Shawnigan in 110 Objects
A Message from the Head of School
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A Message from the Head of School
Read MoreMy wife Kathini and I recently bought a house on a bend in the Chemainus River and have found ourselves eager to learn the local history – from the first occupants in the late 19th century to a local landmark on the old highway, the Westholme Tree/“The Old Guardsman” (a giant Douglas fir that crashed down in a storm in 1913).The garden at our new house neighbours All Saints Cemetery, and, when exploring on Remembrance Day, the Lamonts discovered that Cedric J G Lonsdale is buried there – a former teacher at Shawnigan and the nephew of our Founder.Shawnigan Lake School was carved out of the Canadian wilderness in 1916 by CW Lonsdale, and modelled on his alma mater, Westminster School in London, England. It has gone from one class of eight students to 550 students and is now perhaps Canada’s pre-eminent boarding school.Character & Courage, a visual history of Shawnigan, was published in 2016 to mark the School’s centenary, and we are hugely fortunate to have the most wonderful museum on campus which captures the journey of the School.
List of 20 news stories.
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The Shaw Library
In the spring of 2016, Shawnigan cut the ribbon on the final phase of the Centennial Capital Project – one of the most significant developments in the School’s history. At its heart stands the Jim ’77 (Lonsdale’s) and Kathryn Shaw Library, named in honour of the donors’ generosity. The building is a striking fir timber-frame space with soaring ceilings, warmed by matching fir bookcases, tables, and window seats. A second-floor mezzanine wraps around the interior and is furnished with inviting seating.Read More -
Stag Cafe
In 2004, the addition of Entrepreneurship 11 and 12 sparked a search for meaningful, hands-on learning. Instructor Georg Stroebel found it in an unlikely place: a former school kitchen left vacant after the opening of Marion Hall. A café, he realized, could turn theory into practice. Thanks to his experience as a restaurant owner, the risks were manageable, and approval soon followed. With no start-up funding available, Stroebel personally financed the initial supplies. The early operation was modest – just a few frying pans and a single fryer – but it was enough to launch service of hamburgers and fries. The response on opening night was immediate and enthusiastic, forcing the café to expand almost at once. Second-hand equipment soon followed, including another fryer, a flat grill, blenders, panini presses, and a two-level pizza oven. The loan was quickly repaid, and the program continues to flourish today, more than a decade after its founder’s retirement.Read More -
Word Shirt
After the devastating tsunami in Thailand in December 2004, the School sought a tangible way to help. A team of students and two staff members travelled to Thailand the following March to assist with rebuilding, joined by a Grade 12 student from Thailand whose support proved invaluable. To raise funds in early 2005, the team designed and sold t-shirts featuring the word “Relieve” on the front and its definition on the back.Read More -
Museum
The idea for the Museum grew out of Lance Bean’s deep affection for the School’s history. Lance worked at Shawnigan from 1974 to 1981 as a French and art teacher, band instructor, and housemaster. When he prepared to return in 2002, he shared with Headmaster and longtime friend David Robertson his vision: a museum that would show what life as a boarder once felt like – not only through photographs and stories, but through objects, spaces, and lived experience. The Head agreed, and allocated a portion of the basement in Marion Hall – which was being built at the time – to house the Museum.Read More -
Sir Percy Lake Bust
Sir Percy Henry Noel Lake was born in Tenby, Wales, in 1855, to a British father and a Canadian mother. Commissioned into the British Army in 1873, he pursued a distinguished military career spanning continents and decades. Rising through the ranks, he served as a senior commander in the British and Indian Armies and the Canadian Militia, with postings in Afghanistan, Sudan, India, Britain, Iraq, and Canada, where he was Inspector General of the Canadian Militia. After leaving Canada in 1910, he served in India as Chief of the General Staff, was appointed Colonel of the East Lancashire Regiment, and later became commander-in-chief of the Mesopotamian Force. He returned to England in 1916 and, after retiring in 1919, settled in Victoria, B.C. In civilian life, he continued his service as the first president of the Canadian Legion. Since 1943, the South Vancouver Island Zone of the Canadian Legion has awarded the annual Sir Percy Lake Memorial Scholarship in his honour.Read More -
Pranks
On April Fool’s Day in 1953, teacher Frank Duxbury was surprised to find his bicycle hanging from the flagpole (pictured above) – an early sign that Shawnigan has always taken its mischief seriously.Read More
Back in the 1920s, boys were responsible for lighting the classroom woodstove. Two enterprising students discovered that adding coal dust to kindling caused a small, delayed boom! To discourage a teacher from monopolizing the stove’s warmth, they prepared a “special” fire. When it exploded, everyone jumped – except the boys who laughed. Case closed. The teacher never sat there again. -
Eagle Lectern
The lectern was created to honour the memory of Nicholas Richard “Dick” Loggin, a student mourned by the School community when he sadly died of appendicitis in April 1926 at the age of 13. He had been a student since 1920, and had “set an example of loyalty, straightforwardness and unselfishness.” A memorial service was held at the School in 1926. The lectern was installed in the School Chapel when the Chapel was completed two years later. It takes the form of an eagle with wings outstretched, carved in oak – a very beautiful piece of work executed by master carver, George S. Gibson.Read More -
Steam Radiator
There is a saying, “A wood stove warms you twice: once when you cut the wood, and again when you burn it.” This would have been the experience of many a boy in the early days of the School, as they were responsible for getting the fires lit in the woodstoves each morning. They would cut, split and carry the wood to the stoves. Once lit, the heat would rise to the upper floors by convection; however, boys do not remember it reaching the level of the dormitories, where they spent many a cold winter’s night, sometimes awaking to frozen water in their wash basins. Thankfully, there were small stoves in each classroom, which were also maintained by the boys.Read More -
Observatory
The journey of the Shawnigan Observatory began in 2011 when an alumni’s neighbour on Saturna Island offered their old observatory to the School, presumably left from an Estate sale. Members of the Cowichan Valley Starfinders Club physically moved it in parts from its original home on tiny King’s Island – adjacent to Saturna Island – to the basement of the Shaw Centre, where it was housed for three years. During this time, it was reconstructed piece-by-piece, and by 2014 it was ready to be moved to its new location, on the edge of the sports fields, just northwest of the Hyde-Lay Pavilion. Its reconstruction was made possible by the generous donation of the Brister Family (Matt, Tara and Liam ’13 [Ripley’s]). In June 2017, it was officially christened the Stephen A. S. Lane Observatory.Read More -
Squash Courts
In the summer of 1927, Headmaster Lonsdale was a passenger on one of the “Queens” sailing from the U.K. to Canada. He happened to come across a game of squash being played on the ship’s squash courts. Realizing the potential the sport could have as a school game, and one that could be played in inclement weather, he measured the dimensions of the court, and on his return to Shawnigan, promptly had two courts built to the measurements he had taken. The two courts were built onto the west side of the newly finished gym, and voila! – these were the first squash courts in B.C. Unfortunately, Lonsdale did not realize that the courts conformed to neither the English nor North American specifications, since their size was limited to the space available in the ship’s hull. Consequently, Shawnigan’s courts were unique in the world, yet served the School admirably for the next 40 years. Despite the “dimensional drawbacks,” the School produced some excellent players who went on to become champions in B.C. and at universities throughout North America.Read More -
Commissary
Having a store on campus seems natural, as if it has always been here. But it actually developed slowly over many years. It began as a small idea: a “Tuck Shop.”Read More
Apparently, the first Tuck Shop arose from a question posed at a Debating Club meeting in 1926, and the work of their teacher, Mr. Stanton, “who made the scheme an actuality.” Traditionally, a tuck shop sells candy and other snacks, of which the Headmaster strongly disapproved. Therefore, while Lonsdale may have softened his views by 1926, we imagine that Mr. Stanton may have drawn upon his debating skills to obtain permission to open the shop. -
Growing Dome
A defining architectural feature of most of the buildings dotting the Shawnigan Lake School campus is the decorative, ornamental "half-timbering," which consists of exposed, dark-colored wooden beams set against light-colored stucco. Yet, there is one building that stands out in striking contrast to these medieval-era English Tudor facades because of its modern – even futuristic – appearance: the Growing Dome.Read More -
Roll of Honour
By the end of WW2, almost 800 boys had passed through the School and almost half of those had enlisted. Most of them were in Canadian or Imperial units, but at least thirty were in the United States military. As was said in a Remembrance Day Service years ago, “This voluntary enlistment was a remarkable indication of the sense of duty that Shawnigan had instilled in these young men. But I also attribute it in part to the knowledge of history acquired at the School and, perhaps, a love of adventure.” Many of those were wounded or made prisoners of war, and, sadly, 44 of them were killed in action, along with one former staff member.Read More -
Woodwork Shop
In C.W. Lonsdale’s report to the Board in 1928, he stated, “We have opened up a space in the attic, 80 feet long and 12 feet wide, as a temporary home for boys [who are] anxious to use tools for work in the nature of wood modelling, fret work and kindred efforts. There is, however, very little assistance which we are able to give those boys; . . . our ideal should eventually be to have a manual training instructor with a properly equipped workshop.” A student from the early 1930s remembers Mr. Hawksford, a man who worked in maintenance, starting the first “Hobby Shop” in the basement, underneath the gym.Read More -
Classroom Building (1929) and Classroom Block (1959)
In 1929, only two years after the School was rebuilt after the fire, a new, separate Classroom Building was built. It was designed by architect Douglas James, who also designed the Main Building. The Classroom Building was situated perpendicular to the NW corner of the Bruce-Lockhart Centre for Creativity (formerly known as the Hobbies Building). It was a three-story building containing 24 rooms: classrooms, an art room, laboratories for physics, chemistry, and biology, and a lecture theatre. It had three entrance doors opening into a two-story foyer flanked by open stairwells on each side. Of note were two large murals painted in 1934 by well-known Vancouver artist, Julius Griffith ’25, on the walls at the top of the staircase.Read More -
AV Production Facility
The AV Production Facility is a key component of Shawnigan's C.A.S.E. (Communication, Arts, Sciences and Entrepreneurship) program, and was born out of the expansive vision and generous support of Carl Bradley '78 (Groves'), through The Bradley Family Foundation. As a student, Carl’s passion for music was ignited under the guidance of beloved music teacher Lance Bean, setting him on a path into the music recording industry. That creative spark remained with him even as he transitioned into a highly successful entrepreneurial career – a journey that deepened his appreciation for innovation and creativity and ultimately inspired him to give back to the School. Eventually, in conversations with Headmaster Robertson and fellow board members, the C.A.S.E. program was born.Read More -
Conkers
The word “conkers” can refer to the seeds of a horse chestnut tree, or the game played with them. Former and current students can visualize the enormous horse chestnut trees in front of and near the Bruce-Lockhart Centre for Creativity (the former Hobbies Building). According to archival photos, these trees were not planted until c.1960; however, the above photo depicting boys playing Conkers in 1925 is evidence that there were already horse chestnut trees on or near the campus well before then.Read More -
Dining Room (1927)
The School Archives has no photos of the original dining room used for 10 years before it was lost to fire in 1926. This photo depicts the dining room in the newly rebuilt School (Main Building) in 1927. It was located on the north side of the hallway at the east end of the building and shared its western wall with the “Big School” room. This new dining room accommodated 150 students, a light-filled space with widows lining the north wall. At this time the House system had just been created, and the boys ate at tables grouped by Houses. Trophies won by a House were proudly displayed on a House table until lost to a different House.Read More -
Gold Book
The first Gold Book was printed for the 1966-1967 school year. This palm-sized student handbook had a distinctive metallic gold cover (pictured above). The handbook contained a list of every boy in the School, broken into Forms, plus the Form Master. House and School leaders were named, including School Prefects, Heads of House, and Captains of each sport. It laid out the School year calendar, and a daily timetable with room for a student to fill in their own academic schedule. Daily routines, expectations, rules, courses of discipline, the grading system, emergency procedures, and leave guidelines were covered, as well as a description of when buzzers and bells would be sounded.Read More -
Relocated Buildings
Shawnigan Lake School takes “recycling” seriously, including its buildings. Often an old building can be modified for a different purpose – or for the same purpose, but in a new location. The School has moved at least ten buildings on its campus, some of them twice. If a building has historical significance, then the motivation may be high to keep it.Read More
There are many kinds of specialized equipment and numerous steps in moving a building, which we will not describe here. The following campus buildings have been moved:
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.
Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 13 –18 on Canada’s beautiful Pacific Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
