Person

Mansell, Douglas "Doug"

• Mansell, Doug

April 11, 1934 -

Douglas "Doug" Mansell ran Hillcrest Lodge (later renamed Mount Whistler Lodge, located where Lakeside Park is today) in Alta Lake (now known has Whistler) from 1958 to 1965. Doug was born in Vancouver on April 11, 1934 and came to Alta Lake in 1945 at age ten with parents Jack and Cecilia Mansell and brother Loyd. Jack first came to Rainbow Lodge in Alta Lake (Whistler) in 1944 and, like Myrtle and Alex before him, was so impressed with the area that he began looking into purchasing the Patterson property across the lake from the lodge. Jack sold his three shoe repair stores in Vancouver and moved his family up to Alta Lake in May 1945. They lived in a two-room shack, warming bricks in the oven for heat. For a family used to plumbing and electricity in the city, life at Alta Lake was a big change. By January 1946, the entire family was involved in building the new lodge, which was ready to open that July. The first guests the Mansells welcomed to Hillcrest Lodge were the Right Honourable Mr. Charlie Cockcroft, a politician from Alberta, his wife, and their party of family and friends. Later guests would include Lady Oslow and Lady Wemise from England. In October, Hillcrest Lodge closed for the season and Jack and Cecilia would often leave Alta Lake to spend winters in warmer climates. At age 14, Doug went to work in Alf Gebhart’s Rainbow Lumber Mill that was located on the southwest shore of the Lake. From 1951 to 1956, he worked for the Pacific Great Eastern (PGE) Railway (later BC Rail, and now CN) as a telephone lineman. He covered territory from Squamish to Lillooet and occasionally went as far North as Quesnel. He and his helper travelled by speeder doing telephone installations and acted as an ambulance in emergencies. Doug married Barb, a guest at Hillcrest Lodge, in 1956, and they had one daughter, Bev, who went to the one-room school (Alta Lake School) located near the mill until grade 6. Jack and Cecilia retired from managing Hillcrest Lodge in 1958, and Doug and Barb took over the management of the lodge. In the early 1960s, Doug and Loyd kept the lodge open on weekends through the winter and even built a small rope tow on the property that they ran for skiers. Doug and Barb managed the Lodge until 1965. Doug was a founding member of the Alta Lake Fire Department in1962 with Don Gow, Glen Creelman, Denis Beauregard, with Dick Fairhurst as the Chief - almost the entire male population of the Alta Lake area at the time. When the lodge was sold in 1965, Doug went to work for Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. at Whistler Mountain, where he worked until 1983 as chief of maintenance and superintendent of lift operations. As the valley developed, Doug actively participated in the Rotary Club and served on the Municipal Board of Variance for many years. He enjoyed playing golf in the “Goofee Golfers Glub”. When the first nine holes opened in Whistler Cay (now integrated into the Whistler Golf Course), 20 locals formed the first golf club and had fun at pot-luck dinners and presented goofy trophies after each weekly tournament. In 1983, Doug and Barb retired to North Vancouver to manage an apartment block. They later moved to Kerrisdale, into Barb’s former home. Doug continued to play golf and took up curling. He passed away at home on June 27, 2007 after a one-year battle with esophageal and liver cancer.

Whistler
Alta Lake
Hillcrest Lodge
North Vancouver
Kerrisdale, BC

Hotelier
Logger
Lineman
Repairman
Mountain staff
Firefighter
Golf
Curling

Mansell, Jack (fl. 1930s-1980)

Mansell, Cecilia "Cif" (1909 - June 29, 2004)

Mansell, Bev (1956-)

Mansell, Barbara (fl. 1940s-[2010s?])

CA-BC-MD014

RAD, July 2008 version. Canadian Council of Archives.

Catalogued June 2023.

1) Archival material
2) https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler-news/remembering-doug-mansell-2476616
3) https://squamishlibrary.digitalcollections.ca/uploads/r/squamish-public-library/1/6/16096/19740516_Squamish_Times.pdf
4) https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/driving-and-transportation/reports-and-reference/road-runner/newsletters/1980_10_autumn.pdf
5) https://blog.whistlermuseum.org/tag/doug-mansell/
6) https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/54502/000005450205000093/kmidecision.htm