Tag Archives: flash back fridays

HORSES

Maria McLeish on Reecy

My horse called Reecy, ‘My Recompense’, was a former race horse given to me by Maggie Rogers when she went off to McGill University. Jim had a big, rather opinionated horse called Stewball who looked something like the horses that the Mounties rode. Jim could shoot a gun off Stewball, and did during a short period when he worked at the Lodge as a Class A hunting guide.

We bought Empress, a Welsh pony, in 1968 for Liz. When Liz was about eight, she remembers riding Empress up the mountain with her father. The saddle kept slipping and Jim would have to get off and tighten the girth. It was almost too steep for the pony.

Some years later when we got our own place on McPhedran Road in Campbell River, Jim Denis, a local contractor, built us a barn for the horses. Jamie would often feed the horses because he was younger than his two sisters and they were too busy getting ready for school. Liz had Duchess, a somewhat spooky Anglo/ Arab and Annie had Sym- phony, an Arabian, who was later sold to Barb Phipps in Campbell River. Read more

ELDERHOSTEL 1986

After having had guests suggest on three different occasions that our property would be an ideal location to hold Elderhostel programs, I finally agreed to give it a try. Some of the staff almost quit because they didn’t like the idea the idea of working with people over sixty and they didn’t be them to fall on the rough ground on their watch. Elderhostel programs were an imme- diate success. Seventy people enrolled one week, so we had to have seven groups. We had a rule that a maximum of ten students could participate in an outdoor activity, irrespective of the student’s age. One day I was sitting in Jim’s old office and a group of six Elderhostelers came to the door. I thought “this is it; they are here to tell me that this place is unsuitable for those older than sixty”. To my astonishment, they had come to ask me if they could try rock climbing. One older gentleman wanted to have his picture taken while climbing a rock face. Read more

ROB WOOD AND JIM – 1986 A Story by David Boulding

While Jim died in 1986, he is still alive to Rob Wood and other like-minded folks. Rob Wood climbed in the Himalayas, in Yosemite, England, Baffin Island, and of course, Colonel Foster in January. Rob recognized an immediate spiritual kinship with Jim’s restless spirit. Jim was a teacher by profession; his classroom was Strathcona Park and the west coast of Vancouver Island. The untamed geography matched his big heart and big teachings. On more than one occasion he advised his survival students, “If the weather is bad, you have to learn to think like animal.” This wild animal intensity was infectious as his students soon were caught up in his energy and devoured his various teachings. Jim’s animal spirit, best seen in a breaching Killer whale, allowed him to connect with people because he convinced them that they mattered, and that the natural world mattered. For Jim, and likeminded, the natural world was alive and we needed to fit in and not to conquer. He would frequently say, “The natural world is not an obstacle course,” a dig at those who would choose routes that offered only physical challenges. Read more

CHANGING OF THE GUARDS or The Birth of the Friends of Strathcona Park By Marlene Smith, 1985

It was in the fall of 1985 when Myrna asked me to go and visit Jim upstairs; he wanted to talk to me.

I was a relative newcomer to the Strathcona Park Lodge scene. My experience in teaching mountaineering in the European Alps, including teaching rock climbing, map and compass, crevasse rescue and guiding made me fit in real quick. Jim had been battling pancreatic cancer for a few years. The regression of his cancer through diet and the use of various herbs most certainly were of great interest to me as a veterinarian engaged in western medicine and studying Traditional Chinese Medicine! Sadly enough the cancer had returned with great vigour and aggression, something I would learn in the future is not uncommon in aggressive forms of cancer.

I wonder why Jim wanted to see ME!

When I entered Jim’s room I reflected back on his strong presence in the Whale room talking to school groups on the importance of the wilderness and what nature could teach us! In a short flash I was back again on the trail near the bog in a downpour. Everything was wet and the participants of our small group of dedicated students looked like wet cats or rats! Suddenly Jim stopped and told us to make a fire here and now. Those who could not get a fire going and get a can of water boiling within 1⁄2 hour were doomed to die of hypothermia! Dan MacKinnon next to me smiled and whispered he had done this before and we would pal up together! I learned within 10 minutes about the pitch stick, about how to find dry wood and how to get water boiling within 20 minutes! And how to survive in the wilderness!

I smiled with this thought in my mind and looked at Jim. He looked at me attentively as if he was trying to catch my thought!

He then explained to me that his time on this earth was limited and that he was at peace with this. However there was one task Read more

PENNY AND PERCY DEWAR 1979

The Dewars started a homestead in 1979. My dad, Wallace Baikie, had sold them forty acres up behind the Lodge property. Penny was Wallace’s niece. The Dewars had been studying cougars at Northwest Bay, near Nanoose. They wanted to move up Island to be near Strathcona Park because it was an excellent area in which to study cougars. They built a magnificent 4,000 sq. ft. house, all without any heavy equipment, and using recycled materials from a building that they had torn down in Northwest Bay. Read more

STUDENTS REPORT ON TRIP

Ian Forbes, a naturalist and plant photographer who frequently took groups to the Sundew Bog

Forty grade 7 students from Parksville middle school returned recently from a three day trip to the Strathcona Park Lodge where they took part in kayaking, canoeing, nature study and rope climbing classes.

The three day outdoor instruction “gave the students and teachers a chance to get together on a more informal, less structured basis and taught us all a few outdoor skills,” said middle school teacher Dick Tindall.

“I felt the trip was very successful,” he continued, “I don’t know how much value to put on the actual skills we were taught, but it was valuable in that a rapport between the students and teachers was developed.”

“Kayaking is done in a small, very buoyant boat, shaped like a banana,” wrote Colleen, one of the students, after the trip. “You use a two-ended paddle and a spray deck to keep dry.”

“It seems to be a very interesting sport, but before you can really go anywhere, you have to do a wet exit. A wet exit is when the kayak is upside down and you escape from it.”

“It was a long trip here and, after this interesting feat of kayaking, we were ready for a big dinner. Our dinner consisted of tea or milk, salad, soup and chicken.”

“Our next activity was really interesting,” wrote Lisa. “First you go up a dirt trail off the highway, and then you turn off onto the Preece- Evans trail. It was really pretty.”

“A bog is a dry lake that becomes a swamp, then eventually a meadow, and a bog is in between swamp and meadow. You come to a boardwalk, planks over the muck. If you step off the boardwalk you’ll sink.” “We saw some squirrels. We had to stop because the boardwalk ended and it was all mushy.”

“The students were not forced to do anything during the trip,” Tindall explained.

“It’s all individual choice. The rope skills instruction, for instance. Some of the students have a fear of heights and they only have to take it as far as they want. “First we walked across a swaying log which swung back and forth when you were on it. Our leader was a French lady from Quebec named Danielle.” “After we finished the log walking, we had to walk up a wire using a rope to pull ourselves. That was hard.”

“Finally, we put on the belts and ropes with a clasp on them. There were logs about 1,520 feet high (actually 12 feet) with a cable above them, which is where you hooked your clasp so you wouldn’t fall. It was pretty hard because it was so cold your hands were numb.”

“I jumped on purpose to let the clasp hold me up and it was excellent”.