With the sun hopefully returning to Whistler to stay the local lakes are once again teeming with those who prefer to cool off in the water.  Looking through photos in our archive it’s easy to see that swimming has always been a popular summer pastime in Whistler, one that has changed relatively little in the past hundred years.

Swimming at Rainbow Lodge on Alta Lake

While Alex and Myrtle Philip operated Rainbow Lodge Alta Lake was the most popular destination for days spent in the water.  Not only did the lake make a hot summer day tolerable but with views such as those seen from the shore it would be hard not to enjoy your surroundings.  Like today, guests and residents alike could be found splashing around the docks, though for some the idea of a cool swim doesn’t appear to have been an appealing one.  Although diving boards have disappeared from Whistler lakes the water is still cold enough to cause hesitation in some people.

Diving board and a hesitant swimmer on Alta Lake

The only glaringly noticeable difference between swimming in the early twentieth century and swimming now is the bathing costume or swimsuit.  Though the same strokes are used to move through the water it is rare to find someone in the beach in apparel similar to that modeled by Jean Tapley, Katie McGregor and their friend.  Though not covering quite as much as the popular two piece suits of the nineteenth century which included a knee-length gown and trousers to the ankles, these suits are still quite modest compared to those found today.

Jean Tapley, Katie McGregor and friend

Alta Lake, along with Lost Lake, Alpha Lake and others, is still a popular place to spend a day, whether you live here or are visiting.  Though Rainbow Lodge is now gone (apart from a few cabins still at Rainbow Park) it is still possible to have the same experience the first guests to Whistler would have had when swimming.

Swimmers and boaters enjoy the docks at Rainbow Lodge

To learn more about another popular activity on Whistler lakes, come to the Museum today for a Family Saturday with the Whistler Sailing Association.  The presentation begins at 2:30 followed by a chance to build your own sailboat.

For years, Whistler has been world renowned as a hot spot for many sports including skiing, mountain biking, mountaineering, climbing, and paddling. One that seems to have fallen in popularity, however, is windsurfing.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, windsurfing began to rise in popularity as a sport, and Alta Lake became a hot spot for Canadian windsurfers. Whistler was the host of a number of windsurfing regattas. In July, 1981, the Squamish Citizen Shopper described the windsurfing regattas as one of the largest contributors to the summer business boom at Whistler. ‘Sailboarding’ was further described as Canada’s fastest growing water sport. Wednesday nights were race nights on Alta Lake, with up to 30 windsurfers showing up when it was busy. Whistler windsurfers were amongst the best in the sport, and the most notorious partiers.

After a sharp rise in popularity, leading to windsurfing becoming an Olympic sport in 1984, windsurfing seems to have fallen off the radar in Whistler. So where did windsurfing go? Due to licensing battles and an ongoing debate about the windsurfer’s origins, the 80’s saw extensive legal battles over patents and designs, which led to some companies having to cease production.  In the 2000’s, kiteboarding began to gain popularity, and began to rival windsurfing in popularity. It seems now that windsurfing is more of a fringe sport, especially in Whistler, where skiers are now picking up mountain bikes in the off-season.

These days, the hot spot for windsurfing and wind sports has migrated south to the Squamish spit. The more consistent winds and large open space offer a veritable playground for windsurfers and kiteboarders alike.

Sailing has retained some popularity in Whistler. Early visitors to Alta Lake enjoyed catching the wind in a rowboat the Phillips had rigged with a sail. It wasn’t the world’s greatest sailboat, but it worked.

The Alta Lake Sailing Club was founded in 1966 and ran out of Cypress Lodge.The club ran ‘Jelly Fish Races’ annually in May. The early Jelly Fish Races cost 50 cents to enter and included membership to the club for the weekend.

The Whistler Sailing Association is somewhat younger, having started in 2008 in response to strong local support. They continue to offer races as well as rentals and learning programs. Alta Lake still sees the occasional windsport enthusiast, and the sailing association has an active summer schedule with kids camps and lessons. They ensure that on windy days Alta Lake is still dotted with sails.

This week’s postcards have more of a direct link to Whistler’s history than the ones featured in last week’s post (read pt.1 here) – they represent a fraction of the correspondance sent between Whistlers’s best-known pioneer Myrtle Philip and her relatives. Both of the postcards shown were sent to Jean Tapley, Myrtle’s sister who lived in Seattle.

In this era prior to text messaging, Facebook and other forms of quick communication, the postcard was the fastest means of contact, something you would send when you couldn’t find the time to write a full letter.

Rainbow Lodge Postcard

This first postcard was meant to advertise all of the amenities at Alta Lake and Rainbow Lodge – it shows a view of Alta Lake with mountains in the background, the bridge to Rainbow Lodge, an interior shot of Rainbow Lodge, and swimmers enjoying the chilly waters of Alta Lake. Myrtle sent this postcard to her sister on July 13th, 1927 – nearly 85 years ago today!

On the back, written in Myrtle’s own cursive, is a message which reads “Dearest – How do you like the new style postcards? Dr & Mrs. Naismith are here – look fine – send love to you – Wish you were here now, but Sept will be a lovely holiday time. Dad is fine. Was very pleased with your letter. Best love Myrtle.”

Lost Lake Postcard

This second postcard shows Lost Lake, and was mailed to Jean by Rhi Philip, who was married to Alex Philip’s brother, John. Rhi, John and their two children were frequent visitors to Rainbow Lodge.

There’s something undeniably intriguing about old postcards and the stories behind them. This week and next we will be featuring some of the postcards found in our archives, and we invite you to comment and offer your own interpretations of their contents. Next week’s post will cover correspondance between members of the Tapley and Philip families.

First up is this fascinating postcard with a bit of a mysterious background we like to call “One big tree!”

A 117-year-old mystery

Although this photograph doesn’t show a tree near Whistler (and possibly not even a tree near Vancouver), it is in the Philip collection, and was given to either Myrtle or Alex at some point.

The photograph in this postcard is purportedly from 1895, and shows several people posing on a giant felled fir tree (again, according to the postcard). The caption reads, “This fir giant measured 417 ft. in height with a clear 300 ft. to the first limb. At the butt it was 25 ft. through with bark 16 in. thick. Its circumference being 77 ft.; 207 ft. from the ground its diameter was 9 feet. Felled near Vancouver in August ’95 by George Cary, who is seen upon the ladder.”

This is one mysterious image – there appears to be a great deal of folklore surrounding the “Cary Fir” which even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Read this article and response for yourself and decide what you believe: http://www.spirasolaris.ca/DouglasFir.pdf.

Our next postcard is a bit out of season, but we thought we’d share it regardless…

Leonard Frank's Vancouver

This Christmas postcard showing an early view of Vancouver (sans skyscrapers) reads, “Wishing you a Merry Xmas and a happy and victorious 1943.” The card itself is signed by Leonard Frank, and the photograph is likely his, as he was a well-known photographer in British Columbia in the early half of the 20^th century.

When this card was produced, World War II was in full swing, and wishing for a victorious year was a common sentiment.

Frank originally hailed from Germany, and was the son of one of Germany’s earliest professional photographers. Struck by gold fever in 1892, he traveled to North America – living first in San Francisco and then Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.

A camera won as a raffle prize shifted his direction entirely, and he moved to Vancouver in 1917, quickly becoming the leading commercial/industrial photographer in the city.

Frank also spent quite a bit of time at Alta Lake, and several of his photographs of the surrounding area can be found in the Museum archives. A frequent guest of Rainbow Lodge, he was also a friend of Myrtle and Alex Philip, to whom he sent this postcard.

For more information on Leonard Frank, see www.vpl.ca/frank/biography.html

This Sunday, keep an eye out for the Museum staff in the Canada Day Parade dressed as postcards from around the world! For more Whistler history, visit the Whistler Museum blog Whistorical.

Although contemporary fly-fishing gear is full of high-tech advancements like graphite rods and synthetic  fly materials, the sport also has a strong traditionalist bent. For many anglers, the romance of bamboo rods, hand-tied flies, and other vintage tackle has almost as much allure as the fish themselves.

Fly fishing at Myrtle and Alex Philip’s renowned Rainbow Lodge was the Whistler Valley’s first tourist attraction, so the Museum naturally has a lot of fishing gear in our archives, not to mention hundreds of photographs.

A great capture of an epic battle between angler and fish, circa late 1910s.

To better understand these artifacts we recently had Brian Niska and Scott Baker-McGarva from Whistler Fly Fishing give us their take on some of the fly-fishing gear in the Philip collection. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that both Brian and Scott are true historians of the sport, providing tons of  insight into our collection drawing from their impressive knowledge of the evolution of fishing tackle design.

We have several old cane and bamboo rods, some for flyfishing, some for casting and trolling. They mostly demonstrate design features from the 1920s and 30s, the heyday  of Rainbow Lodge, but their most obvious quality is the amount of use they have all seen.

They appear to have been re-varnished multiple times and have many replaced eyes. This makes sense considering that the Philips and their guests were out on the water almost every summer day (and some winter days as well) for decades on end. Considering most rods had to be shipped from the U.K. or the eastern U.S., the rods were irreplaceable workhorses whose lives needed such prolongment.

We also have Myrtle Philip’s beautiful leather carrying case which carries a travel tag from autumn 1961, likely the last time she used it.

Here we have Alex Philip’s stylish felt fishing hat, a Fedora made by Adam Hats of New York with a special water-repellency treatment for rainy day fishing.  Note how the crown is full of an array of traditional wet flies suited to trout fishing in small lakes like Alta.

A bronze fly reel made by P.D. Malloch of Perth, Scotland. Scott thinks this particular reel could predate World War One because it is made of brass, and most reels were made of alloys after the war. It resembles some of the reels we see in early photos of Alex Philip, and could potentially be one of the earliest fishing reels used at Rainbow Lodge. We contacted the manufacturer for more information but unfortunately their records were destroyed in a fire in 1986.

***

Although the lakes don’t provide our valley’s main draw anymore, there is still great fishing to be had. Whistler Backroads is putting on their 12th annual Fishing Derby this Sunday, June 17th at Lakeside Park. All are welcome from neophyte to seasoned angler, registration is free, and they even have some complimentary gear to use on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For more artifacts and historical fishing photos, check out the Whistler Museum’s blog! Happy fishing!

Myrtle Philip is the leviathan of Whistler’s history, her name is immortalized in the Myrtle Philip elementary school, she was the first person to be awarded the title ‘Freeman of Whistler’ and there is even an official Myrtle Philip day! By all accounts she was a very special lady.  Incredibly gutsy she could do pretty much anything – from building Rainbow Lodge by hand, to baking pies out on the trail to guiding stranded railway men across the snow and back to civilization.  Myrtle Philip was certainly no wallflower.

The museum is packed full of artifacts and archives relating to Myrtle and Rainbow Lodge. She was the first person to donate items to us and it was her and another pioneer, Dick Fairhurst, who inspired Florence Petersen to start the museum. We have hundreds, if not thousands of photographs of Myrtle – I can recognize her instantly at any age from 19 to 90. We even have some silent film footage of her: fishing and with her beloved horses.  But despite this I had never heard her voice, save for a ten second clip on an old radio show.

So, imagine my delight when Kay Alsop, a retired journalist and good friend of Myrtle’s called me to let me know that she had some reel-to-reel tapes of an interview she had conducted with Myrtle in 1971 for an article for the Vancouver Province.

Kay had been sent up to Whistler to do a piece on Myrtle and the two of them hit it off immediately. Kay remembers,  “She was such a take charge kind of person – no nonsense…really a nifty lady and I could tell right off the bat that we were going to be friends.”

The museum has digitized the tapes.  All six reels come to around an hour’s worth of interviews: too much to put on a blog, but we can share some of our favourite excerpts for you here.

Firstly Myrtle discusses how she always wore breeches, despite the fact that women never wore pants at this time:

Myrtle Philip discussing women’s clothing in the wilderness

She also talks about the first ever visitors to Rainbow Lodge who came on a fishing excursion:

Myrtle talks of the first fisherman’s excursion

Here she tells the story of how she met her husband, Alex Philip:

Myrtle meets Alex

Hearing Myrtle converse in her broad Maine accent is really thrilling for us at the museum. We have been telling Myrtle’s story for 25 years – now Myrtle gets a chance to speak for herself.

http://blog.whistlermuseum.org/

www.whistlermuseum.org

Last September we received a visit in the Museum from Walt Punnett, who worked for the PGE Railway in the spring of 1946 in fire suppression. He was only 22 years old when he took the job, which entailed him and a partner riding along in a speeder (railway maintenance vehicle) behind trains and spraying water on any sparks created as they moved along the tracks. His route ran from what is now Darcy to Whistler, which was then known as Alta Lake.

A covered speeder traveling on the PGE tracks in wintertime

Rainbow Lodge was still owned by Alex and Myrtle Philip that spring, and Walt quickly proved popular with the owners and guests. According to Walt, “They were always running short in Rainbow Lodge, so I ran what I called a ‘beer run’ from Pemberton down to Alta. I would stop in…at the old Pemberton Hotel, pick up a couple of cases of beer and a breadbox so no one knew what it was…and we headed down to Whistler.”

Walt was lucky enough to work with a partner – working alone on the railway proved particularly dangerous for the section crew members, who were responsible for repair jobs. Walt got to know quite a few of them that spring – and some of the horror stories that came along with the job. One man by the name of Pete Rebagliati was attacked by a grizzly bear, which buried him under some brush, presumably to save him for snack time later on. Amazingly, he was able to crawl out and make his way to Pemberton for help.

Another type of speeder, with an open top

These one-man crews travelled in smaller “soap-box” speeders that could be manhandled off the tracks if a train happened to come along. According to Walt, “They just had a set of handles that slid out from one end of the speeder, you’d pick it up like a wheelbarrow and turn it sideways, and you could trundle it off the tracks.” A bit different from the pickup truck service vehicles that make their way along those very same tracks today.

Speeders weren’t necessarily the safest means of travel. While Walt was still working for the railroad, he narrowly escaped a collision with the front of a cowcatcher on an oncoming train, while attempting to help a millworker who had run the tips of his fingers through an edger. The accident happened on a Sunday, and Walt had the only form of transportation that could be used to get the injured man to medical care – his speeder.

To read this rest of this crazy story, click here to go to the Whistler Museum blog.

A young man (Reg Shurie) stands in front of a PGE train in the 1920s - the cowcatcher is covered in snow, but you can still imagine how scary a close encounter with one of these would have been!

Whistler provides more than ample selection in fabulous food – far more than you would find in any other town of 10,000 permanent residents. However this area had a reputation for good food long before anyone had conceived of constructing a mountain village on top of a garbage dump.

Myrtle Phillip was known as an excellent cook – her pies and preserves were legendary.  However, she was not the full-time cook at Rainbow Lodge.   When the Phillips ran the Horseshoe Grill in Vancouver, before moving to Alta Lake, Alex Phillip employed a young Chinese man by the name of Lam Shu.  Alex and Lam Shu became friends and when business started booming at Rainbow Lodge, Alex invited the young man to work full-time at the Lodge.

By 1916 Lam Shu was living and working at the Lodge. It took a few years, but he eventually became a terrific cook and created such desserts at “Divinity Pie” which was made with peaches and a custard meringue.  Visitors flocked to the dining room of Rainbow Lodge for the excellent food to be had.

During the 1930s Lam Shu went back to China for a visit.   It seems, although it is a little unclear, that when he came back he also brought his younger brother Sam with him.  Unfortunately, Lam Shu also brought back a chronic case of Influenza with him as well.

It appears that by 1934 Lam Shu had permanently returned to China.  However his brother Sam remained at the lodge and was the head cook there until 1948, when the Phillips sold the property.   Other than these few basic details, we know very little about Lam Shu and Sam.

In an interview with Vera (Barnfield) Merchant, the picture of Sam becomes a little clearer.    Vera worked at Rainbow Lodge as a young woman from 1934-1936.  During that time she got to know Sam a little.  She remembered that her father, who owned, a dairy farm, would make sure to stop everyday and have tea or coffee with Sam.

In the interview Vera commented on Sam and his cooking “ He was just so loveable…and could he ever cook!  And those cakes he used to bake!” Vera would often sit with Sam for a cup of tea and he would tell her stories of his childhood in China.

Sam always made sure that the staff of Rainbow Lodge could sit down to a plentiful meal after serving the crowded Rainbow Lodge dining room. He would also make lots of special cookies and put them in big metal tins and order the girls to help themselves, which of course they absolutely did.

This is part two of a post on the Jardine-Neiland family, for part one click here.

In early July 1922 the export log prices of cedar logs collapsed and so did Thomas Neiland’s business and he had to file for bankruptcy. The family pulled up stakes and went back to North Vancouver. Later that month, Lizzie gave birth to their son, Thomas Neiland Jr. at the age of 40. For three months, Thomas looked for work in Vancouver. Eventually persuaded by both a lack of employment and his wife’s desire to return to Alta Lake, he gained financing under her name.

The Jardine-Neiland family, posing for a portrait in 1924. From left to right: Jack Jardine, Lizzie Neiland, Jenny Jardine (standing), Thomas Neiland Sr., Thomas Neiland Jr., and Bob Jardine.

The family returned to their Alpha Lake cabin, and in 1923 they moved into an old loggers cabin at 34 ½ mile that was being sold by the crown, and this became their home for the next 20 or more years. The house came with cases of milk, bags of dried beans, and slabs of bacon – according to Jenny, “the latter very much like a bit of leather.” Today, 34 1/2 mile is Whistler’s Function Junction.

Jardine-Neiland property at 34 1/2 mile (Function Junction)

Life for the Jardine-Neiland family was precarious. The children remember their mother saying, “It’s a case of feast or famine.” Sometimes business was booming, but at other times, particularly during the Great Depression, the family would have to survive on the damages payments paid to the children from the death of their father.

Jenny and Jack never went to school again after they left North Vancouver in 1921 – Jenny was eight and her brother was only six. They began working in the logging industry at the ages of twelve and ten. Although they did do lessons by correspondence, they rarely had the time or energy left to study. In her memoirs, Jenny recalls:

“I started to work out in the woods when I was 12, driving a horse – a big Clyde with a white face. Pa [Thomas Neiland] got a portable saw mill and set it up on the lower field…that meant log so many days and cut ties and lumber so many days. I lifted the slabs off as the circular saw slabbed them…We had correspondence school lessons to work on but somehow there was too many other things to do, so lessons were only done at night or if it rained.”

Life was somewhat easier for the younger children, Bob and Tom, as the school at Alta Lake opened in 1932, affording them a proper education.

The Jardine/Neiland children hauling logs to the portable sawmill at 34 1/2 mile with the aid of horses, 1926. From left to right: Jenny, Jack, Bob and Tom Jr.

They had their mother to thank, as she instigated the building of the first school in the area. In 1931, a school assessment appeared on the tax notice even though there was no school. Lizzie had three sons and one daughter of school age. Bob recalled: “When she got the tax notice of $7.50 she got real worked up as money in those days was tight. She started a movement to look into the possibility of building a school.”

In order to keep themselves fed, the family sometimes had to resort to shooting a “government cow” – the tongue-in-cheek name for a deer poached out of season. According to an interview with Bob Jardine in 1991, they weren’t the only ones – other Whistler pioneers, including Bill Bailiff and Charlie Chandler, went after “government cow” in times of desperation. It certainly didn’t make for a tasty meal out of season. In that interview with her brother, Jenny conceded, “…to tell you the truth, when I shot a deer, it was awful tasting.”

To read the rest of the story, please click here to go to the Whistler Museum blog, Whistorical.

In Whistler, history is still being re-shaped- with every new oral history and piece of information the story of Whistler’s past becomes ever richer. While editing Florence Petersen’s upcoming book on Whistler’s pioneers, Sarah (the museum’s collection manager) connected with long-time Museum member Louise Betts (née Jardine) who has provided a great deal of insight into her family’s history. The Jardine-Neiland family was involved in early logging in the valley, and their life was not an easy one.

Although Rainbow Lodge was Whistler’s first incarnation as a tourist destination, beginning in 1914, other families faced tremendous hardship as they carved a life out for themselves in the Whistler Valley. The Jardines were no exception.

John Jardine and his friend Thomas Neiland had been working for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in Squamish after they returned from World War I. Sadly, John met an unfortunate end when a speeder he was travelling on was hit by a train in 1918. He left behind two small children and a heavily pregnant wife. John had been working 10-hour days, earning $2.50 a day, a total of between $50 and $60 per month.

John Jardine, approximately 18 years old, in Scotland before he immigrated to Canada.

Since her husband had been killed in a work-related accident his wife, Lizzie, was given a $35 per month compensation, while the children received an additional sum of 25 cents a day for each child until the age of 16. When John died, Thomas Neiland helped Lizzie to pack up her house, and she moved with her young children, Jack and Jenny, up to Kelowna to stay with her parents. While they were in Kelowna, she gave birth to Bob.

Before long, Tom Neiland offered her work, keeping house for him in North Vancouver, and the family of four was once again on the move. Tom had spent many years working as a conductor for the PGE Railway, but he had always wanted to work for himself.  When the opportunity arose in 1921 to purchase a good cedar wood and start his own logging business in Alta Lake, he jumped at the chance. The land he acquired at Alta Lake was owned by two men – Dr. A.G. Naismith, a Kamloops pathologist, and Harry Horstman (for more on Horstman, click here).

Formal portrait of Thomas and Lizzie Neiland, taken in the 1940s

At first the family lived in the Alta Lake townsite, but after eight months they moved down to a house built by Thomas Neiland by Alpha Lake; logging cedar logs to be exported to Japan. Lizzie continued to work as a “housekeeper,” ostensibly to keep her compensation, which she only retained so long as she didn’t remarry. It appears that when she became pregnant by Tom Neiland, they decided to marry, likely due to the social pressures that existed at that time. Although she lost all of her compensation, the children retained theirs. Lizzie Jardine and Thomas Neiland, who was in his fifties, were married in the spring of 1922 in North Vancouver.

Part two will be posted next week.