The Village’s recently completed cultural scan, which outlined the artistic, cultural and historic assets in Pemberton, Area C and the Lil’wat Nation, was the first phase for a cultural strategy for Pemberton. Creating a cultural plan informed by that work is the next step.

“Phase Two of the strategy is the cultural plan which considers all the assets that were identified in the scan and helps us understand where and why these are located where they are, potential linkages to other organizations and the Village, (and) help us identify what is unique about Pemberton’s culture,” Village of Pemberton Communications Co-ordinator Jill Brooksbank wrote in an email to The Question.

“The plan will also establish municipal policies (i.e. public art policy) related to arts and culture, and will provide another lens for planning and decision making.”

Doti Niedermayer is the executive director of Whistler Arts Council, which took over the management of MY Place in June. She explained that during the Olympics, when MY Place served as Whistler Media House, Ticketmaster wasn’t allowed to have a presence in the building. After the Games, WAC and MY Place decided not to renew their contract with Ticketmaster because it was labour intensive and actually costing them money to sell tickets to outside events.

“It was very, very time consuming to be a Ticketmaster outlet, and that was not covered by Ticketmaster,” Niedermayer explained. “So, for example, if the staff here were selling tickets to AC/DC or Pearl Jam, the time it took to sell that ticket, or those 30 tickets or 150 tickets, was never covered by Ticketmaster.”

Doti Niedermayer, executive director of the Whistler Arts Council (WAC), envisions the new site opening up a “whole new world of possibility” in terms of bringing local artists and artisans into the village. And without adding significantly to WAC’s already stretched operating budget.

“I’ve seen the design go through some changes and some various additions,” Niedermayer said. “I’ve kind of had an idea of what we’d want to use it for, and also what the arts community would want to use it for. For us, that’s always been really exciting because given that it would be a space that is run by the municipality, we would be able to implement things like a Thursday night farmers market or craft fair.”

The rebrand comes before the completion of a major $14.7 million three-phase redevelopment project, transforming a mining legacy site into a vibrant internationally recognized destination. Soon to be completed in September 2010, the new museum will celebrate the contribution of minerals to society, the history of the storied community and the ideas and practices of renewal and sustainability. It promotes mining awareness through fun educational programs, historic collection preservation and insightful exhibits that enables guests to leave with a better understanding of mining in BC; past, present, and future.

True to form, the ninth annual festival lineup includes interesting workshops, innovative events and a roster of heavy-hitting authors. Highlights include Kate Pullinger, 2009 Governor General’s Award-winning novelist, and a performance by spoken word/beatbox artist C.R. Avery.

But even though the fest will go on in October, the struggles aren’t over for the Whistler Writers Group, the local group of volunteers that organizes the annual event.

Stella Harvey, writers group founder and festival director, said she found out about two weeks ago that a grant she was counting on isn’t coming — after planning the bulk of the festival and booking many authors. The B.C. Arts Council has helped fund the festival for five years running, but not this year because of an overall cut in available funding, she said.

During the entire month of August, Squamish shows off that vibrant and unique arts and culture scene with a series of gallery showings, festivals, demos, workshops and more as one of 70 communities on the ninth annual BC Cultural Crawl.

“This is an event that’s been created by an organization that puts out a guide listing arts and culture venues and activities,” said Krisztina Egyed, Chair of the Squamish Arts Council. “The BC Cultural Crawl is an online program featuring self-guided arts and culture tours through the whole province.”

For the month-long cultural crawl, Squamish’s itinerary is full of various events, art shows and special presentations for culture connoisseurs.

“I always thought that there would be a magic number that we could sustain ourselves at without having to go for grants. Even at 150 people or whatever, you still don’t have the money that it takes (to cover the costs),” festival founder, Stella Harvey, said in an interview Monday.

But shortly after announcing the cancellation, Harvey started receiving e-mails from disappointed members of the local literary community, many of whom were asking what they could do to save the festival.

Next Friday (Aug. 6), the community is invited to come out and discover some of these often-overlooked artists and venues, as the Whistler Arts Council hosts its second annual ArtWalk Function Block Party.

The online radio station is actually just the first part of the Whistler Media Network – or the WMN – project, a new company created by a group of local artists, including Steve Clark, a local rhythm guitar player and all-around music lover. Clark is just one of the creative and technologically-inclined people that has been hard at work trying to get Whistler Media Network’s new radio website off the ground, in hopes of creating a support network dedicated to artists on the West Coast.

“We’re trying to create a small template in a local town that is expandable to other communities,” Clark explained.

Clark saw that the West Coast seemed to have many talented musician, but noticed that everyone was just kind of “doing their own thing.” So, he wanted to give fellow musicians a tool so they could work together, remotely, while gaining mainstream exposure.

That was the message this week from Steven Thorne, a cultural tourism expert who has been hired to help develop a Cultural Tourism Development Plan for Whistler. About 50 people gathered at Millennium Place on Tuesday (June 22) to hear a presentation from Thorne on “place-based” cultural tourism.

Instead of attending attractions or visiting sites, the essence of cultural tourism is about encountering the history, heritage, people, stories and landscape of a destination, he said. It’s about discovering what makes a place distinctive, authentic and memorable.

“The place is the product,” Thorne said.

Brand.live, a Vancouver-based production company behind events like the 2005 and 2009 Grey Cups and last year’s Sarah McLachlan, Neil Young and Sheryl Crow concert at Ambleside, has just announced a two-day music festival set to take place at Brennan Park, the logger sports grounds and Hendrickson fields over the Labour Day weekend (Saturday, Sept. 4 to Sept. 5). The festival, dubbed Live at Squamish, will feature a range of up-and-coming pop, electronic, indie and rock bands to be announced.

The courses take place at Alta Lake Station House throughout June, July and August and range in price from $170 to $425.

For more detailed descriptions of each program, visit www.whistlerartscouncil.com.

Local artist Stan Matwychuk is taking the lead in organizing initiatives, which would include life drawing classes, art history lessons, summer markets, mural festivals and outdoor film screenings.

“It’s a loosely based organization of artists who get together and work towards creative ends. Anything arts based that’s a bit off-kilter,” said Matwychuk. “We’re trying to program the space and get things happening.”

Matwychuk said he’s confident of his initiatives because Squamish is an arts community at heart.

“Because it’s very outdoor active and people are very creative and live outgoing lifestyles, art is just a natural extension of that so I think that Squamish is definitely growing in that avenue.”

The centre opened just over a month ago in an upstairs loft on the corner of Vancouver Street and Second Avenue and is adorned with different types of artwork.

The gift will support a new Beaty-Lundin Visitor Centre, one of the first transformation sites visitors will experience when they visit the newly restored museum in the late summer. The centre will house several theatrical mining and mineral exhibits, a new theatre space, a gift shop and the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.

The funds will also go towards the museum’s three-phase redevelopment project, known as the “Britannia Project,” focused on preserving its heritage buildings and mining collections, creating an enhanced visitor experience and transforming the historic mining site into a vibrant internationally recognized destination.

They’ve taken historical film footage from the ’20s and ’30s, which offers a unique glimpse back in time to life at Britannia Beach and Mount Sheer (the town site), had it digitized and have posted it online on YouTube for all to enjoy.

For some insight into the life of miners over 80 years ago, visit www.bcmuseumofmining.org/multimedia_links.html.