| elevation_footnotes = <!--for references: use tags-->
| elevation_m = 670
| elevation_ft =
| postal_code_type = Postal code span
| postal_code = V0N 1B0 & V8E
| area_code = 604
|blank_name = GNBC Code
|blank_info = JCJHI
| blank1_name =
| blank1_info =
| website =
| footnotes =
Whistler is a resort municipality in Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia, Canada. It is located in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains, approximately north of Vancouver and south of Pemberton. It has a permanent population of approximately 13,982 (2021),
Over two million people visit Whistler annually, primarily for alpine skiing and snowboarding and, in the summer, mountain biking at Whistler Blackcomb. Its pedestrian village has won numerous design awards, and Whistler has been voted among the top destinations in North America by major ski magazines since the mid-1990s. During the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Whistler hosted most of the alpine events, Nordic, luge, skeleton, and bobsled events.
History
The Whistler Valley is located around the pass between the headwaters of the Green River and the upper-middle reaches of the Cheakamus. It is flanked by glaciated mountains on both sides; the Garibaldi Ranges on the side that contains the ski mountains, and a group of ranges with no collective name but that are part of the larger Pacific Ranges and are essentially fore-ranges of the Pemberton Icefield. Although there are a few other routes through the maze of mountains between the basin of the Lillooet River just east, the Cheakamus-Green divide is the lowest and most direct.
Indigenous settlement
Prior to the 1800s, the Squamish Nation and Lilʼwat First Nation shared a village known as Spó7ez at the confluence of Rubble Creek and the Cheakamus River at Function Junction in Whistler. Spó7ez, a hub of trade and commerce, was buried after the Black Tusk volcano erupted. Both Nations continued to cohabit the region, travelling to the area in the warmer months, where they established seasonal camps for hunting and trapping. Spó7ez was re-populated until it was destroyed by another rock slide in the 1800s.
European settlement
The first British survey by the Royal Navy took place in the 1860s. These surveyors named the mountain London Mountain because of the heavy fog and cloud typically gathering around the mountain, but the area informally acquired the name "Whistler" due to the call of the hoary marmot. In the late 19th century, the Lillooet Cattle Trail was cut through the valley, linking Lillooet via Pemberton with Burrard Inlet via a pass from Squamish to the Seymour River. The trail was completed in 1877, but because of the difficult and unforgiving terrain, it was only used once for its intended purpose, which was to drive cattle.
The area began to attract trappers and prospectors—such as John Millar and Henry Horstman—who established small camps in the area in the early 20th century. The area began to gain recognition with the arrival of Myrtle (whom the Myrtle Philip school was named after) and Alex Philip, who in 1914 purchased of land on Alta Lake and established the Rainbow Lodge. The Philips had relocated from Maine to Vancouver in 1910 and had heard rumours of the natural beauty of the area from Pemberton pioneer John Millar. After an exploratory journey, the couple was convinced.
Rainbow Lodge and other railway-dependent tourist resorts were collectively known as Alta Lake. Along with the rest of the valley bridging the Cheakamus (pron. CHEEK-a-mus) and Green River (a tributary of the Lillooet River) basins, they became part of British Columbia's first resort municipality in 1975.
Completion of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in 1914 greatly reduced the travel time from three days, providing ease of access from Vancouver, and the Rainbow Lodge gained a reputation as the most popular vacation destination west of the Rockies. The lodge was primarily a summer destination, with boating, fishing and hiking among the most popular activities, and soon other lodges began to open not just on Alta Lake, but on other valley lakes as well.
Appreciation of the outdoors was not the only activity in the valley, however. Logging was a booming industry. During the first half of the 20th century, most of the lower slopes of the surrounding mountains were cleared of old-growth. At its peak, four mills were in operation, most located around Green Lake. Prospecting and trapping were pursued as well, though no claims of great value were ever staked.
The resort town was granted heraldic symbols by the Canadian Heraldic Authority in January 2016.
Geography
Climate
Whistler has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dsb/Dfb) or a Mediterranean climate bordering on an oceanic climate (Köppen: Csb/Cfb) depending on the isotherm used. It has cold wet winters with significant snowfall and cloud cover, and warm summers which are somewhat dry. On average, Whistler receives approximately 11 days with temperatures over and approximately 24 days with temperatures falling below .
Flora
Whistler is a collection of microclimates ranging from coniferous mixed forest on the valley floor, to slightly drier slopes, to alpine tundra in the alpine.
The wet West Coast marine temperate climate in the valley floor is characterized by a coniferous mixed forest, with a preponderance of western red cedar—a continuation of the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest.
The slopes are slightly drier and are also coniferous mixed forest with western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana), Whistler hybrid spruce (Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis and Engelmann spruce, Picea engelmannii). The last is "a hybrid spruce that is unique to Whistler, aptly dubbed the "Whistler Spruce". "The Whistler spruce hybrid is indicative of Whistler's geographic position—we're not quite coastal, but not quite interior". lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), and endangered whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis).
The higher slopes transition to many species of scrub juniper (genus Juniperus), Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum), and many species of scrub willow in the genus Salix at the tree line, and to Arctic tundra-like conditions in the high alpine above the tree line.
Both the valley floor and the mountain sides are characterized as mixed forest, predominantly conifers, but with a peppering of a few deciduous trees like the Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), locally extinct Pacific crabapple (Malus fusca) or Pryus fusca, bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata), pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), choke cherry (Prunus virginiana), red alder (Alnus rubra), Sitka alder (Alnus sinuata), paper birch (Betula papyrifera), big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), and Douglas maple (Acer glabrum).
Whistler was clear cut twice. The Oregon grape Mahonia aquifolium or Berberis aquifolium ( hollyleaved barberry) and were accidentally re-introduced as escaped landscaping plants, and may all be Oregonian subspecies. All the wild Pacific crabapples were dug up by Pemberton Pioneers for grafting rootstock. It is unclear whether the was indigenous or introduced by Indigenous transcontinental trade networks or later Western contact. All the wild plums were dug up too by Pemberton Pioneers for fruit trees to transplant and as rootstock. Once abundant on the forest floor, lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) is no longer found because of the loss of habitat through the clear-cutting.