell disaster, or even death?
And then there are those who have to work in it.
I’ll never forget my 20th birthday, if only for the fact that I spent it at a work camp in the far north of Alberta—where on this particular Jan. 28, it was -50 C.
Being the youngest members of our pipeline crew, my friend and I were tasked with driving the line, firing up the backhoes, sidebooms and other machinery to ensure they didn’t freeze and seize for good.
The few trucks on the road that morning left a lingering, mashed potato-thick exhaust in their wake, blinding all behind them.
Simply being outside that day was an exercise in endurance and pain management.
It got worse later that winter, when I began operating a sideboom myself—one with no enclosed cab, or heater of any sort. There is not enough thermal gear in the world to keep you warm in that situation.
All of this to say that, on the prairies, the cold is a legitimate, unforgiving adversary. You take it seriously or you pay the price.
Whistler is obviously a world apart from the prairies, with a different climate and wildly different topography. But cold is cold, and the arctic outflow temperatures seen in the resort this week are proof.
And so recent debate over providing an extreme cold weather shelter in Whistler has been interesting to hear—even if most of it occurred behind the scenes, off the record or on background.
The gist of it is an argument over how cold is too cold, essentially, with the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) not wanting to open the Whistler Public Library as an extreme weather emergency shelter at -4 C, which is what the provincial Assistance to Shelter Act deems extreme cold for the Vancouver Coastal Region.
Given the fact that it is almost always -4 C at night in Whistler, there must have been concern at municipal hall that the library would become a de facto nightly homeless shelter in the winter.
A cynical take, but fair enough.
Though the behind-the-scenes debate was (is?) reportedly contentious, it was encouraging to see at least a partial resolution on this week’s council agenda.
In short, an amendment to the Whistler Community Services Society’s lease agreement will allow the social-service provider to operate an extreme weather emergency shelter at its facility at 8000 Nesters Road, with a threshold of -10 C—the same used in B.C.’s Interior.
In this case, I actually agree with raising the threshold. Maybe that’s my Saskatchewan ice blood.
But it is hard to ignore the familiar tinge of Whistler Exceptionalism colouring this debate.
Whistler Exceptionalism, in this case, is the inherent belief that Whistler is just different or better than other communities—special, I suppose is the word. Go to any public meeting or community event and you might get a sense of what I mean—you would be extremely hard-pressed to find a gathering that takes place in Whistler that doesn’t feature at least one person commenting on how special and amazing Whistler is. Hashtag blessed.
And it’s true. Head to the top of Whistler Mountain and try to deny it.
But it is becoming increasingly obvious that this insistence that, because we are special, we can’t do things a certain way, is detrimental to the town in the long run.
As one frustrated local developer put it to me some years back, after trying and failing to get a perfectly serviceable housing project through municipal hall for years, “nothing is good enough for Whistler.”
Our preciousness and protectionism—our insistence on clean, pristine perfection—is actively working against us, ensuring the things that actually make this place special just get harder to maintain.
Can’t have temporary work camps—can’t even start discussing them—because they don’t fit with our image. And what if people (gasp) try to make that temporary home permanent? Can’t have that.
Can’t have a cannabis storefront, even though it’s been legal for four years—gotta make everything extra complicated and control every last detail.
Can’t address private suite loss—those second homeowners pay too much in taxes to rock the boat.
Can’t build anything until every last NIMBY has lost their voice from shouting—and when we do, it won’t make a difference, because we waited too long and reduced the development to its bare bones.
It’s ironic that Whistler is so overly protective of its image in certain ways—design guidelines, storefront signage, even lighting—while casually allowing landlords to pack four or more to a room and charge $1,000 a head.
Use ‘em up, ship ‘em home, let the next batch come in to keep the lifts running and the booze flowing for a year or two. Don’t ever dare to address the real problem out loud, because it might make us look bad on the world stage.
Maybe ironic isn’t the right word. It’s tragic, really.
On one hand, we should be thankful that our local government is often thoughtful and measured with its policies, and not prone to kneejerk reactions or pressured approvals.
On the other, it is far too easy to get bogged down in logistics, formalities, red tape, legal pitfalls, and so on.
Whistler must find balance.
It is important to weigh risks, exercise patience and tread lightly when we have the luxury of doing so.
But when it comes to the long-term well-being of Whistlerites, and ensuring this town stays special, we would do well to operate first from a place of compassion—the finer details can be worked out later.
Humanity and understanding over cold and calculated cynicism—empathy over aesthetic.
How’s that for a heartfelt Christmas message?
