Tag Archives: Whistler Museum and Archives

Build a Building

Posted on March 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

Plastic bricks and a building competition probably aren’t the first things you would associate with a museum; however, for many who grow up in the Whistler area they are one of the first introductions a child has to the Whistler Museum. The museum held its first “Build a Building” competition using LEGO bricks in September 1966 and the annual event continues to bring crowds of children to the museum each summer.

In the September 12, 1996 edition of the Whistler Question, the museum called on “Lego fans, budding engineers and aspiring architects” to enter their creations in a bid to win prizes donated by LEGO and local businesses such as Great Games and Toys. There were two ways to enter; participants could build at home with their own bricks or build at the Whistler Museum on the day of the competition with bricks provided by the toy store. The two categories were judged and awarded prizes separately. Costing $2 to enter, the event was both a fundraiser for the museum building fund and a fun way to bring more children to the museum.

*Building takes place at the Whistler Museum in 1997. Whistler Museum and Archives Collection.*

According to the report of museum board director Paul Fournier, 66 children participated in this first competition and created “some really elaborate entries.” With any kind of building allowed, kids built hospitals, museums, libraries, lakefront homes, and even some helipads (the helipad at the Whistler Heath Centre was upgraded in late summer of 1996). Entries were judged by Citizens of the Year Kris Shoup (1995), Stan and Shirley Langtry (1994), Sonya McCarthy (1991) and Linda Marshall (1996). Winners included Liam Fisher, Robyn and Jamie Pratt, Emily Macalister and Julia Murray, Jesse Clemiss, and Evan Macalister.

The following year’s event saw more than 200 participants. The competition took place both inside the museum and in the parking area outside (event today, trying to fit 200 people inside the museum building is not recommended) and organizers immediately began asking the community about alternative venues for the next year’s event. Again, there were two categories and winners took home prize packages of LEGO from Great Games and Toys.

*Images from the 1997 competition. Whistler Museum and Archives Collection*

Since the 1990s, the building competition has evolved and moved locations, taking place at the Spruce Grove Field House, Florence Petersen Park and even online in 2020. The annual event continues to introduce children to the museum each summer (this year will mark the 28th competition) and has itself become a part of Whistler’s history.

Building competitions, however, are not just for children. This month the Whistler Museum and LUNA (Late and Unique Nighttime Alternatives) will be hosting The Big Kids Building Competition for adults on Wednesday, March 22. Entry is $5, or $2 for museum or LUNA members, and there are limited spaces available. Unlike the museum’s early building competitions, there will be no build-at-home category and all participants will build at the Whistler Museum on March 22 with bricks provided by the museum. Like the early competitions, entries will be judged and winners will go home with great prizes from local businesses including Armchair Books, Escape! Whistler, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler and the Scandinave Spa.

Learn more about this year’s Big Kids Building Competition here.

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Posted in Museum Musings, Museum News & Events, Whistler: A Town

Tagged Big Kids LEGO Building Competition, Florence Petersen, Kris Shoup, LEGO, LEGO Building Competition, Linda Marshall, Paul Fournier, Shirley Langtry, Sonya McCarthy, Stan Langtry, Steve Henderson, Whistler history, Whistler Museum, Whistler Museum and Archives

The times they are a-changing in Whistler’s historical collections

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Time are changing in the world of archival and artefact collections, and it’s definitely hard to keep up with the resulting backlog. This is a good problem to have, because it means the community trusts the museum to preserve its past. We have had a significant increase in the number and size of donations to the Whistler Museum and Archives over the past two years (thanks to those who donated!), and we hope we will continue to be on the minds of locals when older things are looking for a new home. We have a few theories as to what led to the increase of donations, the main one being that the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdowns and business closures allowed some locals the time to do a bit of cleaning and clearing of their homes.

*Some of the materials donated as part of the Whistler Pride collection.*

While the influx of donations is a particular challenge for us in terms of having enough storage space, it’s also very exciting for the Collections Department here, as there have been items donated on more varied subjects, which can help us fill gaps in our collections. For instance, we have welcomed more documents on the origins of Blackcomb Mountain, more artefacts and photographs relating to the history of snowboarding in the area, a large collection of Whistler Pride documents and artefacts, and even some of the COVID-19 signs which were put up in Whistler Village during 2020. It is very important to us that our collections reflect the community we serve, and this can be a difficult task at times due to donations being a voluntary and charitable act. We always encourage donations, and for locals to remind others that donating items to the Whistler Museum is a much-appreciated option before sending older items and documents to the trash.

*Digital files could be stored on many different devices, and are donated to the archives in various forms.*

It’s not just our own collections at the museum that are changing, but also the types of media being donated to archives in general. Photographs, videos, and documents that were born in a digital environment are now being donated to archives, and we are no exception here. USB sticks, hard drives, and .jpg files have been donated to the Whistler Museum and Archives this year, heralding the Age of Information which will surely make the process of archiving more complex over time. If a donor were to donate the entire contents of their email account, it would make for some very grueling description work for entering into the archival catalogue, which connects researchers to our collections, and this is just one part of that growing complexity for archivists. In this day and age, data, photos, and files are being created at ever-increasing speeds as technology smooths the path. While this may help future generations learn about ours due to the wealth of evidence we’ve created, it also makes it very difficult to weed through our data to decide what is of value and worth keeping. Endless information is only useful if it is mapped in some way to allow us to access the information that is meaningful to us.

For the time being, the Whistler Museum and Archives has still been able to keep up with the amount of born-digital donations, but the future of preserving the history of Whistler through digital means may become more complicated in the coming decades!

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Posted in From the Archives, Museum Musings

Tagged archives, artefact, Blackcomb Mountain, collections, COVID-19, donations, snowboarding, Whistler Museum, Whistler Museum and Archives, Whistler Pride and Ski Festival

Whistler Museum 2019: Year in Review

Posted on January 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

This was a highly successful year for the Whistler Museum & Archives Society. The museum continues, with the help of the Board of Trustees, staff, and volunteers, to preserve, protect, and interpret Whistler’s history.

Over the course of 2019, the museum welcomed 14,410 exhibit visitors. This is an increase of 1,552 people or 12.6% over 2018. In addition to exhibit visits, WMAS attracted a further 905 people to our building through programs and events. WMAS also held a number of events and programs outside the museum, which attracted approximately 9,486 people. In total, the museum provided services to approximately 2,480 individuals. This marks the busiest year in the museum’s history for the fifth year in a row.

The museum expanded many of its programs in 2019, including the ever-popular Discover Nature program. This program, which ran through July and August in Lost Lake Park, offered a chance for locals and visitors to learn about Whistler’s rich biodiversity through the use of touch tables and face-to-face engagements with our knowledgable and dedicated interpreters. This year we were able to expand the program by an additional day to five days a week, Monday to Friday, and our scheduled nature walks were expanded from June to August, seven days a week.

The touch table at Discover Nature in the summer.

We had another strong year for other events and programs as well, including established favourites like our Valley of Dreams historical walking tours, Speaker Series events, numerous children’s crafts such as Crafts in the Park, our annual LEGO Building Competition, and Mountain Bike Heritage Week.

The museum continued to develop special exhibitions throughout the year. In 2019, these included Finding a Place: A History of Housing in Whistler and Construction of Whistler Village: 1978 – 1984. These temporary exhibits give the museum a chance to explore and present aspects of Whistler’s history that are not part of our permanent exhibit, and to use assets from the museum’s ever-expanding archival and artefact collection.

One of the highlights of 2019 was the Legends of Whistler Speaker Series that was hosted in conjunction with the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) and the Whistler Public Library. This three-part event was moderated by Mayor Jack Crompton and featured special guests sharing their own stories and knowledge of Whistler’s history.

Eldon Beck and Drew Meredith speak at the event on the development of Whistler Village.

Speakers included a cross-section of Whistler’s community, including former mayors, Olympians, former Whistler and Blackcomb managers, artists, librarians, musicians, and developers. Subjects ranged from development of Whistler Mountain during the 1960s, the design of Whistler Village, the life of a professional athlete in Whistler, Whistler’s cultural sector, and the Whistler and Blackcomb merger.

Eldon Beck, the architect of Whistler Village, spoke during one of the events and expressed his thoughts on the events in an email to the museum stating, “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. I felt an attachment to early Whistler never realized before, very special.”

I would like to take a moment to thank our funders and supporters: the RMOW, the Province of British Columbia, the Community Foundation of Whistler, American Friends of Whistler, Canadian Heritage, and our museum members for their continued support over the years.

I would also like to say a special thank you to everyone who has visited our exhibits, attended our events, read our Pique column, followed us on social media, and otherwise helped spread the word about Whistler’s fascinating people and history. We look forward to seeing you in 2020 (maybe at our first Speaker Series on Wedneday, January 29, where we will screen Pro Patrol, Curtis Petersen’s 1980 short documentary on ski patrol on Whistler Mountain, followed by a talk on changes in ski patrol and mountain safety with Roger McCarthy, Brian Leighton, and Bruce Watt.)