Six years ago, a group of likeminded individuals met semi-regularly at the home of Wayne Flann, longtime local ski patroller and the man behind the popular , to discuss a dream of Flann’s.
Flann—a strong advocate of safety in the mountains for decades—envisioned Whistler hosting a world-class avalanche awareness conference promoting the things he was most passionate about.
“Wayne saw this as a way of reminding people before the ski season that you’re safer through knowledge. That’s why he kept up with his avalanche blog, because he truly cared, and he thought it made a difference,” said Richard Kinar, friend of Flann’s and a longtime mountain safety advocate in his own right, who sat in on those first sessions in 2017.
“Which it did, because for many of us, you wouldn’t go skiing in the morning without reading Wayne’s blog, and for us that knew him personally, you know, we’d see him at the end of the ski day, and he’d be talking about tomorrow.”
Despite a robust presentation and the potential for federal funding to the tune of $250,000, the Avalanche Awareness Whistler (A2W) conference and trade show never got off the ground.
With Flann’s passing on Sept. 21 at the age of 68, some of those involved in the original efforts see a revitalized A2W as a fitting legacy for the beloved safety advocate.
“I believe that if everybody was able to see what Wayne’s vision was, and that there was indeed a blueprint for a legacy like this, then we could very well pull it off, and it could literally be, and I’m not kidding, the most important event in Whistler each year,” Kinar said.
GO, WAYNE, GO
There are many recurring themes that arise when talking to Flann’s friends.
His blog, of course, which became something of a daily meditation for skiers in the Whistler area, as well as his overall passion for safety in the mountains.
But the most common refrain you’ll hear is how fast he was on skis.
The phrase “go, Wayne, go” was repeated so much it evolved into Flann’s nickname: Wango.
“That’s all you ever saw skiing with him, was his back,” recalled Darryl Bowie, who was also a part of the A2W core back in 2017.
“In terms of being a guide, he’s very responsible, and that gave a lot of confidence to anybody that was working with him.”
That confidence extended to all of Flann’s professional endeavours, whether as a safety director on film shoots involving helicopters, or consulting on powerline repairs.
“He was really familiar with choppers,” Bowie said. “He loved powder, he loved skiing, he loved his family. He was great.”
Originally from Campbellton, N.B., Flann moved to Whistler in the fall of 1979, where he worked as a ski instructor and coach before shifting to ski patrol in 1983.
When Richard Wynne started as a patroller on Blackcomb in 1989, Flann was the mountain’s avalanche forecaster.
“He was just very passionate; he loved to ski. He loved to share his knowledge,” Wynne said. “He was a big part of search and rescue in Whistler, he worked for the ambulance service, he worked in film, but I think he just really liked ski patrolling.”
Flann’s love of patrolling likely stemmed from the multifaceted challenges the job presents, Wynne said.
“Patrolling encompasses a whole lot of different things, including, of course, trying to keep people safe to begin with, and then helping people when they need it, and that encompasses avalanche control and explosives and helicopters, and being out in the environment,” Wynne said.
Flann was also passionate about the weather, which he incorporated into his daily blog posts.
“He was a good friend, and he was good fun,” Wynne said.
“He had an aspect of him that may have appeared chaotic to people, but he was a real academic thinker, and he moved quickly. Everything he did, he did fast, and he was a man of many, many words.”
ASSESSING RISK
For the past 12 years, the Wayne Flann Avalanche Blog provided the perfect outlet for a man of such extensive local knowledge, and Flann’s devotion to it was evident to all who knew him.
Cathy Jewett was a ski patroller on Whistler when Blackcomb opened in 1980, and would cross to the dark side to take laps with Flann and her other patroller compatriots.
She recalled one instance during a patrol exchange when she ended up on a chairlift with Flann.
“We were uploading on the Wizard Chair, it’s dark out, it’s before sunrise—Wango whips out his laptop, pulls down the bubble, and starts making a blog post, on his lap, on the Wizard Chair,” Jewett said. “It’s pitch black, and I’m just blown away. But he is filling every single minute of his day to make sure that this happens.”
At the root of it all was Flann’s love for skiing, Jewett said.
“Gosh, he just loved skiing. And he loved powder skiing, but to do it, and get to the bottom, you gotta do it right, and so he thought it was important that people should know accessing this terrain, how to do it safely,” Jewett said.
“But the backcountry and slackcountry of Blackcomb, it’s pretty serious business. There’s a lot of steep slopes and also glaciated areas, and that terrain now, with the warm summers and the changes, it’s really changing.
“And some of his last blog posts were about how the glaciers were changing.”
He also pushed the boundaries of ski-safety taboos—at least as far as business and mountain management were concerned.
Sometimes Flann’s passion for mountain transparency was at odds with Whistler Blackcomb’s preferred messaging, Kinar noted.
“There are so many repetitive patterns in Whistler, like springtime on [7th Heaven], when we start to get the sun slopes starting to slide, it just happens like clockwork as soon as the sun comes out. Chainsaw Ridge, in the springtime, those big cornices, they come down, and they should be talked about,” Kinar said.
“Those are inbound risks, and if you can’t talk about inbound risks, then people tend to ignore what’s going on in the backcountry, and those were all of the things that were so important to Wayne, because he went on many recovery missions, and it bothered him.
“Wayne was really so interested in this, I think, because of what he had seen, and who he had recovered … he really believed that knowledge would help save people’s lives, and have people make better decisions in the backcountry, and he strived for that.”
A FITTING LEGACY
Flann’s passion—for skiing, for safety, and for life in general—was contagious.
“Whenever he walked into a room, it was almost like a standing ovation. It was, ‘Hey, Wango’s here!’” Bowie said.
“And all kinds of people. If you go to a place like RMU, and whenever he walked into that room, or in Merlin’s, it’s like everybody knew him. The temperature went way up.”
And Flann was a regular fixture at the Upper Village pub/ski shop, said RMU Whistler’s Ted Low.
“I always say he was part of the furniture in there. He’d go in there and he would hold court, and tell stories, and he was super animated,” he said.
“He was just his own person. Just always positive, and he was a very likable guy.”
Low has offered up RMU as a location for A2W, though proponents are thinking bigger—the Fairmont, or even the Whistler Conference Centre.
“I don’t think [RMU] is the proper location, but anything I can do to help those guys out, I’m willing to help them out,” Low said.
The vision of the conference was to bring avalanche experts from around the world to Whistler as keynote speakers, as well as a trade show showcasing the latest in product innovation, design, and services.
The work done in 2017—which includes a robust pitch document, complete with a budget overview, potential speakers, a PowerPoint presentation and even a letter of support from Avalanche Canada—is still relevant.
“Everybody we talk to says, yeah, it’s a great idea, it’s a great concept,” Bowie said.
But it is still very much a concept. Proponents will need to line up a venue, sponsors, and funding before they set to planning in earnest.
“If we wanted to have this in the conference centre for next year, it would take a whole lot of planning. This is probably something that would be two years away from making it happen, but in the short term … the first one could be held at the Fairmont,” Kinar said, adding the group suspects it would take about $500,000 to take the conference into its second year.
The hope is that, before long, it would be self-sustaining.
“It’s amazing. Listening to the tributes not only from Avalanche Canada, but the leading search-and-rescue groups in the country, Wayne affected everybody,” Kinar said.
“We would like those that are affected by Wayne, that know him, love him, or for those that are just absolutely caught up in his story, [to know] that this is his wish, his legacy, and we can make it happen collectively.”
Flann leaves behind his four children, Evan, Rhiannon, Cody and Shira. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Whistler Community Services Society or Whistler Search and Rescue.
A celebration of life is planned for early December, to coincide with the annual Scotch party Flann has held for the past 40 years. Date and time to be determined. Join the Facebook group for updates, as well as more great photos and memories of Flann.
