Tag Archives: Jim McConkey

A New Whistler Museum

Posted on January 24, 2023 | 2 comments

People come into the Whistler Museum every day and are inspired to share their own stories. “I remember when I was looking at real estate in Whistler in the 1970s. Lots next to the garbage dump were selling for $10,000 but I was scared of bears so didn’t buy one.” That garbage dump is where Whistler Village now sits.

The site of Whistler Village prior to development. Whistler Question Collection.

A recent favourite was when a longtime local told us about volunteering for a race on Whistler Mountain. One of the chairs fell from the Orange Chair, and instead of stopping it and doing tests they were instructed to hide the chair in the trees so no one would see what had happened.

When Jim McConkey was visiting from Denman Island earlier in the year he casually brought up how Bob Lange brought him a prototype of a plastic lace-up ski boot to try, back when boots were exclusively made from leather. According to Jim, “I tried it and said, ‘You’re on the right track but you’ve got to make a buckle boot.’ That was the first plastic boot there was.”

There are so many unique stories about Whistler and the people who call, or have called this town home. 60 years ago there was no skiing on Whistler or Blackcomb Mountains, instead, the valley was mainly used for logging and summer tourism which revolved around fishing.

When Whistler Mountain first opened in 1966 visitors travelled to the lifts on a gravel road that was only plowed once a week. Whistler became a municipality less than 50 years ago, and when it was incorporated there was no sewer or town water in the valley, and many people relied on the manual collection of water from the lakes or creeks.

Creekside during construction of the ski resort in 1965. Janet Love Morrison Collection.

According to the 2021 census data, the median age of the population in Whistler is 35.6. This means that more than half of the population of Whistler was around before the mountains allowed snowboarding. Even more recent was the opening of the bike park. Most people would remember a time before the bike park, and Crankworx, now a global celebration of mountain biking, started in Whistler in 2004.

A lot has changed! Regularly we are told the only thing in Whistler that hasn’t changed since opening are the lift lines. The Whistler Museum and Archives Society was started in 1986 to document these changes so people could remember a time before skiing. Our mission is to collect, preserve, document, and interpret the natural and human history of mountain life, with an emphasis on Whistler, and to share this with the community to enrich the lives of residents and guests.

Like plenty of other Whistler institutions throughout history, we are currently housed in a temporary trailer. The trailer that we call home started its life as the Canada Post building in Creekside. In 1994 it was moved into the village, and the library moved in in 1995 until it found its permanent home in 2008.

There are a few challenges with our temporary home. Preserving archives and artefacts for future reference and exhibits relies on specific temperature and moisture controls so materials do not degrade. The building that we have currently is hard to keep within these parameters. Storage space is also limited so much of our collection is offsite in uncontrolled environments. This puts the collection at risk and we would love to keep it under stricter conditions for improved protection, which we could do in a new museum.

The Canada Post building in 1978. It would go on to become the library and then the museum. This is the same building the museum calls home today. Whistler Question Collection.

A bigger footprint will also mean we can share more of Whistler’s stories with the community. Whistler’s history is quite unique, we have had a big global impact for such a small town, and we want to be able to protect and celebrate this for generations to come.

On December 6th, the Resort Municipality of Whistler agreed to a lease of municipal land to the museum for a 60 year term. Sixty years ago Whistler was not a ski town, and in another 60 years who knows what will happen? Whatever the future looks like, we hope the Whistler Museum will be around to capture and celebrate our history.

Look out for more exciting information related to the new museum facility in the coming months.

Much in Whistler has changed since the Whistler Museum opened in the trailer on Main Street, next to the library in 1995. Mayor Ted Nebbeling and Sara Jennings unveil the sign during the grand opening. Petersen Collection.

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Posted in Arts & Artists, From the Archives, Mountain Culture, Museum Musings, Ski-Town Stories, Whistler: A Town

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Dag Aabye in Whistler

Posted on March 8, 2022 | 2 comments

Many of the names of runs on Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains pay homage to skiers and, slightly less often, snowboarders who made a mark on the mountains, whether as an employee, an investor, or an athlete. Some of these names, such as Franz’s Run, McConkey’s, and Arthurs’s Choice are fairly easy to trace back to their source, while others like Bushrat, Jam Tart, and Jolly Green Giant require a bit more knowledge of their namesake. During a 2019 speaker event, however, it was pointed out that there is one skier who, despite making quite an impression during his time in the Whistler valley, has no official namesake on Whistler Mountain: Dag Aabye.

Dag Aabye shows off his skills on Whistler Mountain. Cliff Fenner Collection.

When Roy Ferris and Alan White opened the Garibaldi Ski School in 1966, they asked Ornulf Johnsen from Norway to come manage it. Johnsen persuaded the lift company to bring over fellow Norwegian Dag Aabye to work for him. Aabye had previously been working as a ski instructor in Britain and as a movie stuntman, including skiing in the 1965 James Bond film Goldfinger, and he soon arrived to begin instructing on Whistler Mountain.

Dag Aabye runs with his skis as part of the Great Snow Earth Water Race. Whistler Question Collection, 1981.

According to Lynn Mathews, Aabye was “tall, lanky, quiet,” a “really nice guy who would do these most unbelievable things.” Mathews described him as “a cat on skis” and remembered watching him ski down the Red Chair lift line, “touching lightly from side to side as he went down these cliffs.” Jim McConkey, who took over the management of the ski school in 1968, described Aabye as “just a phenomenal skier” and recalled watching him jump off a cornice on the Whistler glacier, land, and ski straight down.

Aabye became known for his first ski descents on Whistler Mountain, including areas of Whistler’s peak that are permanently closed today such as Don’t Miss and the Weekend Chutes, sometimes waiting days for the right conditions before hiking up from the top of the t-bar. In some cases, it would be another twenty to thirty years before the next person made the same descent.

Norwegian hot-shot Dag Aabye jumping off the roof of the Cheakamus Inn, 1967. Walt Preissl, who took the photo, recalls the occasion: “We were in the Cheakamus Inn Hotel at Whistler, sitting in the bar with Marg Egger, when we saw this pile of snow go swiftly by the window, including a body with it , we ran out and it was Dag. Ornulf was taking some pics, he asked him to go back up and do it again so that he could get a better shot. And so he did go back and jump off the roof of the Cheakamus Inn [again]. He was a match for Jim McConkey who used to do things like that.” Photo courtesy of Walt Preissl.

Aabye could be seen skiing in films by Jim Rice, including a short 1968 film featuring Aabye and Cliff Jennings skiing the glaciers around Whistler by helicopter. Off the mountain, he also became known for his willingness to ski off man-made structures, such as the Cheakamus Inn. According to Mathews, this was done mostly “for fun. Cause doesn’t everyone ski off the roof and land 50 feet down?” Aabye also built his own jump for his efforts to land a backflip on 215 cm skis and could often be found walking on his hands with his skis still attached to his feet. In summers, Aabye worked as a coach at the summer ski camps alongside ski celebrities such as Toni Sailer and Nancy Greene.

The staff of the 1969 Summer Ski Camp, including skiing legend, Dag Aabye. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation Collection.

In his 80s today, Aabye is still known as an athlete, competing annually in ultra marathons prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though he long ago left Whistler and ended up outside SilverStar (where the run Aabye Road bears his name), Aabye is still talking about in the valley and on the mountain.

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Canoeing through Whistler’s Past

Posted on July 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

This evening (Tuesday, July 7) the museum will be hosting our first virtual Speaker Series, an adapted version of the talk and film screening with Mike Stein that we were originally planning to present in March.  Though Whistler is known internationally as a ski resort, the film features a different form of recreation and transportation that is commonly found in the valley: canoeing.

In the 1980s there was even a Whistler Canoe Club, which held races on Alta Lake.  Whistler Question Collection.

Canoeing has a much longer history in the area than snowsports, as canoes are important to both the Lil’wat Nation and Squamish Nation.  The Great Hall of the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre features a 40 foot long Salish hunting canoe carved from a single cedar tree which at times is removed from the exhibition and taken on an ocean journey.  Learn more about this canoe and others by visiting the Squmaish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, which reopened last month.

The Whistler Museum also has records of canoes being used to transport people and products around the valley for over a century.

In the early 1900s the Barnfield family established a dairy farm on their property at the northeast end of Alta Lake.  As summer tourism became more popular in the area following the arrival of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in 1914, the Barnfield’s dairy began supplying the lodges and visitors with fresh supplies.  They used a dugout canoe to deliver milk, cream, eggs, news and gossip to the different lodges on Alta Lake.  By 1920 their largest customer was Rainbow Lodge, which had a daily order of 80 quarts of milk, 4 quarts of cream, and 2 quarts of table cream.

This dugout canoe is similar to the one Alfred and Fred would have used. It may in fact be the one they used, but we have no records to confirm or deny that.

Rainbow Lodge itself had a number of boats, including canoes, for guests and staff to use for fishing or paddling down the River of Golden Dreams, one of which now resides in the museum’s collection.  In 2011 the museum, with the generous support of the Province of British Columbia, was able to purchase a cedar canoe bought by Alex and Myrtle Philip in 1916 for Rainbow Lodge.  After the Philips sold the lodge in 1948, Myrtle kept the canoe for her own personal use for the next 25 years.  The canoe and aged and, before coming back to Alta Lake, was restored by Dave Lanthier, an expert vintage canoe restorer and member of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association.  The canoe is currently displayed in the Whistler Public Library, as the museum does not have the space to exhibit such a large item.

Myrtle’s canoe, pre-restoration.  The canoe now hangs on the wall of the Whistler Public Library, until such a time as we have space to display it at the museum.

The popularity of canoeing continued even after skiing came to Whistler.  In 1975 canoes represented the water part of the first Great Snow Earth Water Race, with cyclists passing the baton to canoeists who worked their way up Alta Lake to the first weir on the River of Golden Dreams, where they handed off to the runners.  From all reports, the canoeing was the most fun for the spectators.  According to Dave Steers, “Most of the teams had members who could tell the front of a canoe from the back.  A few teams didn’t even have that.”  As you can imagine, quite a few canoes tipped and those watching got to see a lot of splashing.

The canoe portion of the Great Snow, Earth, Water Race heads out on Alta Lake.  Whistler Question Collection.

Three years before that inaugural race, Mike Stein, Adolf Teufele, Wink Bradford, Ferdi Wenger, and Jim McConkey set out on their own journey by canoe on the Liard River.  Teufele captured their adventures in the Grand Canyon, a 20 km stretch of the Liard, on 16mm film and the film has now been digitized, edited, and narrated by Stein.  This evening we’ll be hearing from Stein about the film and the journey, as well as screening Highways of the Past: Canoeing the Grand Canyon of the Liard, via Zoom.  Visit here to learn more about the event and register.

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Posted in Mountain Culture, Museum Musings, Museum News & Events, Ski-Town Stories

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Happiest in the Mountains: Stefan Ples (Part Two)

Posted on May 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

There is an often told story of the first meeting of Stefan Ples and Franz Wilhelmsen of Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. on Whistler Mountain.  Apparently Franz arrived at the top of the mountain by helicopter to find Stefan there on skis.  Franz asked, “What are you doing on my mountain?”, to which Stefan replied, “What are you doing on mine?”  Though we do not know exactly how their first meeting occurred, the story certainly demonstrates Stefan’s love of the mountain and his preferred way to navigate it.  (For more information on Stefan’s life before coming to Alta Lake, check out last week’s article here.)

Stefan and Gerda Ples sit on their hearth at Alta Lake. Photo courtesy of Bareham family.

Although Stefan didn’t understand why people would prefer going up on lifts and skiing only a short distance down, he became greatly involved in the development of Whistler Mountain.  By the mid 1960s he had been exploring the mountain on his skis for years and knew the are perhaps better than anyone at the time.  Stefan began working for the lift company in 1963, going up to Alta Lake every weekend for over a year to climb up to a meadow at the bottom of the T-bar, where he would record the temperature and snowfall and other information (his handwritten reports were donated to the Whistler Museum & Archives by his daughter Renate Bareham in 2013).

When construction of the runs and lifts began Stefan moved up to Alta Lake full time to work.  Part of his responsibilities was to bring the horses up the mountain with supplies to a work camp that was set up in what may have been the same meadows he gathered his reports from.  Renate accompanied him on one of his trips up with the horses and told the museum, “It was just magical, because we went up through the forest and everything and we ended up in this meadow.  Oh, it was so beautiful up there.”

During one particularly bad snow year, Stefan also introduced the sport of Ice Stock Sliding to the valley.  “The old master, Stefan Ples, who introduced ice stock sliding to the Whistler area, sending one of the “rocks” down the recently blacktopped course next to the school at Whistler.” (Garibaldi Whistler News Fall 1977)

Though Gerda had continued to run their rooming house in Vancouver when Stefan first started working for the lift company, the rest of the family moved to Alta Lake in 1966.  According to Renate, not many people lived in the area at the time, and those who did either worked for the lift company or worked construction around the gondola base.  Renate attended high school in Squamish and worked for the lift company on the weekends and breaks.  At fourteen she began by stapling lift tickets and then handing out boarding passes, moving on to teach skiing for Jim McConkey when she turned sixteen.  She also babysat, caring for the Bright and Mathews children whose parents worked for the mountain.

Stefan continued working for the lift company and led ski tours to areas the lifts didn’t access.  One summer Renate even remembered helping him paint the top of the Red Chair.  Despite working for the lift company and receiving a lifetime pass in 1980, Stefan continued to prefer walking up, occasionally taking a lift as far as midstation before beginning his climb.

According to Renate, the only person who could go up the mountain on skis faster than her father was Seppo Makinen: “It took my dad three hours, probably, to get to the peak.  Seppo made it in an hour and a half.  I think he actually ran, you know, on his cross country skis, and my dad walked on his cross country skis, but Seppo ran.  He was also considerably younger than my father.”

Stefan Ples, long-time resident of Whistler, receives a lifetime pass from Garibaldi Lifts President Franz Wilhelmsen in recognition of his long involvement with Whistler Mountain.  Whistler Question Collection, 1980.

Parts of Stefan’s legacy can be seen throughout the area though many may not know of his role in creating it, from the Tyrol Lodge to the two runs off Whistler Peak that bear his name (Stefan’s Chute and Stefan’s Salute).  He was a founding member of the Alta Lake Volunteer Fire Department in the 1960s and helped start Whistler’s first Search and Rescue Team in 1973.  His name can also be found on the Stefan Ples trophy, the prize for the overall winners of the Peak to Valley Race, as he like to climb to the peak and then ski all the way down.

Though some people may come to Whistler to build a career or make it rich, Renate said of her father that, “All he wanted to do was be in the mountains,” a goal it would appear he certainly accomplished.

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Posted in Museum Musings, Ski-Town Stories, Tales from Alta Lake

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