Whistler | ||
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Resort municipality | ||
Resort Municipality of Whistler | ||
Whistler Panorama
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Location of Whistler in British Columbia | ||
Coordinates: 50°7′15″N 122°57′16″W / 50.12083°N 122.95444°W | ||
Country | Canada | |
Province | British Columbia | |
Region | Sea to Sky Country | |
Regional District | Squamish-Lillooet | |
Settled | 1914 by Myrtle and Alex Philip | |
Incorporated as a Resort Municipality | 1975 | |
Government | ||
• Type | Elected town council | |
• Mayor | Nancy Wilhelm-Morden | |
• Manager | Mike Furey | |
• Governing body | Whistler Town Council | |
• MP | Pamela Goldsmith-Jones | |
• MLA | Jordan Sturdy | |
Area | ||
• Total | 240.40 km2 (92.82 sq mi) | |
Elevation | 670 m (2,200 ft) | |
Population (2016) | ||
• Total | 11,854 | |
• Density | 49.3/km2 (128/sq mi) | |
Time zone | PST (UTC-8) | |
Postal code span | V0N | |
Area code(s) | 604 | |
Website | www.whistler.ca |
Whistler (Squamish language: Sḵwiḵw) is a Canadian resort town in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in the province of British Columbia, Canada, approximately 125 km (78 mi) north of Vancouver and 36 km (22 mi) south of the town of Pemberton. Incorporated as the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), it has a permanent population of approximately 9,965, plus a larger but rotating "transient" population of workers, typically younger people from beyond British Columbia, notably from Australia and Europe.
Over two million people visit Whistler annually, primarily for alpine skiing and snowboarding and, in 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 Winter Olympics, Whistler hosted most of the alpine, Nordic, luge, skeleton, and bobsled events, though freestyle skiing and all snowboarding events were hosted at Cypress Mountain near Vancouver.
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 which 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 and naturally was the main trading route of the Squamish and Lil'wat First Nations long before the arrival of Europeans. One Lil'wat legend of the Great Flood says that before the deluge, the people lived at Green Lake.