Tag: 1976 Olympic bid

Whistler’s Very Own Easter ParadeWhistler’s Very Own Easter Parade

April 22, 2017 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

This past weekend, with the Easter holidays, the closing events of WSSF, the Whistler Cup and still more snow on the mountains, there certainly wasn’t a lack of activities to occupy residents and visitors of any age.

Despite the snow, the Easter bunny put in an appearance on Blackcomb Mountain, 1982.

The Easter holidays have a history of being a busy weekend in Whistler. In the 1970s the list of Easter activities offered by the Chamber of Commerce and Garibaldi Lifts was an impressive one for such a small town, including fireworks, Easter egg hunts and various skiing events such as skiing displays and obstacle and costume races. Residents and visitors to the area alike could enjoy a torch light parade ending with a bonfire and hot dog roast in the parking lot at the bottom of the mountain. The weekend also included dancing and live entertainment at local establishments such as the Christiana Inn, L’Apres and the Mt Whistler Lodge. For those who chose to attend, all Easter services were held at the Whistler Skiers’ Chapel on the mountain, Canada’s first interdenominational church.

Easter services were held on the mountain in the Whistler Skiers’ Chapel, Canada’s first interdenominational church.

Events varied from year to year. Some years advertised prizes for an Easter Bonnet contest and in 1970 the Vancouver Garibaldi Olympic Committee was actively promoting a bid for the 1976 Olympics and used the popular weekend as an opportunity to get more people on board with a slide presentation on the bid at the Roundhouse.

The 1976 bid for the Winter Olympics was one of the most promising early bids put forward for Whistler.

One of the most popular events over the Easter weekend was Whistler’s own Easter Parade. When thinking about parades in Whistler the first to come to mind is usually the annual community parade on Canada Day. During the 1970s, however, the Easter Parade was not to be missed.

Traditionally an Easter parade was an informal and somewhat unorganized event in which people dressed in their new fashionable clothing in order to impress others. Irving Berlin wrote “Easter Parade”, a popular song inspired by the Easter parade in New York, in 1933 and a film by the same name starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland was later constructed around the song in 1948.

Though the Easter Parade in Whistler may not have been designed to showcase anyone’s new finery, it did include carefully thought out floats and some illustrious leaders. In 1971 the 52 floats were led by Miss Vancouver Ardele Hollins, Miss PNE Judy Stewart and members of the RCMP. The following year the parade was led by none other than then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Coral Robinson, Pierre Trudeau and Dennis Therrien at the Easter Parade in 1972 sitting in a security detail car.

Whistler’s parade was open to anyone who wanted to participate. Interested parties were told to “plan a float, come as a marching group, or just get dressed up in a crazy costume and join the fun. The more the merrier!” Community groups and local businesses, as well as individuals, created elaborate floats and costumes such as the Jolly Green Giant and the original gondola. The 1974 parade was captured on film by the Petersens and can now be watched on our YouTube channel as part of the Petersen Film Collection along with other unique moments in Whistler’s history.

Ghosts of Olympic Bids Past.Ghosts of Olympic Bids Past.

February 9, 2013 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

1 year from today the seaside resort of Sochi Village will be a rocking celebration of winter sport on a scale the world has not seen since, well, n3 years ago, right here. Since we’re feeling the Olympic spirit we feel it’s apt to look back into Whistler’s Olympic past.

The initial bid for the 1968 Olympics that started this whole thing called Whistler is fairly well known, but fewer are aware that a total of 5 unsuccessful bids for the Olympics had already been made before the IOC finally announced on July 2nd 2003 that the joint Vancouver-Whistler 2010 bid had been chosen. All of these prior bids, despite their failure, played an integral role in the continued development of Whistler until it was finally ready to host the 2010 Games.

The 1976 was an especially strong bid, receiving endorsement from the Canadian Olympic Committee as our official national bid. By 1970, when the bid was being put forth, Whistler Mountain had become an established, high profile ski resort, and Vancouver was an increasingly cosmopolitan city with growing international appeal. One of the most important boosters of the West Coast, and Whistler in particular, was none other than then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau–a frequent visitor to Whistler who even took his honeymoon here with Margaret Sinclair in 1971.

ACCESS WMA_P89_0270_WMSC — Pierre Trudeau and Franz Wilhelmsen meet to discuss Olympic bids on Whistler Mountain, 1969.

Although the 1976 games ended up in Innsbruck, Austria, the fact that a full IOC bid was made has left behind a lot of official material that gives insight into the Canadian Olympic organizers and their vision of Whistler as a future Olympic venue. The official 1976 Vancouver/Garibaldi bid book, printed in 1970 and on display in the Olympic section of our permanent exhibit is a perfect example of this.

The Bid Book' which has a beautiful cloth-bound hardcover, and is about the size of a vinyl LP cover. — The Bid Book, which has a beautiful cloth-bound hardcover and is about the size of a vinyl LP cover.

The book is a very polished looking production, meant to showcase the bid and everything the Vancouver-Garibaldi region had to offer. A prominent selling point for this bid was the compact, single host area. All of the events would be held in what is today Whistler, they even advertised that all facilities would be within a 2.5 mile radius of where the village is today.

Probably the coolest element from the bid book are the architectural drawings, which offers an alternate-universe version of Whistler Village from the one designed by Eldon Beck and constructed nearly a decade later. Notably, although there was still very little there at the time, and there were no plans to develop Blackcomb yet, the village was still located more or less where it is today.

The architecture is very grand, especially with all the elements considered as a whole. The buildings are angular, almost modular looking (the athlete’s village, not shown here, resembles very closely the Whiskey Jack neighbourhood in Nordic/Highlands).

Overall, this Olympic Village would have had a more purpose-built feel than today’s actual village; you’d never be more than a stone’s throw from the ski-jumping arena, the the ice rink, or the biathlon course. Despite such differences, you can still see the influential role it played in leading to the Whistler we have today: the village location, elements of architectural design, perhaps more.

Whether you prefer the designs or today’s village, and whether the reality would have actually matched these preliminary sketches, are matters for debate. Regardless, these drawings offer endless opportunity for pondering what could have been.