In the summer of 1971 Frankie and Jon wandered into the spacious fireplace room of the Lodge. They were hitchhiking up from California and were waiting for the man giving them a ride to fill up with gas at the Strathcona pumps. It took a while in those days, so Jon sat down to play the piano and sing. Jim happened to hear him and was impressed. Jim talked Jon, a Mannes College of Music graduate, into staying, telling him that he could entertain the Lodge guests. He had to find a job for Frankie too.

Front deck of the Lodge

Trained as an actress, she was drop  dead gorgeous so he gave her the job of hostess in the dining room. Jon accompanied Jim on some west coast trips, as a sort of man Friday. On one occasion, Jon was playing to the crowd, and the women crowded around Jon. The men folk got themselves all riled. A riot ensued and Jim ended up throwing a non-music lover through a plate glass window. This story of Jon’s talent partially explains why he is now a well-known American singer/songwriter.  Frankie became an actor. She now teaches drama and voice in New York.

30 students from Campbell River took part in an” “Environmental GrooveIn” at StrathconaLodge last weekend. The students from the Junior and Senior High Schools were taking part in a supervised social/educational experience that included a student teacher conference to plan the 1971-72 Grade 10 environmental curriculum.

Ron Leversage, Pinecrest School Principal, gives on-the-spot lesson on ecology

Lodge owner and high school teacher Jim Boulding gave students free accommodation. The youngsters supplied their own food and sleeping bags. Activities included field studies, nature walks, lake and forest ecology, natural resource management, dams and reservoirs, and the social and physical environment. The ‘groove-in’ follows on from the former Eco-Conference held at Strathcona Lodge some weeks ago.

I started at Strathcona Park Lodge in February 1978. My position as a mechanic was to maintain all the equipment, diesel generator, vehicles, chain saws, boat motors etc. For me it was a fantastic place to be, having gone through my separation from my wife. There were only about twelve of us, including people my age who I could talk to. One night a week we would go to Stevie Smith’s cabin to sing songs and drink wine, or we would go to town and to the pub.

Myrna says: For 28 years Adrian was a mechanic on afternoon shift in Gold River working for the local logging company. Adrian did all our mechanical work in a couple of hours in the morning BEFORE he went to work a shift fixing logging equipment. We could not have survived without Adrian. In return we supplied him with a tiny cabin and food. Adrian to Jim was a “Happy Warrior.”

In May, 1980, I took the 24 ft. clinker built “Fair Isle” and an aluminium boat to Gold River to launch them. This first trip became the model for many others. Jim, I and whatever group we had at the time would head out to Friendly Cove. We would visit Ray Williams and his wife Terry and the lighthouse keepers Ed and Pat Kidder, then head south to Escalante, where we would put up our tents and use that mile long sandy beach, with its protective reef, as our base camp. From there we would explore different parts along the coast ranging from Rugged Point to the north, to Hot Springs Cove and Tofino to the south. At Escalante we would build a sweat Lodge, catch a salmon or cod, put out crab traps and forage on the beach.

Escalante beach—Adrian on far left

We would usually make about six trips to the West Coast each summer. One trip was with a Native culture group from Berkeley. That trip was really enjoyable and also a learning experience for me because we had resource people with us who knew a lot about Native culture. Sadly the Fair Isle got old and ended up being burnt up and that was the end of our West Coast trips for me.

In 1981, Jim bought a 1960 Ford school bus. We changed the wooden seats to recliners that we had obtained from an old Greyhound bus. The Lodge had sold some trips to a wholesale travel company, Hauser Reisen of Munich, Germany. We picked their clients up at the Vancouver airport and took them to the Lodge. From there we went to the West Coast. One day we were sitting on the beach with 16 German tourists when Jim and I saw a grey whale close to the shore. We went to the waters edge and ran along the beach. When we looked back the tourists were still sitting there totally disinterested. Back at the Lodge we got ready for the next part of the trip. We went to Vancouver, then to Hope for river rafting at Hells Gate Canyon. From there we travelled to Mt Robson for a hiking trip. A German guide, Ursula Stark, came with the tourists. She wanted to keep the group moving all the time; needless to say we didn’t get along very well. We left the group happy and tired at the Calgary airport. The next day we started all over again with a new group. The following year, a smaller group came with a new guide whose name was Martina. The first thing she said was that she had never done this before and looked to me for guidance. This was perfect from my point of view. I told her to relax and I would do everything. We didn’t make any money on this trip but everybody enjoyed it.

Laurie Stewart , Jim Boulding, and Adrian Koeleman (left to right)

Adrian added a footnote.

He says that during his early years at the Lodge everybody got paid the same amount which was $500 a month. After room and board and taxes were taken off take home pay was only $345, but the Lodge made up for it in other ways, for example recreation and entertainment were free. When he first started he sometimes wondered what he had gotten himself into because the vehicles and other equipment that he was supposed to keep running were so antiquated, but the rewards of being there more than made up for it. Adrian is now retired and a grandfather and lives on Quadra Island.

Adrian passed away on January 25, 2012.  A Celebration of Life will be held on February 11th at 2.00 PM in the Community Center on Quadra Island. Messages for the family may be left at www.campbellriverfunerals.com

Adrian Koleman

11 June 1947 – 25 January 2012

Adrian was confronted with the devastated diagnosis of cancer which ended his life much too soon and in such short time. He passed away peacefully at home.

Adrian was the 7th child born to Adrianus Koeleman and Catharina Koeleman-van den Burg in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. He left to mourn his daughter Zoe (Shawn) Read and his grandchildren Oliver and Joshua. His siblings Reno (Florence), Cornel (Rob), Pieter (Beja), Jan (Mick), Joost (Piet), Annemiek (Jan). Many nephews and nieces. His ex wife Sandy Spearing, his good friend and caregiver Debbie, friends Jody, Debra and Nancy.

Adrian emigrated to Canada at the age of 16 where he became a heavy duty mechanic. Before he started a family he travelled the world, lived for a year in Australia before he settled on Quadra Island. He built his log home on Quadra Loop. Later he built his home on the cliff looking out over beautiful Hyacinth Bay and Rebecca Spit.

He worked mainly for forest companies and since the seventies he had a close connection with the Strathcona Lodge, which he maintained till his retirement in 2008. He joined then the Quadra Fire Department.

He was loved by many people on Quadra Island.

During his illness he was lovingly cared for by Debbie.

We like to thank Dr. Keith Graham, Dr. Erika Kellerhals, Dr. Kerry Baerg, the nurses from the home support team for their care and assistance.

There will be no service by request.

A Celebration of Life will be held on February 11th at 2.00 PM in the Community Center on Quadra Island.

Messages for the family may be left at www.campbellriverfunerals.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZVXaX6exGs

Danusia Kanachowski and Judy Smith

I have very fond memories of my times at Strathcona. I first went to the Lodge with the humanities program (teacher, Peter Croft) from Woodlands School in Nanaimo. A number of us in the program were quite taken with the Lodge and learning about being in the outdoors so we came up as a school group a number of times over the two years we were in the program. I also went up a number of times on my own to just hang out with Annie, Jamie and others during the following few years often meeting up with them at the apartment in Campbell River and driving out to the Lodge together. I remember that on one of our school trips, a hike up Elk Mountain with Annie and Roger Podalski, one of the students on the trip became hypothermic.

Annie and I built fibreglass kayaks together at Jericho with the help of Brian and Mark Creer. Mine was stolen a couple of years later when I lived in East Vancouver, going to Simon Frazer University (SFU).

I have fond memories of Myrna and Nancy Brown teaching us how to make bread. I remember working with Bunny Shannon in the kitchen. I also remember Myrna’s keen interest in nutrition and in passing the information along she was, and is, generous in discussing these things.

I also recall how kind Myrna and Jim were to people who needed some help in various ways  whether with a place to stay and work, or in other ways. They always had an open door whenever I showed up at the Lodge over the years.

I still have a survival kit that Jim made in a Murray’s Erinmoore Flake tin with a little Jack knife, a couple of flies, fishing line and until recently the original matches.

I first worked at the Lodge the summer after grade ten: helping to look after Josie (Myrna’s youngest daughter), in the kitchen, in the garden, and I even went out on a few trips. Annie and I shared one of the small cabins and I remember some one one nailing us into the cabin so we could not get out in the morning. Jim came down and started calling out to us to wake up. After he got to the door and hammered on it, he realized that we were nailed in and rescued us.

Memories by Dr. Danusia Kanachowski
Palliative Care Physician Whitehorse, Yukon

• Escalante beach; going out with Adrian Koeleman and others in the boat 
• Paddling the Gold river with Jim, Jamie Boulding and a few others
• Jim scouting standing up in the canoe with his hat on 
• Wrapping a canoe with Janet
• Brenchley on the bridge on the Campbell River and Jim being very sympathetic
• Jim’s salmon cooked in the cedar, west-coast way
  

  West Coast Style salmon BBQ

• Going on survival walks with Jim and groups and looking for pitch stumps
• Those great hats of Jim’s  I think it was the summer of 1979 that I worked doing promotion type work for the Lodge on the island and in Vancouver – staying at the Creer’s house when in Vancouver.
• I believe it was the summer of 1981 or 1982 that I worked as program coordinator and did a lot of office work – I had also worked with school groups over a number of years –
• I remember a trip to the Bunsby Islands by open canoe (a crazy thing no one would probably do these days) and paddling back to Tahsis – Pauline, Paul Jorgensen and I were on the trip and Ed, the apprentice from New York , with a few clients. I recall landing on a roller beach and also riding huge swells at times.
• Peter Dyer took a group of apprentices out in the large volume river kayaks at the same time on a separate trip. This was all before ocean kayaks were around.
• Fond memories of paddling Nootka Sound out to Friendly Cove and to Clayoquot before there was so much evidence of logging.

C. .K. Mirror
Regional District of Comox-Strathcona
4695 Headquarters Road, Courtenay, B.C. V9N 5W3

Dear Sir or Madam, There seems to be some misunderstanding about Strathcona Lodge.

A group of hikers enjoy the view facing south down the lake

At a recent meeting the Regional Board turned down an application by Strathcona Lodge for a liquor licence. According to a newspaper report the licence was refused for two reasons – that we are presently an educational institution and deal only with young people, and that we would become a “watering hole. ” There was also a remark about our receiving government money. Perhaps I can correct the misunderstanding by describing our history and explaining our present operation.

My husband and I started our business in 1958 with a small lodge that we ran during the summer; we taught high school during the school ear. In 1963 we expanded and obtained a liquor license for our dining room and coffee shop. We never sold much liquor, nor did we try to. Unfortunately our main lodge burned down in 1973. By this time we were running outdoor education programs. As our tourist facilities were, for the most part, destroyed we then concentrated on the outdoor education part of the operation.

Between 1974 and 1976 we received funds from the Ministry of Education. We ran courses for about 1000 teachers and 15,000 young people during this period but we still continued to cater to tourists on a reduced scale. After 1976 the funding for education was stopped. We made a supreme effort to increase the tourist part of our operation both because we enjoyed the business and because we felt strongly that a sound tourist industry gives support to the preservation of wilderness areas. TIDSA, a federal and provincial body set up to develop rural tourist facilities, like our site and our plans and in 1980 advanced us money to make improvements. TIDSA knew that we planned to continue in both education and tourism.

Adventure holidays, to which our area is well-suited, are becoming more popular. We cater to bus tour groups of senior citizens and to small conferences. Many people come simply to enjoy the area they rent rooms and buy meals, rent boats, sail, kayak, canoe, sight-see, hike and take pictures of the beautiful scenery. Many of these tourists would like to have a glass of wine with dinner or perhaps a cold beer in the afternoon.

We have lockable cupboards so that we can store a small amount of liquor to sell to our adult guests. The liquor inspector has approved of the arrangements. We would be delighted to show anyone who is interested in our planned space for selling liquor and for that matter the whole place of which we are proud. We are also proud of our family. We have five children; three are grown up and are particularly energetic and wholesome types. We like young people and have rather old fashioned ideas about how they should spend their time. We run a tight ship, both in respect to staff behaviour and the general atmosphere of the place. We don’t even sell cigarettes. The last thing we want is drinking drivers on the highway – particularly as we drive in every day to take our two youngest children to school. I don’t think we would appeal to local orang-utans anyway. We believe in exercise, nourishing food and, for adults, liquor on occasion. Anyone interested is welcome to study our financial statements which show quite clearly who our clients are and the large number of tourist dollars those we generate and spend in the Campbell River area.

Yours Truly Myrna Boulding

Bob graduated from the University of Toronto in 1972 as a biologist and worked as an environmental assessment biologist in Ontario, until he met Paul Bragstad who convinced him to go meet Jim and “give them a hand”. Bob was a “can do” style of the Happy Warrior. He had a choice bunk: in with Toby Hay, or build himself a cabin. He built the upper dome. The lower dome was built by a Friends World College kid from Massachusetts and was constructed with standard two by four technologies. Bob had learned that an engineer named Jim Bohlen on Denman Island was developing a style of dome that truly reflected Buckminster Fuller’s ideas. Called the ‘icosocabin’, the new style of dome was actually several facets held together by system of nodes. Bob solved the nodes problem by using the strapping used in lumber yards to hold together the bundles of lumber. The dome is still prime staff accommodation. Bob became a senior kayak guide for Eco -Summer and for 18 years led trips all over the world including: Bahamas, Tonga, Mexico, the Canadian Arctic, Terra Del Fuego, Australia, the Queen Charlottes, and the West Coast of Vancouver Island. On April 2nd, 1983 Bob married Marie and they have three kids of their own as well as being the foster parents to many children from difficult circumstances. Bob and Marie are famous on Quadra Island because they choose to foster the kids no one else wants: kids with fetal alcohol. Two years ago there was a fuss with the Ministry of Children and Families. The social worker wanted to take kids from Bob and Marie and place them with a strict religious family who wished to adopt these special needs children. That particular adoption plan was clearly not good for the kids. The people on Quadra Island blockaded the Quadra ferry not letting the social worker and the accompanying police reach Quadra Island. After this news hit the TV, the government relented and agreed to let Bob and Marie become permanent foster parents to these children.

Bob put together the first comprehensive booklet/ brochure for Strathcona courses in1977. And Bob will always be associated with the success of Folk Weekend.

The Ballad of Jungle Jim—By Bob Sutherland

I wrote this song in the winter of ’74-75. The first line of the song places the events in the distant past of’72. I arrived at the Lodge in April of’74. Everything else in the song is based on the truth – sort of.

I was told that Jim used to drive his high school students to outdoor education programs in the bus and that Jim’s students called him ‘Jungle Jim’.

This melody and theme of the time came from a mash-up of two old 1880s cowboy ballads: The Buffalo Skinners and Diamond Joe. I sang this song occasionally at the Lodge in the ‘70s. Rob Wood remembered and liked the song so he always requests it at his and Laurie’s annual solstice party on Maurelle Island. I sang it again at Myrna’s big birthday banquet a couple or more years ago.

THE BALLAD OF JUNGLE JIM

I was up in Campbell River in the year of ‘72
I was following the birds up north. I was looking for work to do
When a friend of mine he told me ‘bout a place just west of town
“I think that they could use a hand, go up and look around.”
So I hitched a ride with a salmon guide and he told me many a tale
Of halibut and humpies, coho, cod, and whales

And he told me ‘bout a redneck guide by the name of Jungle Jim
“He runs a Lodge for hippie kids, I think you’ll fit right in.”
He dropped me off by the side of the road on a rainy April morn
I felt cold and tired and hungry as the day that I was born
I walked inside, I looked around, I said “How do you do,
My name is Bob and I need a job have you got any work to do?”
Then Jim walked in with a terrible grin and he sat down by the fire
He put a glass of scotch in my hand and he piled the firewood higher
He looked around and cleared his throat and took a terrible drink
By then I knew that Jim was primed and soon he’d start to think.
He said “This place is new, there’s a helluva crew, you’ll be in it from the start
We’ve got women here in flocks my boy, and there’s wilderness and art
There’s lots of food, if you’re in the mood you can get the hands of a man
By digging ditches in the rain I hope you understand.”
‘Cause it rained all night and it rained all day and half the next night too
Then it rained for the whole damned month of May and half the month of June
I had mushrooms growing in my beard, we drank weeds instead of tea
And the cabin lights went out on nights so dark you couldn’t see.
I tried to drive the backhoe out I wasn’t very good
So I humped a lot of lumber, tried to build things out of wood
Sometimes I guided fishing trips out on the open chuck
But Jim just laughed and swore because I never had the luck
Old Jim proved kind and he had the mind to tell me all he saw
Still he nearly drove me crazy with the waggin’ of his jaw
In the telling of this story I hope to let you know
That Jungle Jim could shoot the shit better’n any man I know
Now I’ve travelled all around the world wherever the winds do blow
And if you’ve a mind for travellin’ too I can tell you where to go,
Go up the Campbell River, little place just west of town
And Jungle Jim will shoot you a line, you might just stick around.

I went through the usual college stuff to obtain a teaching diploma and taught Phys. Ed. at an all-boys school in Plymouth, England for three years. Following that I worked at the Out- ward Bound Mountain School in the Lake District for two years. This was followed by my “wandering” years where I traveled and worked at the Minnesota O.B. School during the summers and returned to the U.K. in the fall. I was eventually asked to stay as Assistant Director with the goal of establishing a year round program and this I did until I received a letter requesting me to register for the “draft”. This annoyed me as I had already served my two years in the RAF when I was 18!!! So I returned to the U.K with family in tow. All of this took place between1959 and 1970. In 1971 I was offered the directorship of the recently opened Outward Bound (O.B.) School in Keremeos B.C. which I took on and I stayed there until 1974. That was the year that we all met the government people in Victoria. Anyway that began my association with the Lodge. As you probably know I started my own whitewater kayaking school in 1976 and Barb and I ran it until 1998 when I lost my depth perception due to an eye injury. We still kayak. Both Barb and I are partly bionic, having had new hips but we are still able to get out and about.

I met Ray Preece at the Keremeos O.B. School in 1971 and we worked together there and at the Lodge. I recommended him to Jim and yourself. I knew little of his life prior to that time, but spent many a happy time times with him in the mountains and on the rivers. His great sense of humor was legendary. One such time occurred when we were both at the Lodge working with a group of teachers setting up a Tyrolean Traverse over a gorge somewhere There was quite a group of tourists watching the activity, what with all the ropes and hardware. I was there giving directions when Ray was approached by a young boy who pointed at me and said to Ray “That man must have told a lot of lies when he was young judging by the length of his nose.” He came close to being hurled into the river but I didn’t think his parents would have appreciated that.

Betsy Gregg on the Tyrolean Traverse

Ray, being Ray, never let me forget that incident and the tale would be retold whenever old friends got together. There were other humorous times, like when Brian and Mark Creer, Annie (14 at the time), Barb and I paddled the upper Gold River as part of my B.C. Whitewater Instructor certification. In a shallow part of the river Brian hit some rocks and fell over. He didn’t really capsize because the water was not deep but when he tried to roll up, it was to no avail. After what seemed like minutes he emerged from his boat, standing in ankle deep water, paddle in hand but still encased in his spray-skirt and the entire seat and cockpit of the kayak. Mark, with the aid of yards of duct tape, managed to strap the boat together and we proceeded to finish our trip. This was probably the first descent of that stretch of the river.

Strathcona’s Playmate of the Month Mr. August: Geoff Evans “Not just another pretty body” Sketch by Joan Churchill (previously Heiberg)

Finally, the most bizarre!!! I was sitting at home in Keremeos in June of 1974, when the telephone rang. I answered and a voice asked if I was Geoff Evans, to which I replied “Yes” The voice then continued that I was going to work for him that summer. “No I’m not” I replied because “I’ve already accepted a summer position with the army cadets instructing kayaking and rock climbing in Vernon for the summer”. “No you’re not” Jim said “it is written that you will work at Strathcona Park Lodge this summer. Can you catch a flight to Campbell River and we will go to Victoria and meet with Eileen Daily?” Well, you know the rest, but I’ll never forget that phone call from Jim!

Jim with Geoff on the beach.

In early 1974 a very unfortunate event that happened when a group of school children and their teachers set out to paddle down the Willow River near Kamloops, B.C. and many were drowned. First, Jim and Elizabeth met with the Deputy Minister of Education. Later, Jim, Alice Culbert and Geoff Evans met with Eileen Dailly in her office and told her of the need to train teachers in Outdoor Education so that such an accident would be unlikely to happen again.

Standing proud in front of the front entrance of Strathcona Park Lodge & Outdoor Education Cetre

Eileen was the Minister of Education with the NDP, a left wing party then in power. Eileen’s list of accomplishments while in office is long, but among the highlights are the introduction of mandatory kindergartens in the province, the abolishment of capital punishment in B.C. schools, and the creation of the first Native School District. From my point of view, a highlight of her career also included her decision to educate teachers with large scale programs to be run at Strathcona Lodge that following summer.

I think we had two months to hire the best staff available and to get everything ready. Our grant was for $100,000. Jim queried Elizabeth about the names of the Outward Bound instructors that had assisted with the woman’s course that she had taken at Keremeos in June 1973 and she told him about the Director, Geoff Evans.

The courses included ‘Mountain Leadership and Outfitting’, ‘Camping on Tidal Waters”, ‘West Coast Survival Skills’, ‘West Coast Native Lifestyles’, ‘White water Kayaking and Canoeing’, ‘Alpine to Ocean’, ‘Art’, ‘Weaving’, and ‘Sculpture. The sculpture course was taught by the well-known Victoria artist, sculptor and carver, Ken Bloomfield and his wife, Kate Bloomfield taught art.

In 1975 during her address to the B.C. Teachers Federation Convention, Education Minister Eileen Dailly announced that the Department is “hopeful (that) this workshop will be able to continue and that the department of education is again ready to pay the fees for those teachers who are interested in attending this project.”

The courses the second year added an ‘Environmental Art’ work- shop which included music, dance, poetry, painting, and carving; and ‘Folk Skills’ which included cutting shakes, frontier furniture making, axe hanging, stone masonry, cabin design and basic construction, quilt making and bread baking. All courses that year had a fee of $50, and the Department contributed $75,000 to help subsidize tuition costs.

In 1976 the courses were to continue and were written up in “Education Today” a publication for teachers. We received a letter from the government stating that the money was forthcoming. We took the letter to our banker which allowed us to borrow money to “gear up” for the third summer. Alas, the NDP government was defeated. The new Liberal government cancelled the promised money. I remember traveling with Jim to Victoria to talk to Brian Smith, the new Minister of Education. He was completely unsympathetic. This decision almost bankrupted us.

We went ahead with the full slate of course but they were not as well subscribed because the teachers had to pay up to $300 for each course.