MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall / Winter 2017

FALL/WINTER 2017 MLCM 105 Unrolling Whistler’s Vintage Promotional Posters words & photography :: Vince Shuley For anyone who grew up in the eighties and nineties, the poster was an essential piece of bedroom decor. Who we worshipped defined us, whether a grunge band, movie star or athlete. But in the age where ski resorts still relied on old school marketing channels like billboards, radio spots and magazine ads, cool, eye-catching posters had true promotional value. Few people realized that value more than Mike Hurst, the VP of Marketing at Whistler Mountain in the early 80s. “Whistler (Mountain) was the only game in town for 20 years,” says Hurst from his Lions Bay home’s living room where we sit surrounded by a collection of branded memorabilia he dug out of storage for the purpose of this interview. “There wasn’t a whole lot of attention on marketing and Whistler was appealing primarily to the local Vancouver market and cabin owners. Then Blackcomb opened up and they had a new product, a new image and solid US marketing. We needed to compete, we had to kick each other’s ass every day. A lot of these posters were designed to give Whistler the competitive edge.” All artistic credit for the posters on the following pages goes to Brent Lynch, Hurst’s go-to marketing artist in the 80s. Lynch has now moved on to a successful career of fine art and will unlikely return to the world of ski resort marketing. But these posters will live on, either on display at unofficial mini-museums like Mountain Paint, or on the walls of houses and condos owned by aging Whistler ski bums. MINI MUSEUM Dave Kinney is approaching his fortieth year as a Whistler local and over the decades he’s ended up with an impressive collection of art and memorabilia, mostly from his tenure as a building maintenance supervisor for Whistler Mountain. “Managers would tell me, ‘get rid of this crap,’” says Kinney, “but I was in charge of the building renovations, so I didn’t throw them away.” After years of storing his treasures at home, Kinney’s newly-qualified interior decorator daughter insisted he find another place for his “ski bum stuff.” So he mounted it all (including more than a few Dave Murray posters and even a pair of the local legend’s Atomic Arc skis) on the walls of his Benjamin Moore paint store in Function Junction. Friends, customers and community members began contributing their own distinct pieces and Kinney is now the official, unofficial back-up museum for Whistler ski bum history. TWO-DIMENSIONAL TIME WARP CULTURE