"Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action."
Malcolm Fraser
There was frost on the ground and a sharp bite to the morning air. But the October sky had that special blend of blue that makes even cranky old columnists fall for Whistler's charms again. Not a cloud to be seen anywhere. Not a breath of wind to ruffle the leaves. And what a sight those leaves offered: a concerto of yellow and red and orange, their frozen tips gleaming like diamonds in the autumn sun. No point in resisting, I thought to myself. The mountain calls. Time for a walk to timberline.
Full disclosure: I'm not the testosterone junkie I once was. No, that's not right. Let me put it another way. My body no longer supports the kind of physical adventures that once defined my life. Call me what you will: Icarus cobbled, Popeye in port, Beaudry on the couch. It's been a tough two years.
Quite a come down, in fact. A real eye-opener. Where once I flew, I now grovel. You see, anything more aggressive than putting one foot in front of the other hurts me terribly these days. Gotta run across the street to catch the bus? Pain. Jump on the bike for a quick spin to the store? Pain. Ski down the mountain on a beautiful powder day? Pain. Even lifting the damn surfboard onto the roof - Ouch - pain! You get the picture. I've been robbed of my adventure drop-out clause - my one get-out-of-jail-free-and-wild card - the very thing that kept me sane in this paranoid world of over-management and nanny governance. YARGH!
As the old song says "and the backbone's connected to the..." well, connected to just about everything else in my body as it turns out. Which has left me no recourse but, sigh, to take up walking.
Fortunately I've discovered that being a pedestrian (a word I once used as an epithet - as in 'don't be so ...') is surprisingly fun. And healthy. No, walking doesn't get my heart beating like a mad drummer at a T-Rex revival. Nor do I feel the adrenalin pinging around my stomach like a box of bb pellets spilled on a slate floor. No. That's not what I get from walking. Its magic is far too subtle for that.
The sights. The sounds. The smells even. The silky feel of a dew-kissed cedar frond sliding across my skin. The foreign texture of a white-speckled amanita squatting on the forest floor. It's a raven chortling at my passage. A ground squirrel collecting seeds for its winter stash. To me, that's what walking is all about. You get to become an intimate part of the community in which you're strolling. Whether it's embracing the human bouillabaisse on Vancouver's Commercial Drive or braving a gaggle of garrulous black bears on a Whistler trail - doesn't matter. It's all-incumbent on the magic of using your feet to get around. Really. There's nothing like being a pedestrian when it comes to learning about your own neighbourhood.
At least it's been that way for me. But where was I? Oh yeah, a beautiful fall day, a few hours of free time, and a leisurely walk up the mountain.
It didn't take long to leave the valley behind. Ten, fifteen minutes at most and the noise of cars and kids, workers and working machines had faded to nothing. Even the smells had changed. No more wood smoke. No more diesel and gas fumes. The lush, semi-decaying stink of the coast forest now dominated my nostrils. Skunk cabbage and fern; hemlock and alder. The sun played peek-a-boo through the foliage. The trail kept climbing. It contoured ponds, crossed trickling creeks, even negotiated a particularly obstinate wall of frowning granite. Felt good to be putting one foot in front of the other. Felt good to be outside.
Slowly my stride got longer. My squabbling companion, pain, conveniently ebbed into the background. I could feel the smile on my face grow. My imagination flowed.
I don't know about you, but the higher I climb the better I feel. Maybe that's why I've never questioned the old gods' preference for mountain-top abodes. Better view. Cleaner air. Fresher thoughts. What's not to like?
Heck, even old Moses had to climb a mountain to talk to Yahweh. Ever thought of that? There's something liberating about shucking the mundane concerns of valley life for the lofty thoughts of the high country. Euro ski bums of the 1960s used to call it "leaving shit-level." Clearly, that feeling of sundering the chains of sea-level bondage is irresistible to a certain kind of person.
But there is a price to pay for that freedom. It's not easy to live in the mountains. Never has been. Never will be. And that's part of its charm. Mountain life isn't for everybody. It's an acquired taste, best suited to a subset of the human family that I call the "Snoweaters." And therein lies the rub. Those who seek to mitigate Whistler's woollier nature - those, for example, who prefer cement stages to natural forests - risk killing the very magic that makes this place such an attractive place to the Snoweater community.
I received a letter from a reader recently. (Don't laugh; it does occur from time-to-time). As Alta States' critics are won't to do, this particular reader took exception to what he called my "Whistler-in-the-good-old-days" stories.
Still, he was quite diplomatic about it. "You do write interesting things," he conceded. And went on to tell me how much he liked last week's Guitar Doug profile. "But you can't resist getting your digs in," he complained. Meaning? I was unreasonably critical of modern-day Whistler. I was stuck in an imaginary past and unwilling to face reality.
Sound familiar? "Maybe you saw the changes coming," he wrote. "Maybe you didn't. But 10,000 people live here now and apparently like it enough to stay here." Besides, he went on, "all those people from your time had a chance to affect change and apparently you allowed what has happened to Whistler to happen [sic]."
His recommendation: "Why don't you stick to the stories you have and leave out the commentary."
Ouch. So what can a poor ink-stained wretch of a columnist do? Maybe become a historian instead...
But seriously folks: the news of Old Whistler's demise has been greatly exaggerated . Go ahead. Call me crazy. But I still think there's a pulse beating in that old Coast Mountain heart. And I'm definitely not giving up on it yet. To me, it's still a battle worth fighting for. Not you?
The word "Whistler" once represented a unique community experiment conducted in a distinctive mountain setting. Unconventional, irreverent, risk-taking, outlaw-on-the-edges even, the little-resort-town-that-could consistently defied the odds and in so doing completely re-defined the ski business.
And it's not like everyone jumped on board the moment the project was announced. Too big. Too wet. Too stormy. Too isolated. Too Canadian even. Experts had endless lists of reasons why Whistler couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't succeed. But it did. Like a psylly mushroom on a cowpie, the place exuded a magic that slowly, inexorably, drew believers from around the world.
Did we grow too fast? Did we lose our sense of perspective? I don't know. All I know is that the leadership void in this valley is scary right now. Decisions are being driven by bean-counters and survey-studiers. Bottom lines mean more than people. Hubris reigns. And that's definitely not going to lead us to a better place.
Whistler's current leadership is running on empty. No imagination. No courage. Meanwhile, the herd of sacred cows munching happily on our future is spreading unchecked. We need to re-set our social compass. We need to re-examine what and who we want to become. Finally, we need to realize that there is going to be some very heavy lifting ahead - for everyone!
So ask yourself this: Why did you move to Whistler? Why do you call this place home? Then ask yourself what that means. Are you ready to make the sacrifices required to live here? Ready to fight for what you believe in? Or are you happy to sit on the sidelines and let others decide the future for you? Your call.
But I've got to go. The shadows are getting longer; the sun is dropping fast. I still have miles of walking before I get home. Gotta pick up the pace...
