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OUR ‘SECOND HAND’ WILDERNESS IS LIVING DOWN HISTORY LESSONS By Roger Prior, Island Review, June 1983

Every day a small fleet of deluxe air-conditioned buses zooms through Strathcona Park, twice daily up to the head of the lake, and twice back down again to Campbell River. The tour business is doing pretty well, you might think, considering it’s not even peak season yet. But look behind that tinted glass and you won’t find elderly ladies and gentlemen in cruise wear refreshed from a day trip through the scenic wonders of Vancouver Island’s biggest wilderness park. Instead you’ll meet a tough-looking bunch

A local clear cut by Elk River Timber (TimberWest) of engineers, mechanics and hard rock miners, all on their way to or from the Westmin precious metals mine, slap-dab in the middle of the park.

If you then check your map you’ll find Westmin isn’t the only industrial operation working in the park. There’s a chequerboard of officially approved mining claims around the southern border and several large swaths of timber-cutting leases in pockets at both ends of the park.

“Park? What park? There ain’t one!” In Campbell River, the nearest town, which also gets its drinking water from the Strathcona catchment area, there are some who won’t even dignify the park by the name. Dead fish in the lake, water contaminated by mine residue, and scenery denuded by generations of loggers have spoiled it for many people over the years. One group of hikers and nature-lovers who have unofficially adopted Strathcona Park, refer to it sadly as ‘Strathcona Industrial Park,’ and the proprietors of an outdoor education center that could be the park’s biggest user have few kind words to say about the government’s competence there.

Certainly Strathcona is the biggest of the six so-called Multi-Use parks in the province, in which industrial and recreational users are supposed to co-exist, but it remains the only major park in the country that has active logging and a working mine within its borders.

Strathcona is the oldest park in the province and its scars tell the story of the 70-plus year battle between conservation and industrial development in the province. Some call it a ‘second-hand’ park, others say development has improved it, but despite everything it remains the closes point of contact between many locals and visitors and the wile heartland of the Island. Read more

This story has a relation to a previous Flash Back Friday which can be read here.

BARBARA WALLINGTON late 1970’s

Barbara had a connection to the baby delivery story. The PR was something that Jim didn’t dare miss out on. He took Barbara to the phone that was in our apartment in town. Her task was to phone newspapers and tell them of the amazing story that she had just gotten wind of. It was hilarious as Barbara pretended to have no connection to the Lodge. It is lucky that there was no call-display in those days.

Like many people, the ‘Strathcona connection’ began with Barbara long ago and has carried on in often surprising ways.

I first went to ‘the Lodge’ when I was still a teenager, in the late 70’s. I had been living on the island for a short while and had taken an apartment in Courtenay as a transition until I found a place where I felt more comfortable spending my time., I was idealistic and driven to find ‘my place’ and then to allow opportunities to unfold. Strathcona turned out to be the place. Fortunately money was not my motivator, as money was not part of initial months at the Lodge. I began working at the start of the winter, when there were only a skeleton crew and the Bouldings to maintain the facilities. The atmosphere was warm, intimate, and felt like home.

Nancy Brown with Nick and Josie Boulding

I brought youthful defiance, as I smuggled my cat along with me. I lived in a cabin on the waterfront, and naively thought it would be a non-issue. That was until Nancy began to notice her wandering about. It was hard for Nancy who liked birds and did not like cats, not to notice, as my cat decided that Nancy’s balcony was a lovely place to hang out. The more Nancy didn’t want her to be there, the more my cat was determined to torment Nancy. Several times she even managed to find her way into Nancy’s house and take up residency on her bed. She truly thought that she and Nancy were best of friends. Lucky for me, Nancy and I managed to become friends instead. She will never let me forget that cat. Read more

BRUCE and PATTY KILOH 1975

We had been active in teaching in the public school system after graduating from both PE and Education at UBC. We had become aware of a Wilderness Leadership Course that was available. If teachers were prepared to use some of their “summer holiday,” districts would subsidize the costs of the three week course. We were excited to hear we had been accepted.. We had no preconceived ideas of the site, the instructors, the region, the food, or the overall philosophy behind becoming a wilderness leader of young people.

We were introduced to our instructors, Geoff Evans and Ray Preece, the 12 other members taking the course, and the managers of the Lodge, Myrna and Jim Boulding.

Bruce crossing a river

Ray and Geoff had both emigrated from England where Geoff had excelled in kayaking and Ray as an outstanding sailor and general outdoorsmen. Both had worked for Outward Bound. Jim and Myrna had had other instructors but these two seemed to have a real chemistry. There was immediate respect for their personal backgrounds and what they brought to program at Strathcona. Read more

THE TWO GUN PROSPECTOR:

1979 A story by David Boulding

One day, a fellow walked into the office and demanded Myrna pay him either 20 or 50 thousand dollars. The amount demanded is irrelevant. What every- one remembers was that he had two semi-automatic 45-calibre pistols in holsters, one on each hip. He claimed to have the mineral claim on the sand that covered the top of the Sand hills road. He said the sand contained gold.

Sand Hills Road is called Berry Creek Main by the loggers. It is the road that branches off the highway about three miles from the road to Strathcona Dam. Originally logged in the late 1960’s, this hill is about 1500 feet above Upper Campbell Lake. The hill has fine white sand that covers about 100 acres and seems to be about 200 feet deep. As a teenager, I went with Jim and two shovels to help load this beautiful sand into his pickup truck. The sand was sprinkled on the rocky beach at the Lodge. Later, Kenny Boulding and I made many trips gath- ering sand by shovel.

At this time, Jim had bought Mr. McKenzie’s ancient Case, 580 Back- hoe. Mr. McKenzie was the push for Elk River Timber and had a side business with this yellow rubber-tired backhoe. After Jim had a backhoe, I bought an old fire truck from a farmer in Comox. The farmer had re-engineered the 1949 flat head six cylinder Ford into a dump truck. With the Dodge 300 Fargo 4×4 re- vitalized with a strong work box that had some dump capabilities (a complex sys- tem of cables and a massive steel post behind the cab driven by a power take off) and now with a dump with an honest gosh goodness hydraulic ram dump Jim Nelson and I could have truck races to town to get gravel to build the septic fields from the Uplands pit on the Spit. We would roar out of Campbell River and go past the John Hart Dam turnoff at close to 50 miles an hour, three or four hun- dred yards later as General Hill steepened we would both be in first gear and at barely walking speed.

The famous tractor and dump truck.

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“DELIVERING BABY WAS ‘NO BIG DEAL’”

Campbell River newspaper, 1979

It was the first time Jim Boulding delivered a baby, but it didn’t seem too difficult because he’d seen it done before.

Armed with nothing but a few blankets and the experience of spending 22 years training people to be leaders in the bush, Boulding recently played midwife on a rainy road miles from anywhere.

Mother and child are fine and Boulding said it’s no big deal. He’s spent years helping victims of accidents which tend to happen near his wilderness training lodge at Strathcona Park, about 45 kilometres southwest of this Vancouver Island community. Read more

TIM TACKER 1976 on and off through 1979

Tim Tacker

“It was the freest period of my life” said Tim. Tim was a joy to have around; cheerful, talented and popular with everyone, Tim came here because his older sister had worked at the Lodge in 1971 and she thought he would like it. He and his friends swam nude in the late evenings. He remembers me being pregnant with Nicholas, Josie as a three year old and Liz at eighteen pestering her father because she wanted to guide on the west coast (he said no). Among his many jobs, Tim worked in the kitchen at least on one occasion. He can remember making four dozen bagels using the ‘Joy of Cooking’ as a guide. Altogether it took him several hours because after the dough had risen and been shaped, the bagels had to rise again and then they had to be deep fried and decorated. Jim came to the kitchen to look for food to feed a bus load of tourists that had stopped in and were hungry. Jim took the bagels. Tim didn’t get one. Read more

MONEY A PROBLEM, BUT OUTDOOR COUPLE ‘STILL IN BALL GAME’: PROGRAM BRINGS NATURE LORE TO THOUSANDS

By Moira Farrow, The Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1975

If Jim and Myrna Boulding were out to make money, the last thing they’d be doing is running an outdoor education centre. But that‘s what they have chosen to do so last year they made a profit of $2500 for twelve months of work.

“And it was the first time that we were not in the red” Mrs. Boulding laughed.

Timbers being hewn for use at the Lodge

Money has no priority in the Bouldings personal scale of values, but ironically, they spend a lot of time worrying about the lack of it. It’s not possible to give outdoor education to thousands of children and adults every year without cash to pay the bills. “At last we’re still in the ball game and that is where we want to be” Boulding said. “We built the buildings ourselves – we like building  buildings’ said the 43-year-old Boulding who shrugged off the massive construction project as though it were of only minor interest.

The couple has turned their place into an outdoor education centre, where their hearts had always been. They have opened their doors at minimum prices to thousands of young people and even a few senior citizens. Read more

SUCCESS RISES FROM THE ASHES

By Paul Nicholson, The Daily Colonist, Friday, September 27, 1974

Administration Building (above), one of two buildings quickly constructed after the fire

Just a year ago with rain pouring off his wide brim-hat, Jim Boulding stared over the remains of the once proud Strathcona Park Lodge.

On May 23, 1973, the 47-year-old structure burned to the ground leaving Jim, his wife Myrna and family with a rather bleak outlook for the future. The financial picture was bad, the building was insured for only a fraction of its worth and the Lodge was destroyed just prior to the more prosperous summer season. But within a couple of days the Bouldings had plans for a new Lodge. Read more

ALICE CULBERT (NOW PURDEY) 1974/1975

Alice

Alice was an exceptional female outdoor leader. Female instructors were in hot demand by both the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and with Outward Bound, so we were lucky to get her.  She was also a registered nurse (RN). My daughter, Elizabeth, who had taken an Outward Bound course the previous year was given the job of being Alice’s assistant. Liz still talks about how much she learned from Alice.

ALICE—BY ELIZABETH BOULDING

During the summer of 1974, I was a 16 year old assistant to Alice Purdey who was the first Strathcona Lodge Instructor to teach week long mountaineering courses. Alice had been on the 1967 expedition to Mount Logan and had twice instructed the girls’ course at the former Canadian Outward Bound School at Keremeos. Alice was married to the mountaineer Dick Culbert but he was away in South America so my mother provided a full-time babysitter in Cabin 9 for their children: Heather who was almost 4 and Vance who was 18 months. Strathcona Lodge was busy teaching mountain leadership and water-safety courses that summer and tuition was free for practicing B.C. school teachers.

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