Tyler Schramm is a quiet guy. When you take the tour of the world’s only certified organic potato vodka distillery, located in a non-descript building at the back of Pemberton’s Industrial Park, you get a sense that public speaking is his least favourite gig. But the master distiller has created a product that he’s proud…
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Losing My Religion – or why I don’t ride in lightning storms
When Whistler Blackcomb launched their If Ullr Was a Girl campaign back in 2006, they got angry letters of complaint from people who found the whole suggestion that Ullr was responsible for snow, or was even vaguely god-like, to be offensively sacreligious. So I expected some heat when I wrote a feature on mountain biking…
The Hub of the Wheel
Johnny Foon and I have been playing phone-tag. (It might be the only game I can match him at.) (Photo by Bruce Rowles. Mountain Life magazine.) (“Follow meeeeee!”. “Uh. that’s okay, Johnny. I’ll just go around and meet you at the bottom.”) The ski mountaineering legend has become Pemberton’s chief trail-builder, and he’s getting ready…
The Road to Nowhere
I took a cruise once. I needed to interview the ship’s doctor for a travel article I was writing for a lifestyle magazine for physicians. He dodged me. He demurred. He point-blank refused. I persisted. For days. I thought about feigning illness. Or poisoning my mother. But eventually, I prevailed upon him to speak to…
Ripple effect of the TELUS Festival’s Black Market Photo trade finally tallied
Hi Brooks from StreetToPeak kept the Black Market Photo trade going and going, finally logging an impressive $1760 in total donations to the Whistler Children’s Centre Father Daughter Dance fundraiser on May 8. At the final tally, $200 worth of tickets to the Olympus Pro Photographer showdown at this year’s TELUS Festival netted $3300 in…
Food and gross-outs at Whistler’s first Pecha Kucha
On Sunday April 18 Whistler hosted its first PechaKuchaNight. Event curator Aki Kaltenbach invited me to join her group of presenters, alongside Hana, the founder of TwoGirlsForking, “Living the Dream” photographer Carin Smolinski, sexy stitchophile Michelle Lee, who is equally passionate about suturing rotting gums as sewing gorgeous wedding dresses, accidental sexpert (and the star of 72 hour…
Market closes at record high, as #BlackMarketPhoto trade wraps up
What’s the value of a ticket to Pro Photographer Showdown? Recommended retail : $20. 1500 seats sold out in record time for the marquee event at this year’s TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival, opening the way for a Black Market trade that has really probed the question. This was one of the funnest promo campaigns I’ve ever…
Unexpected Parcels
It’s been such a busy six months that I think I might shoot the Easter Bunny if he comes near me. Not ready for it to be April. No. That murderous head-space was happily arrested when I picked up an unexpected parcel from a faraway friend at the post office, this morning. “When Lis was…
Living the Dream: Accommodation Wanted
Yesterday, I stopped in at the South Side Diner in Whistler’s Creekside, for a kick-ass burger and a chance to check out a home-grown photo exhibit, Living the Dream, with photographer Carin Smolinski. Sliding into the booth next to us were a couple of the exhibit subjects, residents of “Shanty-town”, a loft in a 2…
Bode, Write a Book
Word is, VANOC Chief John Furlong is considering writing a book in his imminent retirement, but I must admit, if there’s a memoir coming out of these Games that I’d like to read, it would be Bode Miller’s. At a press conference yesterday after his silver medal winning run in the men’s Super-G, Miller was articulate and insightful…
Lisa Richardson Bylines 