EDITOR,
If the proposed Sea to Sky Gondola gets permission, if it gets financing, if it is built, I will use it, possibly several times a year. Given my pro-park position, call me a hypocrite if you must.
Whistler is a resort town subject to a seasonal boom-and-bust cycle that has enormous social and financial costs. Whistler spent more than 30 years building towards one goal, the Olympics; 30 years of building infrastructure, marketing might and international recognition. Whistler isn't an overnight wonder.
Counterintuitively, Whistler can be seen as a model of environmental responsibility. Whistler hosts a huge number of people in a small ecological footprint - concentrated urban recreation. Imagine all the people Whistler hosts spread thinly across southwestern B.C. The environmental impact would be enormous.
I don't see Squamish as a resort town, a one industry town. Squamish can be built into a destination learning centre - from four-year university programs, to weeklong nature retreats, to monthlong climbing, kayaking and biking packages. Celebrating our history, Squamish can be built into a leader in innovative forestry, featuring the Cheekye Fan model working forest with a museum-interpretive centre. Squamish is also a community of young families, entrepreneurs, artists, and home-based businesses with expertise that already markets to the province, country and the world. Squamish can't be put into a simple box. Already we are much more than the "Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada."
It's not easy when we are mired in mudslinging (which can be fun and creative, too) to imagine a common set of goals, "put-a-man-on-the-moon" type goals, not "prosperity and sustainability" stuff; goals that provide strategic direction, so our investment decisions gain coherence and developers, community, and the Sea to Sky Corridor all benefit.
Meg Fellowes
Squamish
