Whistler

Sproatt Mountain and Alta Lake

The time has come when I must move on from Whistler.

Whistler is a strange town - it is a wonderful place with amazing mountains and - the primary draw for most of its visitors - fantastic skiing and snowboarding. The town is very much a resort: the original reason for its development was to host the Olympic games. Now that that has happened and the Olympics are over, the town seems to have something of an identity crisis. There is a subtle undercurrent of paranoia that Whistler will lose the interest generated by this event, which leads to the feeling that it needs to continue providing exciting events to ensure that people keep coming. Since people will surely keep coming for the mountains anyway, I don't think Whistler needs to worry so much (is it actually possible for a town to worry?)

Whistler is home to a large variety of people from all over the world: dominated by Aussies, but also including (in no particular order) large contingents of Québecois, Brits, Japanese, Swedes, other Europeans, Kiwis, Mexicans, South Americans, Filipinos, Koreans... The majority are either passing through or came here from elsewhere and stayed. There are, however, two groups of people whose roots here go back further than even the deepest-rooted Canadians: Whistler is situated at the meeting point between the nations of Squamish and Lil'wat. Fortunately, there is a wonderful cultural centre (Olympic-funded) that assists with an understanding of the traditional cultures of these two groups of people.

Stability in my life seems to lead to an absence of diary writing and blogging, but by no means an absence of activity. While a lot of the time, I joined my brother in the "ski/snowboard, eat, work, sleep, snowboard/ski" life-cycle of the ski-bum, the following links document some of the other activities I engaged in during the time I was living there.


Performance Architecture
Accordion Snowboarding
Whistler Bottles

I have been living with my brother in this international ski resort town for the last 8 months. He has gone back to Europe and his beloved Chamonix. 

 

I now resume my journey's eastward momentum.