Building Schools, Building Communities | 49

“They that go

down to the sea in

ships, and occupy

their business on

the great waters.

These men see the

works of the Lord

and His wonders in

the deep.”

Psalm 107:23

Chapter 5: Going It Alone 1983-1995

Resurrection in Alberta (1983-89)

Ontario (1983-89)

Manitoba (1983-90)

Alberta continues: building a home on the Saskatchewan (1989-95)

Reflection: Battle of Maldon, by J. Waikle

Chapter 6: The Closing Years 1995-2009

Changing programs

Sta� and Company

What was it all for?

Reflection: The Discarded Image, by T. Byfield

Chapter 7: Saint John’s School of Alberta - Milestones

Behind the scenes: fundraisers, boards, committees

Parents and supporters

Sta�: Company of the Cross members

Awards and trophies

Parliament

Student achievement and scholarships

Canoe trips

Chapter 8: The Legacy

Memorial section

S.E.A.R.C.H. (A History of Christianity)

Mother Earth Charter School

The Legacy Trust Fund

Chapter 2A sneak peak of the Saint John’s history book ...

For this book to be a success we need you to show your support. If you are interested in this project, please fill out our form to pre-order the printed book.

50 | Great Deeds

The creation of the Alberta school in less than two years by Headmaster David Thompson was nothing short of a miracle, but it also raised the first serious

questions about the school’s method of deci-sion-making and governance.

Dave arrived at Alberta in 1967 after two successful years in Manitoba. He had taught briefly in the part-time school, including helping to plan and participate in the first Grand Portage trip. Then he completed his art and education degrees and returned in time to move into the new dorm building at Selkirk in 1964. He was a huge benefit to the academic program, teaching senior levels of English and pioneering at least two courses, which moved us towards our goal of teach-ing boys to think.

In junior science, he used bees. His meth-od was to have each boy run his own beehive. There was theory taught, but each boy was ac-tually doing science, watching living things, forming conclusions. He also converted many of the principles of the formal logic courses the school had dropped and modified them for younger boys.

He mastered maintenance crews, lead-ing to his major role in doing the wiring and plumbing for the new building. He was also a music lover, breathing much life into the choir program and wiring his own stereo sys-tem into school speakers to play music for the boys in the dormitories when they had spare time.

When the time came for an Alberta school, Dave was chosen for the founding headmas-ter, partly because of his diverse talents, but also because he was the only male member of the staff who had a teaching degree. Although St. John’s looked more at the natural abilities

of teachers rather than university degrees, it was felt a Headmaster should have some ac-creditation. Keith Bennett, holding normal school accreditation, was working hard at uni-versity courses.

The other key person in building Alberta was Ted Byfield, It was Ted, who through fi-nance campaigns to support the Manitoba school had discovered so many parents and supporters in Alberta, keen to work on their own school. The army of volunteers formed quickly: Warren Hunt, Hugh Baker, the Al-tons, David Stelfox, Ron Williamson, Max Ward, Jock Bell, Lieut. Gov. Grant MacEwan, Rudi Walch, Ralph Hyde, Brian Woolfen-den, Doug Matheson and dozens more. They found an ideal property, on the banks of he North Saskatchewan River, at Genesee.

In the spring of 1967, Ted organized a unique publicity campaign to promote the Al-berta school – he would paddle with the grade eights on a school trip from Edmonton to Sel-kirk. Each week, he’d write a bulletin of their progress, perhaps a few pictures; this would all be passed to a crew of volunteers in Alber-

Building a school in Alberta

“In junior science, he used bees. His method was to have each boy run his own beehive.” Dave Thompson with his junior science class, 1969.

“When the time

came for an

Alberta school,

Dave [Thompson]

was chosen for

the founding

headmaster”

Building Schools, Building Communities | 51

(Right)A portion of the

original canoe bulletin sent out in

1967, to promote a new St. John’s

School in Alberta.

52 | Great Deeds

M E M O R I E S

Mike and Kent Williamson: “Different Venue; Same M.O.”

When Calgarians Michael and Kent Williamson arrived in Selkirk for their interview in 1967, they got to see the completed new building and the last sight of the old wing being bulldozed. They arrived just at the time that the landscaping was about to begin around the new building and the bulldozers were taking down the three wings that had surrounded the stone building. It was the end of the old and the start of the new in terms of buildings at Selkirk.

But even more significant, wearing their Stetsons from Calgary, they were part of the growing army of Alberta students in the school that year – a growing number that convinced St. John’s to begin a second school in Alberta. And so Michael and Kent were among the Alberta boys who transferred to the newly built Alberta school in 1968.

Mike and Kent Williamson leaving their Calgary home – off to school at SJCBS, 1967.

Building Schools, Building Communities | 53

(Top) Old Manitoba school building being

demolished (1967)

(Below) The Williamsons arrive to see the completed new school building at

Selkirk (1967)

(Right) Winter 1969,

at SJSA; Mike Williamson (centre)

captain of the winning snowshoe

team for the Intermediate Louis

Bourassa Trophy.

54 | Great Deeds

“Construction

plans proceeded

all through the

winter of 1968

at Genesee,

roads were

built into the

virgin property,

foundations dug,

concrete poured”

ta to print, stuff and send as bulletins to 3,000 Albertans (a mailing list they would have to create from scratch) asking for support. By the time the boys, grimy and proud, arrived at the end of their trip, Alberta would be aware of the principles of St. John’s and hopefully rooting for the boys and the new school.

Meanwhile, Dave Thompson worked with architects, contractors, financiers (who arranged an unbelievable Canada Mortgage and Housing mortgage that suddenly made the whole project possible) and joined the choir of All Saints Cathedral, where he met, and soon married, Joy Clare, a capable ad-ministrator who gave up her job as superin-tendent of the northern nursing services of the Alberta government to take her part in creating the school.

Construction plans proceeded all through the winter of 1968 at Genesee, roads were built into the virgin property, foundations dug, concrete poured, staff houses found and moved onto the property. Edmonton lawyer Douglas R. Matheson, who was chairman of the committee that ran the building project, is in no doubt about the reasons for its suc-cess: “In a single word,” he said in the school’s 1969/70 report, “it was Thompson.”

By opening day in the in the fall of 1968, the school was still not ready. Staff and volun-teer senior boys from Manitoba camped out on the lower field and when Alberta students arrived, they reported there for their school introduction -- a canoe trip.

When they returned and while other parts of the building were being completed, all 85

Scenes from the school’s first year:

(Far left)Boys doing chores.

(Left) In the library.

Building Schools, Building Communities | 55

boys bunked in the grade seven dorm (the big dorm looking out over the steep hill). They took classes in rooms fitted with plastic sheets over windows and doors that were yet to be installed. Meals were cooked on the porch of the grade eight dorm under a tarp, eaten in the dorm and dishes washed in the staff houses which had functioning plumbing.

By winter, the school was closed in and the first snowshoe season explored the countryside from Genesee to Telfordville. The Manitoba school issued a challenge and Alberta hosted the first Interschool Snowshoe Race. Horrors of horrors, the upstart school won.

There were trapping clubs and other ac-tivities like at Selkirk. But the truth was that the Genesee campus was not Selkirk. Staff and boys had spent years at Selkirk, in the

part-time school, in the beginnings of the full-time school, developing the fullness and range of the “St. John’s Way” of education-- its classes, its chores, its outdoor program, its beliefs and the day-to-day life of a boarding school. Alberta could not replicate that over-night – in fact might develop in different ways altogether. Instead of a meat room, the school processed and sold honey. There was not the chicken barn, not the whole well-developed range of outdoor activities as at Selkirk.

As these programs were being developed over Alberta’s first two years, there were criti-cisms and resentments at both schools. An ex-pression grew up at Alberta as staff developed their programs “Let’s not make the same mis-takes they made at Selkirk.” It was not an ex-pression fostered to build unity.

(Right)“Inspection” was a familiar call every

morning at both schools.

(Bottom right)Joy Thompson

gives a water break to runners during the “Miles for Millions Run”

in 1968.

56 | Great Deeds

Aerial shot of the Alberta school property while still under construction 1968.

Dave Thompson on his first canoe trip with the Alberta school 1968.

There were resentments at Selkirk about the human costs of the new school -- in the spring of 1968, with Dave Thompson and Ted Byfield totally wrapped up in the Alberta project, the entire grade 12 class at Selkirk had failed. It had been missing two of its best teachers, and now Frank Wiens had to pick up the slack in sum-mer schools, much of which he simply taught out of correspondence courses.

Opening Alberta had been a great step forward, but there had been costs, and many of these deepest costs were in the whole fabric of the Company of the Cross, an understaffed organization still getting used to the intrica-cies of two distinct operations. Matters came to a head in the winter of 1969 when Ted By-field was working on the Alberta campus on a fund-raising program to help pay some of Alberta’s construction costs.

There was a blow-up; things were said and patched over as best they could; but in the end, the agreement was that Keith Bennett would

take over in the fall of 1970 as headmaster.Dave Thompson was to take a year away,

but he and Joy did not return to the school he had built, although they remained strong sup-porters and sent their own son, Mark to the school for three years.

On the day of Open House in spring, 1970, his last as headmaster, Dave Thompson scrib-bled out his remarks for a farewell speech.

This is what he wrote:“If I hadn’t got involved with St. John’s,

I’d be financially a lot better off and I’d have a lot fewer aches and pains to live with. But then I wouldn’t have known brothers like my fellow members of the Company of the Cross or had “sons” like many of you young people -- whose successes, growth, achievement and memories provide feelings almost as deep and as real as in one’s own family.”

They were generous words from a gener-ous heart.

Building Schools, Building Communities | 57

58 | Great Deeds

R E F L E C T I O N S

Foundational Experiences in a Foundational Year

by Brian Sorokin (SJSA ’68-70)

Saint John’s was full of mysteries for me as a 12-year-old arriving in September of the school’s inaugural year. In fact at the time of my arrival the school was still in its framing stage. After parental hugs and good bye’s, I was told to report to each of the four staff houses. These were recently transported homes still on their pilings. At each home I was given a number of items – a laundry number, paddle, lifejacket, duffle bag, mess tin – and then instructed to follow a trail down to the river. Down I went in the deepening darkness towards the bonfires on the lower field. Various muttered instructions, “Grade Sevens and Eights across the field over here,” and then I heard, “Let us kneel for prayer.”

For a Jewish boy (myself and two cousins, Steve and Rich Segal), this instruction – and much of what was going on – was a mystery. But we kneeled, listened as prayers were recited, and reported to our tents.

Brian Sorokin was a student at SJSA ’68-70

(Left)Fall 1968, the first canoe group from the Alberta school. (Note the laundry numbers on the paddles)

Building Schools, Building Communities | 59

Once settled in our plastic tents and sleeping bags, Mr. Cooper poked his head in, “Stand By till morn-ing.” another mysterious word. Scott Caithness and I continued chatting. Hearing our talkative voices Mr. Cooper returned and with the help of three stretcher swats, I came to understand – that “Stand By” meant “Stop talking.” Within the first three hours of the school’s inaugural year I came face to face with a whole new vocabulary of stretchers, swats and “Stand by.”

That year was to be a year of new experiences for me – many of them laying foundations for the rest of my life.

My Faith first – While never being asked to surrender my Judaism, I began to challenge the teachers in religious studies.

“Father, Son and Holy Ghost? Could you run that one past me again?” What I discovered as I became assertive was that my understanding of all Faiths became stronger. On my first canoe trip a boy made some derogatory “Jew” remark and for the first time I had to really think about being different, and how to react. Should I let it slide? Pretend I didn’t hear it? Or speak up, and risk getting beaten up by a bigger boy. I chose to speak up “You know, I’m Jewish, I don’t appreciate that kind of talk.” He heard me, did not beat me up, and didn’t repeat the remark

The school’s first year, 1968, also happened to be my Bar Mitzvah year. My Torah Study therefore had to occur during study hall. Mr. Thompson would regularly relocate me to his office several nights a week to insure that I practice my Torah reading.

Another foundational aspect of the school was just its location -- the sense of wilderness and adventure around every tree. The sense that we were this small community that relied on each other. We supported each other. One class I remember was Mr. Thompson’s bee class. We each had been given a hive and the responsibility to maintain it. The entire experience of donning protective mask and clothing, applying your smoke gun, opening the hive looking for the queen, extracting and processing the honey, were all very new and exciting experiences.

The bee program begat the schools door-to-door sales program. This definitely became a foundational experience for a future life in sales. I learned to accept “No”, anticipate “No”, and not be frightened by “No”. I learnt to play with “No”. I would change my pitch, change my approach, and see each new door as a challenge. (Incidentally, we figured ways to make lots of money too. One time we had big tins and whenev-er we sold one, we were supposed to give away the little plastic squeeze bottle. But we often never did, and sold the plastic bottles separately – that way we didn’t have to tally that into our sales. Some honey days we could clear $20, not bad when you’re 12, and solid foundational experience for an entrepreneur as well.)

Chore duty laid the foundations of responsibility. Cleaning bathrooms, kitchen duty, washing pot and pans, mopping floors, garbage duty. There were always consequences if you didn’t do it right. I learned a big lesson, do it right the first time.

I’m glad I got these foundational experiences when I was 12, 13, and 14. It shaped me – the faith based lessons, door-to-door sales experiences, and especially the outdoor program of canoeing and snowshoeing. Here we learnt at a young age that you can go farther and do more than you ever imagined. Young people need those foundational experiences, and I’m glad Saint John’s was there to give them to me.

The kids of today even more so than 1968 continue to need an educational environment that is both nurturing and supportive that can continue to provide these lessons and sadly there’s no Saint John’s to pass it forward any longer.