The road to Wigan Pier is in Squamish. It lies just off Highway 99, on a slow-back eddy tucked behind the Highlands Mall with its sprawling parking lots and bland cheerfulness.' It's on Tantalus Way, and cars shoot past it without a sideways glance, eyes focused on the asphalt ahead as they make for Whistler, British Columbia's confident star pupil.
Wigan Pier, a fish and chip shop, is at the end of the road. To get there you first walk past the Cup organic deli, with a pile of bikes outside and a glut of cyclists inside loading up on fresh carbs. Then you pass Pepe & Gringo's. Inside, local cocktail drinkers enjoy the flattering low candlelight and sip margaritas out of delicate glasses. Opposite Wigan Pier men in biker jackets stand outside the sports bar smoking cigarettes next to huge Dodge Ram trucks.
If fish and chips and Tantalus Way had existed in 1792 when the British explorer George Vancouver made the first non-native foray into Darrell Bay just south of Squamish, he would have gone to Wigan Pier and feasted like a king. The small restaurant flies the flag for the British legacy, with its London tube maps and Tetley's Bitter, scampi, cod and mushy peas. Owner Greg Venables hails from a village near Wigan in Lancashire and saw similarities between the two towns' working-class ethics, deciding to name his eatery after his native country when he opened it in 1995.
It was Vancouver who christened the area Howe Sound, sparking a period of trade with the First Nation peoples before colonisation, farming and forestry created the town and gave it its life force. From the top of the Stawamus Chief, the world's second-largest granite monolith, which looms 700m above Squamish, you can trace the town's evolution: from the industrial port, which was its connection to the city of Vancouver 70km to the south until the 50s, through to the chalk prints of climbers dotted over the rock.
Jim Baldwin and Ed Cooper took six weeks to scale the Chief in 1961. Their achievement heralded a new era – and income – for the area: adventure tourism. By the 80s the tales of Yosemite-like walls and spectacular granite had spread within the climbing community, with the more hardcore members finding bold and challenging new routes.
"But they had an uneasy coexistence with the townspeople," explains Dave Jones, who edits Squamishclimbing.com. "The town was built on the logging industry, and climbers got lumped in with the green-leaning city folks from Vancouver. You can imagine the tension when a group of scruffy climbers walked into the Chieftain bar full of loggers."
As the sawmills shut down in the 90s, people came to Squamish and saw it without the associated pollution. The town began to invest in outdoor recreation, culminating in the Adventure Centre, a glass and wood construction on the outskirts of town, which acts as the hub – a one-stop shop for booking anything from a rock-climbing guide to a sea kayak trip.
"Less than 10 years ago, fewer than 100 climbers lived in Squamish. Now there are more than 1,000. When you drive into the Chief campground you see licence plates from all over the States and Canada," says Jones. "For most tourists, Squamish is a pit stop at McDonald's en route to their destination, which is Whistler. But for climbers, Squamish is the destination."
Jones is right. Most tourists head for Whistler – the resort opened for skiing in 1966. It welcomes 2.1 million visitors each year, dwarfing the 25,000 who stop over at the more authentic, blue-collar Squamish.
"It's the social vibe that really hits you here," says Jones. "When you slip off the highway you encounter a town which shares your appreciation for outdoor adventure."
Squamish has one of the biggest mountain-bike clubs in Canada – 800 members out of a population of 16,000. Every Wednesday the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association (Sorca) hosts a Toonie race, so called because it costs two Canadian dollars to enter. There's a loyal turnout – people come after work, yachties banter with policemen, teachers chat to mums – and the crowd regularly blooms to more than 100.
"I really don't want to race tonight," says Shaums March, a Red Bull-sponsored mountain biker who runs a training school in Squamish. "But I always find myself at the Toonie. It's where the whole place gets together."
Like many in the area, Shaums first arrived with the intention of settling in Whistler, 40 minutes up the road and the bigger name in outdoor sports. "The more I raced, the more I headed to places like Kamloops and Whistler. We'd pass Squamish and it had a cool vibe. The trails here are great, and increasingly we found ourselves riding here. So we stayed."
The town sits amid dramatic natural terrain with enough features to satisfy any outdoor enthusiast. While the mountain bikers make use of rooty, earthy trails on the thickly rainforested sides of mountains in areas such as Alice Lake and Cougar Ridge, kite boarders, sailors and kayakers exploit the waters of Howe Sound and Squamish River.
But it's the Chief, a spiritual site for the Sko-mish people, which has made Squamish a world-renowned rock- climbing destination – even the hike up the back involves a series of ladders and chains to reach the summit. Walkers pass the thundering mists of Shannon Falls before they reach the sign at the base of the 2.5km hike which dares them to continue: this hike is not a walk in the park, it says with an understatement visitors soon learn is also part of the Squamish vibe.
It's not all about big walls, though. Smoke Bluffs climbing area is a two- minute drive from the centre of town, its car park decorated with camper vans and boulder mats. Here, climbing lessons take place on creatively named walls: Elephant's Arse, Penny Lane, Futurama. Down at Murrin Lake, boulderers (who climb smaller walls without ropes) can enjoy a late- evening session right by the water.
Inspiration for many comes from the natural environment – a consequence of needing to sustain it and care for it as tourism grows, but also as a way of tapping into the local heritage. The Squamish Nation, which occupied the terrain long before Vancouver encountered it, continue to own parcels of land amounting to 6,732sq km. Their message is one of symbiotic living with nature and rings true with those who spend hours on rock, earth and water.
Within rock-climbing circles, Squamish is one of the few places that still embraces the traditional "dirtbag" lifestyle of climbers – people who sacrifice creature comforts for maximum time on rock. The campsite at the Chief remains cheap, with unrestricted stays, meaning that people sometimes pitch a tent for the entire summer.
The Squamish vibe gets a good airing on Cleveland Avenue. It's a hotchpotch of craft boutiques, organic delis, climbing shops, ski shops, galleries and one-off stores selling eclectic items. Indeed, the artistic community is vibrant, with the Squamish Valley Artists' Society listing 35 professional artists as making a living in the town. It's part happy-hippy, part adrenalin junkie, and Squamish seems to revel in its "We're not Whistler" reputation despite the whiff of granite chip on shoulder.
"Oh, Whistler is great. It's awesome," says Graham, a Brit who emigrated two years ago with his family. "But we wanted that small-town feel, you know? People are more laidback here; it's not such an obvious place, and it's a lot more affordable."
There's little gloss, no glamour and minimal time spent on creating an image. The loggers have gone now, and paint peels off the walls of the Chieftain Inn as you head out of town towards the warm interior of the Howe Sound Brewing Company. Here, local patrons stack up their self-decorated beer mugs behind the bar.
How long the small-town feel will last is debatable. The wheels are in motion for the development of the Squamish Oceanfront, a project to transform the area around an old water-treatment plant into a new community, complete with 917 condos and 203 homes, plus schools and activity centres. It's a bold 20-year plan due to start construction this year. Yet at its core remains a vision of sustainability, a desire to emphasise cultural and environmental heritage and reduce car use.
Not far from Wigan Pier is Bean Around the World, a coffee shop and cafe where the rustic interior belies a modern take on breakfasts. Warm ham and cheese scones are followed by huge burritos and hazelnut lattes. The radio plays terrible rock music. Squamish isn't perfect. But it's getting most things right.
Essentials
Return flights from Gatwick to Vancouver with Canadian Affair (020 7616 9184; canadianaffair.com) start at £318
Executive Suites Garibaldi Springs Resort (executivesuitesgaribaldi.com) has rooms with mountain bike storage from £65 a night
Mad March Racing (madmarchinc.com) offers half-day guided mountain biking on the Squamish trails for C$150. Squamish Rock Guides (squamishrock guides.com) offers half-day instruction from £46
For more information visit britishcolumbia.travel and canada.travel
