Olympic Fever

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	Olympic Spirit
	A Canuck's misadventures in returning home \| Nature Journaling \| Jetlag \| Islamabad \| Karakoram Highway \| Gilgit 1 \| Hunza \| Naltar \| Polo \| Schools \| Gilgit 2 \| A Tale of two Frisbees \| Fairy Meadows \| India \| Egypt \| Istanbul \| Portugal \| Surviving Ontario \| The Peg \| The Skatch \| Pemberton BC \| Olympic Fever \| Tofino \| Northward Bound \| The Haida Gwaii

A modern day Goldrush I am not exactly sure when the original gold rush described in our history textbooks started and finished. Today a gold rush of a different kind is well underway in Pemberton, Whistler, Vancouver and all over British Columbia; olympic gold. Many of the people in these communities are living off the Olympic preparations that are pumping money and infrastructure into this area. One of the sites that I was fortunate enough to visit on my travels was the newly constructed Olympic Sliding Center in Whistler. The sliding center will play host to the bobsled and luge events at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games and then become the training center for our future Olympic athletes. Olympic celebrations in Canada should be magnificent this winter as we prepare to claim our first gold medal in the Winter Olympics on our own soil. Standing along the side of the track listening to the tour guide operator you get a sense of how much work we are putting into our athletics. Many people might wonder why we are spending millions of dollars to develop an over-glorified toboggan run; well you just need to spend an hour with, Name, the tour guide. How many of us spent younger days piling up a little snow to fly our sled over while we scream down Armour Hill? Well imagine that attitude all grown up and at an Olympic level. The site we are building is to be the best expression and celebration of technological innovation as it is applied to tobogganing fast down a hill of snow ever built. All of this designed and built by people that most assuredly may have started out packing snow into interesting curves and shapes when they were younger. They now get paid to dream, engineer and build those snow slides at an Olympic level. There efforts have produced a 16 turn, 1450 meter track that is the most state of the art in the world. What a nice way not to grow up. Name gave us an hour long tour that included the history and evolution of bobsledding and luge. He literally put you in the driver seat of a sled and talked you down the track from start to finish. The best tours are always given buy passionate fans. I really have never met and conversed with a die hard bobsled fans before, but I imagine this is what they are like. His passion for the sport was evident wether he was describing the temperature gaps in the cement framing, or the best seat in the house. Many people wouldn't realize that the fans literally stand along the track almost close enough to touch the action. The best seat would be to sit in the infield during a run and see almost 300 degrees, the team enter the last turn where the maximum force and speed are reached before the vehicle is dragged to an icy finish back uphill past you towards the finish. Alone in the infield that day you could will with wind and scan the circumference of track. I can only imagine in a few months time what it would be like for him to actually stand there and feel the rush of a sled as it races round the final curve and scan the hundreds of bobsledding fans from all over the world cheer on the sport they love. It is an impressive facility, its construction and many others for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics has brought jobs, people and more money to this little part of our country. It isn't only the Olympic venues that are getting built the towns and communities surrounding the event are growing as well. I think Whistler is the most extreme example. I had visited for a week ten years ago in the winter. Now that I have a greater eye for travel it is interesting to take a closer look at life here. Wandering around Whistler village I couldn't help wonder who is getting the best of the gold rush here today. I strolled past a stream covered by a masterpiece of a wooden bridge complete with bronze post carvings of children's toys. Whistler is a very pricey elite clientele of users. But other than the customers in Whistler their is also the workers that make it all happen. The two people I met and stayed with in Whistler couldn't have been nicer, exactly what I expect anywhere. Christine works at the ritziest hotel in the the Village and her boyfriend Tim works in construction. Some people live here all year and they live very differently than the silver spoon clients do. The Olympic gold rush is funding their lives there right now. As a student of history must do I had to look at the Whistler I saw now and think about how it will look in the future. In six months this will be an Olympic Winter Wonderland village. Some of the greatest fans from all over the world will be here celebrating sport, country and culture. The prices will be ridiculous. Many of the locals locals in the are tempted to sublet out their flats and homes for the month equal to many months pay just to make themselves scarce for the time. The athletes and spectators around the world will be treated to the finest athletic facilities that the world has to offer. As Canadians we may listen to our anthem sung on golden tunes for the first time at home in the Winter Olympics, knowing we put our best effort up; and won. When it is all said and done, the fans have flown home and the locals start to crawl back to life as normal, what can we say about the conditions and results of our current gold rush. The sliding center in Whistler will become the national training grounds for our top athletes. Tourists will also be able to take a ride down a selected section of the track. The facilities that we built we be used to generate new income to pay back their construction and the communities around them. The Celebration Plaza that is still under construction will be available to the town to host concerts and events, bringing in more revenue. I can't help but mention one other entity that enjoying the new millennium gold rush that we have here in the mountains. Standing on my toes looking into the cage that surround the building site, I turned around to see what was behind me. The sponsors, business and shareholders hear are certainly holding safer portfolios these days as well. I think the well dressed little round guy who eyed up my camera as I trudged through the streets of the village early that day feels a little more secure financially than I will when this rush lets up. Guys like him will always need to be served food and poured wine with a roof over their head, which means that Christine and Tim will always feel safe with their jobs out here. However like the original gold rush this won't pan out at peak performance for ever. History has a habit of repeating itself. We just need to learn to read the curves and drive our way forward.
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This is one of my favorite images I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking.
This is one of my favorite images Place anything like pictures, sketches, logos or products on this page!
This is one of my favorite images I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking.
This is one of my favorite images Place anything like pictures, sketches, logos or products on this page!
This is one of my favorite images I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking. I took it when he wasn't looking.
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