Brett Murray Carlson Memorial
by Derek Taylor
posted May 17, 2004
The first thing you notice are his teeth. Irregularly spaced, protruding horizontally from bloody gums, one incisor coated in silver, they are a grotesque midpoint between a perverse trucker hat and a soiled mechanic's shirt. And this is the guy they call "Smiley"? Meanwhile, out on the deck, two cowgirls ride tandem on a mechanical bull, while a pregnant girl, her hair still tucked under a dryer, looks on. Next to her stands a man in a wig, sporting a sleeveless flannel over a white fishnet tank top. There's no question this is a theme party, but whatever that theme may be seems to have gotten lost somewhere between the trailer park, the rodeo grounds, and the gay bar.
The night of April 19, 2004, is speeding quickly toward 4/20. It's a rare off-night during the party-infested week, falling in between the snowboarding and skiing portions of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival. For Whistler locals, however, it's not an off-night at all, but rather the perfect time for the week's most esteemed underground party: the Brett Murray Carlson Memorial.
Since April 17, 2000, three months after Brett Carlson died attempting a road gap outside Whistler, friends have been holding this fund-raiser during the WSSF. The initial goal was to raise enough money to memorialize Carlson with a backcountry hut named in his honor. "At his wake, we all came to the realization that was something that we wanted to do," says Joe Lammers, who has helped organize the party for the last four years. "We considered for a brief time building something without a permit, just winging it. That's the case with a lot of huts in the area, but as they are being discovered by the authorities, they are being taken down, burnt down and dismantled, or whatever. We knew this was something that we wanted to last forever."
On the advice of an environmental consultant who works for the group on a pro bono basis, the friends of Carlsen have decided to rebuild an existing hut that is in need of renovation. "Right now, we are putting together a proposal to replace the Russet Lake Hut in Garibaldi Park, at the base of Mt. Fissile, where Brett used to ski all the time," says Lammers. "We'd like to start building it in September, but that's pending the approval of B.C. parks."
In the meantime, the Brett Carlson Memorial party has become less a fund-raiser for the hut than a chance for Carlson's friends to get together, get a little weird, and celebrate Carlson's life. "We've got lots of money now," says Lammers. "It's getting to the point where we are going to build a kickass hut. It's going to be awesome." Proceeds from the event now go to the Zero Ceiling Foundation, a program for at-risk inner-city youth.
The party sells out every year without any promotion. In fact, it's one of the hardest tickets to come by during the WSSF. If you're not a friend or a friend of a friend, you're probably not getting in. "The challenge with selling tickets is, obviously, making sure the right people get the tickets," says Lammers. "During the World Ski and Snowboard Festival there is so much hype about wanting to be at the right party and be seen. All that stuff sucks as far as I'm concerned."
Strangely enough, the best place to be seen, the biggest who's who of the Whistler ski scene is at this low-key, off-the-radar bender with no velvet rope and no line out the door. Many of the Whistler shreds are here--Shane Szocs, Leif Zaf-Gilje, Rex Thomas, Greg Stump--as are out-of-towners such as Tanner Hall, Evan Raps, and Brant Moles. Somewhere in the shadows, Carlson is probably here, too, laughing his distinctive laugh as another redneck, trailer-trash wannabe gets bucked from the mechanical bull.
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