EDITOR,
The initiative to develop a brand that accurately reflects Squamish today is one to be applauded. However, the recent announcement that Squamish is to be sold as the “Adventure Capital of Canada” and a place where you can have “the world’s most epic adventures” is a rather breathtaking step into the bizarre.
The word “adventure” has become one of the most bland, hollow, and generally meaningless terms in the dictionary. A town with a few scary amusement parks would have as much claim to be “the Adventure Capital of Canada.” For Squamish to have a high Google ranking around this label is not a solid basis for public policy. Google? You must be kidding.
It gets worse with “the world’s most epic adventures,” a foolish, empty boast that will backfire. There are hundreds of places in the world that have far more challenging terrain than Squamish, and several of them are in western Canada. Squamish is hardly credible for a world’s top 500 of epic places, and a heck of a lot of people know that. But things get a little darker than just numbers. People die in epics. The story of an epic can make for great reading or viewing, but no one gets out of bed in the morning to look for an epic. They are dangerous business. For Squamish to be seen as encouraging this, especially marketing it to young and inexperienced people, would be careless policy.
The term “outdoor recreation capital of Canada” first saw the light of day 20 years ago in the book Squamish The Shining Valley. It eventually became adopted, and has served the town well for the simple reason that it is both authentic and believable. This is not to say it should not be replaced; something else may be better for the decades ahead, but more time is needed to let it evolve.
At the root of the problem is that marketers know only marketing, and they tend not to lose much sleep if their misleading slogans deceive the unwary. Natural, genuine, authenticity lies at the root of what is so good about Squamish, and we risk losing it at our peril. Taking a few steps back to reconsider will serve Squamish much better than blindly pushing ahead.
Kevin McLane
Squamish
