4 minute read
125 years and still going strong
Victoria’s South Park Family School is the city’s oldest educational facility
By gLenn MILLeR
South Park School began its life in 1894 in a newly developed southern section of Victoria, B.C. called James Bay. It sits in its entirety on a small piece of property at the corner of Douglas Street and Michigan Street. The playfield for the students is across Michigan Street with the field itself having a unique outdoor landscape that the students really enjoying playing on and around. The school on the east side faces one of Victoria’s most popular and delightful public spaces, Beacon Hill Park, which is a large park that is home to a very interesting and diverse animal petting farm. It is also located within a 10-minute walk to British Columbia’s Legislature Building and a pleasant 10-minute walk to Mile 0, the start of our great TransCanada Highway that finishes 4,860 miles east to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
In 1978, South Park School was designated a municipal heritage site by the City of Victoria, and in 1979, it was renamed South Park Family School, as it operates today. The Family School philosophy was established as a “school where children, parents, and teachers will relate, learn, and grow together”. It is now the oldest school that has been in continuous use as an educational institution in Western Canada and it is a prominent landmark in British Columbia’s capital city. The architect, W. Ridgway Wilson designed the building in the queen Anne style which was commonly used in building many of the schools in England at the time.
The heating system consisted of four large wood- and coal-burning Dutch-style furnaces that was located in the centre of a spacious boiler room and basement area. The concept was simple; burn wood and coal and use a large natural draft flue to provide adequate heat to a large building. This basement area was also the storage space for the huge amount of wood and coal. The entire school includes a ground floor and two floors above. At any given time, there was six or seven chords of wood neatly stacked, split, and dried ready to burn. It is remarkable that this heating method continued to be used right up until 1986 when the heating system and exterior of the school was renovated. The heating system was replaced with an electric radiant panel heating system, which eventually was made to
The heating system for the school consisted of four large wood- and coal-burning Dutch-style furnaces that was located in the centre of a spacious boiler room and basement area. be controlled through solid-state relays to a microcomputer, while the exterior of the school’s brick work was beautifully restored to its original splendor. The Ministry of Education permitted the project to be undertaken as a boardmanaged project, which allowed the work to be completed by school district staff. Over 50 School District No. 61 tradesmen applied their skill to not only the exterior restoration of the building, but their talent was really put to the test in rebuilding the original interior spaces that included special decorative mouldings, facades, and other detailed finishes. Fortunately, the BC Heritage Trust was always there to help and provide sound advice.
I had the recent pleasure of meeting with South Park Family School principal Carmen Gauvreau to tour the facility and listen to the history and a few interesting stories about the facility. She also kindly gave me my own copy of the book entitled Memories Through the Decades by Debbie Marchand and Linda Picciotto, two teachers at the school with combined years of teaching closing in on 50 years.
While the history of this facility and teachings are well documented, there are also stories about this school that are not. Principal Gauvreau happily, yet quietly, shared this story with me.
One day about a year-and-a-half ago she was visited by two police officers. They were coming to see her about a multiple alarm break-in that happened in the wee hours of the morning a couple of nights previous. When she jokingly asked if they met anyone in the building, they immediately looked at each other with a bit of fear as one officer said that as a matter of fact there was an incident. The officers were searching the stairwells at the ends of the building while there was an additional officer and his dog patrolling another area of the school. All of a sudden, they clearly heard two doors on the second-floor main central hallway burst wide open. They radioed the K9 unit and asked if all was okay on the main floor. The K9 officer informed them that he and the dog were in the basement area and that there was nobody else in the building. If that isn’t enough to make your heart skip a beat, then you are welcome to spend an evening in the school and keep the custodian company. n
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