"Whistler" focuses on the interrelationships primarily between three families - the McKayes, the Varlands and the Millers - longtime residents of the mountain resort town of Whistler, with some secrets coming to the surface which affect those relationships. The McKayes are a working class snowboarding family who own a local tavern. Father Ethan, once a world ranked snowboarder in his younger days, blames everything bad in their lives on the Varlands. Oldest son Beck MacKaye is the snowboarding hotshot, while younger son Quinn McKaye, despite loving his brother, is often the neglected one in Beck's shadows. Ethan's younger brother Ryan McKaye is seen as the black sheep of the family, partly because he happily works for the Varlands, cleaning up their messes. The wealthy Varlands own a number of businesses globally, the most prominent local one being the upscale Varland Resort. Adrien Varland places the financial bottom line over everything else, including his family. The working class Miller sisters, who just lost their mother to cancer and whose father has long been out of their lives, are primarily linked to the McKayes through past and current romantic relationships. Whistler gets turned upside down when Beck wins a gold medal at the 2006 Olympics, and as he contemplates how to capitalize on his new celebrity, is found dead two weeks later at the bottom of a snowboard run in Whistler. A mystery surfaces when the McKayes believe, against the coroner's report, that Beck was murdered, and was placed on the hill post-mortem, Quinn and Ryan in particular who place their energies in finding out if that was indeed the case, why he was killed, and who the culprit is.
