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News

List of 5 news stories.

  • A Celebration of Rowing at Shawnigan

    Hundreds of rowers representing 18 schools and clubs from across Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland, and the Okanagan Valley converged on Shawnigan Lake last weekend for the School’s 65th annual regatta.
     
    “The regatta was a fantastic weekend and a wonderful celebration of rowing at Shawnigan,” Head of Rowing Mrs. Jennifer Parfitt commented. “The atmosphere around the park was festive and energetic, with plenty of great racing and a beautiful setting for athletes, families, and spectators to enjoy. While the windy conditions created some delays, the regatta team adapted well, and we were able to get back on schedule and complete a full day of racing.”
     
    No races had to be cancelled due to the weather, which is a blessing for any regatta. Shawnigan had 39 entries over the three days of racing, and collected four gold medals, two silvers and three bronzes, as well as several top times for school-based crews.
     
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  • House Posts Unveiled

    Thanks to the efforts of dozens of students, staff, and other members of the Shawnigan community, a major gift from Brad Assu ’83 (Lonsdale’s) is now on display.
     
    Under Brad’s supervision, students have been helping to complete two 20-foot totem poles – exact replicas of house posts that were originally carved more than a century ago. With the replicas now complete, they were painstakingly relocated from just outside the Bruce-Lockhart Centre for Creativity to their new temporary location in the Shaw Centre for Science, and last Friday, they were unveiled to the public in a moving ceremony.
     
    Brad’s gift, in gratitude for the time he and his three older brothers spent at Shawnigan, was announced in October 2024, at the Chapel Gathering for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The house posts are replicas of two posts that were carved in 1910 by Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw artist Johnny Kla-wat-chi for Chief Billy Assu – Brad’s great-grandfather and a respected leader of the We Wai Kai. In the 1930s, the posts were removed and shipped to the museum in Ottawa that is now known as the National Museum of History.
     
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  • A Focus on Wellness

    Shawnigan students took a day to focus on health of all kinds during the Day of Well-Being held all across campus on Sunday.
     
    “The purpose was to give students the opportunity to participate in different holistic health practice,” said school counsellor Ms. Jenny Tully, who organized the event along with her fellow counsellors and students, including the mental health Prefects.
     
    Participation in the activities was entirely voluntary, but about half the student population took part. Students were given a plethora of options to pick from, including massage therapy, reiki, a performance and visualization group, yoga on the docks, a sound journey and sound bath, music therapy guided by Grade 12 student Rosa O., and floral design and bouquet making at the Growing Dome.
     
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  • A Springtime Tradition

    A unique springtime tradition at Shawnigan continued this week as students released several hundred coho salmon fry into Shawnigan Creek to begin their lives in the wild.
     
    While many schools in BC incorporate the life cycle of the salmon into their programs, Shawnigan is unique in that these fish were born and bred in our on-campus hatchery, something no other school in the province has. Programs centred on the hatchery help students learn more about the life cycle of the coho salmon, the ecology of Vancouver Island and the west coast, and countless other scientific concepts.
     
    The salmon used to breed the fry were harvested last fall during their return migration to Mill Bay Creek, then taken to the School where Grade 9 science students and Grade 11 environmental science students harvested their eggs and sperm. For the last several months, students have nurtured them inside the Mark Hobson Hatchery from fertilized eggs to alevin and then to fry, ready to live on their own.
     
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  • Our Vision, Their Future: Introducing the Imagine 30/30 Challenge!

    This past Saturday, during our annual Scholars’ Chapel, and as part of our 110th Anniversary celebrations, we officially kicked off the Imagine 30/30 Challenge – and we couldn’t be more excited about what this means for the future of Shawnigan Lake School.
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  • Photo of Jenny Dunbar

    Jenny Dunbar 

    Communications & Marketing Manager
    250-743-6232
  • Photo of Arden Gill

    Arden Gill 

    Communications Associate
    250-743-6499
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.