Tag Archives: Flash Back Friday

STRATHCONA LODGE KICKS OFF SUMMER TEACHING PROGRAM IN WILDERNESS SURVIVAL

July 8, 1975

Strathcona Park Outdoor Education Centre begins its summer teaching program with the first of its whitewater kayak and canoe courses. The Whitewater and West Coast Survival Adventure courses are overbooked, while some vacancies still exist for Basic Wilderness, Wilderness Leadership and West Coast Native Lifestyles.

The groups in residence during the last two weeks of June illustrate the varied nature of Strathcona’s appeal to school groups. A special needs class from Powell River spent one week working on life sports and survival skills. A grade 10 leadership class came to Strathcona all the way from Kamloops MacArthur Park School. Barbara Hargreaves and Ken Purvis designed and ran a program that required only a minimum Lodge staff, while it provided direct challenges in the form of whitewater canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing to the students.

A special two-day anthropology and fishing expedition to Quadra Island was lead by Jim Boulding, the Lodge’s director, and Mike Robinson, the staff anthropologist.

Kitsilano High School sent recent grade twelve graduates to participate in a High School Leadership workshop for ten days in June. Jeff King- ston, the Strathcona mountaineer, led this group on a major climb of a local peak – Mount Thelwood. ‘Alpine to Ocean’ ecological studies were conducted on the climb with the assistance of staff biologist Bob Sutherland

Also in and around the Lodge during June were students from Powell River who have received an ‘Opportunities for Youth’ grant to run a day camp for local youngsters. These teachers-to-be were taught small boat handling, first aid, survival skills, and introductory biology of the coast rainforest.

A small group of outdoor education students participated in a moderately strenuous program called “Senior Citizens Experience” during the last two weeks in June. The program was specially designed to accommodate a wide range of interests and included lake canoeing, whitewater canoe observation from a riverbank, photography, trips to the Gold River waterfront and bog ecology studies.

THE FIRE: 1973

A story by David Boulding

The Lodge burned down May 23rd, 1973. The fire started after lunch and the building was completely finished by 3 pm. There were few people on property and nothing could be done except save some stuff and prevent other buildings from burning.

Jim, Myrna, and the kids: Jamie, Elizabeth, and Annie were in town. Jim and Myrna raced back to find all they owned burned to the ground. Tears were the common reaction. Jim Boulding’s suspicion that students smoking in the attic room near the crawl space started the fire had a rational basis because the only other possible reason for the fire was faulty wiring and there was no wiring close to the scene. Jim Denis, a contractor from town, was completing some renovations to the kitchen and north wing of the Lodge. I remember there being fewer than 10 people here on the property, although many people driving by stopped and helped.

And some helped themselves to some of the valuables: native baskets and carvings and even an old wagon wheel we saved from the fire.

The chimney after the fire of 1973

The fire was so hot the Chevron gas station sign, a plastic four foot square sign, melted and buckled high atop a 30 foot steel pole about 50 feet from the building.

I remember Jade Chua from the kitchen being the hero. She was a UBC student from Hong Kong, working to pay for her university expenses. She was about five foot nothing, square-shouldered, and a solid muscular young 20 some- thing woman. Her heroism was visible twice. Some days earlier Jim Denis had taken out the big Garland cooking stove to clean it and make some changes to the gas fittings as the stove was being located farther north in the kitchen. It took four men to move the stove back into the kitchen, and the doorway trim had to be removed, as the stove was wider than the opening. Read more

PETER CROFT SR. 1970

Jim and I had worked with Peter at ‘Woodlands School’ in Nanaimo when we first started teaching. Later he came to the Lodge with a group of students including his son, Peter Croft Jr., who is now a well-known rock climber. Peter Sr. was an active par- ticipant at the ‘School Trustees Envi- ronmental Workshop’ held at the Lodge in 1975.

Peter Croft Sr.

Peter tells this story:

The rain was relentless and a gusty wind was boxing the compass. 28 Grade Nine students were divided into pairs and scattered among the trees. They were learning ‘How to survive in a British Columbia rain forest’. Each pair was given a can of cold chicken soup. The task was to light a fire, heat the soup and drink it.

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LAND FOR A BOY’S CAMP 1959

Jim was trying to get land for a boy’s camp from Mr. Dickenson, the Chief Executive Officer of the East Asiatic Company. This company owned most of the timberlands that now belong to TimberWest. According to Jim, Mr. Dickenson was going to help him; however, my dad, Wallace Baikie, said that if Jim wanted a site so badly he would subdivide the acreage that he had received from B.C. Hydro in exchange for the land that had been flooded during the power development. The brothers, Harper and Wallace, had al- ready divided this strip of land between them and my dad had the southern end. It was the end with the somewhat derelict Strathcona Lodge on it. With the help of his friend, the surveyor Gordon Wagner, they subdivided the landalong the lake into about forty lots, most with about 100 feet of frontage and the Lodge on a piece with 300 feet on Upper Campbell Lake. The properties were offered to all of my dad’s former employees, as well as relatives and friends. It was a great deal; $100 per 100 feet a year for nine years and then a bit more on the tenth year and it was yours. My uncle Harper did a similar thing with the land that he had along the lake.

Dave Campbell, Jim Boulding & Ron Leversage

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CAROL PRATT AND CLIFF REDMAN – 1980

In Ontario schools these days, “character education” is one of our “big ideas” (love those buss terms: and “Environment” is something you look up on the Internet). I can just see JB flipping through the curriculum binder and laughing: “what are ya, a bunch of wimps?” That’s what he’d say, and rightfully so.

Strathcona Poem

You build character getting yourself – and others- up Elk Horn, King’s Peak, Auger Point, Flower Ridge

Y ou build character cooking for a hoard of ravenous outdoor enthusiasts
You build character sitting at a plank desk in the eco-cabin, with a giant wolfspider on the loose, and your last candle puddling out

You build character digesting Logan Bread
You build character running for miles along a mountain road, wary ofbears, Raven somersaulting overhead

You build character paddling alone down the lake because you like your own quite company Read more