Climbing Gains a Foothold in Kameda Centre

Posted 1/28/2026

Ducking down through a low door in the Shawnigan Sportsplex, you find yourself in a new environment: a space where students and other members of the Shawnigan community can feel safe while challenging themselves physically and mentally and escaping the busyness of life at Shawnigan to focus on one thing.

Welcome to the Kameda Climbing Centre. Built in a repurposed squash court – hence the low door, which was intentionally left as it was to give the feeling of entering a completely different place – the Climbing Centre replaces a climbing wall in the Larsen Gymnasium for which accessibility was an issue as climbers couldn’t be in the gym when basketball teams were practicing, for example, and climbing groups had to go off campus two or three times a week. The new facility also allows for two climbing disciplines – bouldering and top rope – whereas the old wall was only built for top rope. Top rope uses a rope and a harness for higher climbs and requires a partner, while bouldering involves shorter climbs on lower walls with mats for climbers to land on if they fall.

“We had the idea of using the old squash court space so students could stay on campus, and also so people who are not in adventure sports or the Outdoor Leadership and Development Club would be able to use it,” explained Outdoor Education Coordinator Ms. Jessica Dick.

The first climb in the Climbing Centre took place on October 29, with the adventure sport group climbing team, and the Outdoor Leadership and Development Club had their first turn on the wall the same week. It is also used by Shawnigan’s competitive climbing team, which sent 15 athletes to a meet in Richmond in November, and has 12 entered in another competition at Brentwood College School next week.

Already, about 200 students have had an orientation on the wall through their physical education classes that will enable them to use the wall outside of class, sport and 360 hours.

The Kameda Climbing Centre is much more than just a new space for the climbing program. The old wall had several limitations, but the new wall allows for more routes and more types of routes, and includes technical aspects, such as slopes and a cave. The room has been rewired and can have dim lightning to make the climbing experience more relaxing, or brighter to make it more engaging.

Grade 10 student Emily R. is a member of both the adventure sport group and the competitive team, having signed up for the second term of sport this year, when the Climbing Centre opened.

“I like the aspect of being able to get somewhere on my own, to go super high, and the challenge of it all, and there are lots of ways to do that in the new Climbing Centre,” she said.

The new space is welcoming and always full of friendly faces, Emily added, and it is open to everyone to try the sport.

“It brings more opportunities for people to try it and more opportunities to train on your own,” she related.

Students are also able to engage in the process of setting routes on the wall. Earlier this month, the professional route setters from Victoria who did the initial set returned to campus to reset the route with the adventure sports group, incorporating the students’ own ideas as they learned the “science of setting.”

“Everyone in the sport has put something on the wall,” Ms. Dick said. “It’s a collaborative process, and it has become so much of a communal space.”

The plan is to change the routes every six to eight weeks so that the space is evolving and climbers won’t get bored. “They’ll have the excitement of going in and seeing something new,” Ms. Dick said.

The Climbing Centre is open to the School community, and staff members can be seen using it as well. For many students, it serves a purpose that some of the other sports the School offers don’t.

“You see students there that you wouldn’t see pushing themselves the same way on the rugby field,” Ms. Dick said. “They’re showing resilience they might not be able to find in team sports because that’s not who they are.”

Lead funding for the Kameda Climbing Centre was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Takeshi and Machiko Kameda, parents of Chika Kameda '24 from Japan. Although their daughter wasn’t a climber herself, Mr. Kameda is an avid climber and their family recognized the value in such a facility at the School to challenge our students and support their creativity and problem-solving skills. Several other donors with a passion for the sport also generously contributed to the Centre's development.

Grade 12 student Dorje S. is another member of both the adventure sport group and the competitive team. He started climbing in Nepal, two years before he came to Shawnigan when his friend’s school sponsors came to Nepal and booked a gym for them to try the sport. One of the sponsors gave Dorje his climbing shoes, which he still uses. Although he hasn’t climbed all of his life, climbing is part of his heritage, and the Kameda Climbing Centre allows him to connect with it from half a world away.

“My father always told me that Sherpas used to climb in the high terrain of the Himalayas,” Dorje recalled. “When I first climbed top rope, it felt very familiar to me. It’s a constant reminder to me of something my ancestors used to do; it’s very close to me.”

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