Ingredients and Blend
Cookie Losee fell in love with Pemberton from the first moment his band’s crusty old van chugged into town ten years ago. It was in a previous life where he played in a group called Rare Gold he describes as “poppy sort of Neil Diamond stuff” that they descended from the Duffy Lake pass into the Pemberton Valley after being holed up in a remote cabin for a month trying to record an album. The magnificent views, laid back vibe, and warm climate grasped him at once and he vowed to return. It took a while but he moved back with his wife and first child and settled here, probably for good. He now works as a wrench in local bike shop, Bike Co. where he is afforded views of magnificent Mount Currie from the workshop’s open door.
Pemberton town is a unique place. The few buildings that make up the CBD there look more like set pieces from an old western. Even the local McDonald’s (one of only three chain stores in town) has a hitching post for horses. This is reflective of the old roots of the place. Pemberton first interested the settlers in the nineteenth century while a safe trade route was being explored between the coast and the interior. Shortly after gold was discovered nearby and 30,000 men rushed to the area. A farming community grew in the valley to support the influx but soon a better route was found, the gold dried up and much of the transient population moved on, leaving just the farmers to plant and harvest in the fertile valley. Until 1913 the only way to access the town was by ferry via Harrison Lake. Then the railway came and opened it up a little, disturbing the peace of the remaining cowboys, homesteaders, and farmers. In the 1966 the road from Vancouver was punched through to Pemberton, the same year that Whistler opened for skiing. Some of the older residents still feel a little resentment for the changes and what they consider disruption.
However, they weren’t the first. The Lil’wat First Nation had long being settled in the valley. The Lil’wat Nation, unlike many other bands and tribes throughout Canada, never entered into a treaty with the state and instead see Canada as an occupying power. This has made things complicated with land use and reparations but the Lil’wat remain fiercely independent. Nowadays, further up the valley a reserve is home to a population of 2,000 first nations people, and in many respects both the settler population and the first nation people remain isolated from one another. Unfortunately, the most common sighting of a native person is usually what Cookie describes as the “railway drunks”.
Nowadays, Pemberton is a functioning town north of Canada’s wonderland: Whistler. It is a little too far north to be afflicted by the ‘weekend effect’…as it is too far from the chairlifts, cocktail restaurants, and too far of a commute for weekend warriors from the Pacific North West to consider buying second homes there. All the houses there are owned or inhabited by the local population and has been saved from the real estate hording that sees fashionable ski towns like Whistler being hollowed out.
Pemberton is made up of an eclectic mix of old timers, overflow from the Whistler workforce, and ‘super–dudes’, as Jonny Inglis, co–owner of local shop Bike Co., calls them. Half of the coastal BC pro skiers and snowboarders live in Pemberton. “So many people push the limits here on a day–to–day basis that it would blow peoples minds” Jonny says, “but to the locals it is an everyday ride”. The volume and concentration of outdoor extremists pushes the towns adrenalin level through the roof but most of them you wouldn’t even recognize. The guy in the worn out plaid jacket and behind the wheel of the beater truck probably rode the rowdiest virgin line deep in the backcountry before lunchtime. Attracted by the big mountains and easily accessed backcountry terrain, men of the mountains quietly congregate here. It is Pemberton’s unique geographical location that draws them, what some refer to as the “hub of the wheel” – slap bang in the middle of the Birken Valley, Duffy Pass, Whistler and South Chilcotins.
These radical spots aren’t just for snow covered shenanigans and scares. In the warmer months Pemberton becomes the stepping stone for big adventures into places like the South Chilcotins and an ideal early season spot for snow struck riders desperate to get back on the wheels. However, this doesn’t mean Pemberton should be considered a quick stop on the way somewhere else or the next best thing to Whistler. The town’s cache of singletrack is steep, deep and demands your full attention.
