Chapleau High School toboggan slide of 50s part of 'quality of community' Ian Macdonald recalls

With winter here  it seemed like an opportune time to recall the memorable Chapleau toboggan slide project undertaken in 1956. I remembered that Ian Macdonald had been involved in the project and indeed had written about it so this column is based on his article at http://chapleau.com/.

Ian wrote that Chapleau High School students built the toboggan slide on the rock behind the old golf club building which was across from the town beach and Chapleau Public School. For those of you who don't recall the old golf club building was about in the same place as the "new" one. It had been built in about 1927 and was replaced in about 1977.

"It was similar to a sluice that they use in logging. The toboggans went like hell." Ian noted. They sure did! What fun!

The school bought the lumber to make a slide. The crew assembled whatappears to be twelve foot sections of the "sluice section of the slide" . Another group would trundle up the hill with a completed section. Obviously it was all put together at the top, Ian wrote.

In the photo with this column you'll notice the jackets with the big "C" on them with Chapleau High spelled out on the back.

"My recollection was that we got a special deal with these jackets if we only used two colours (blue and white in this case). We (student council) then voted to change the High School colours to blue and white from the previous red, green and white to justify the jacket purchase. I think they changed back to red, green and white the following year," Ian wrote.

Ian added: "It was typical of how young people in those days seemed to be able to get together as a team and make things happen. Other projects included making hockey rinks, a dance floor behind the Anglican Church etc. You don't see as much of this type of thing anymore. This was, of course, a year or so before you had television in Chapleau and similar other distractions for people. I expect it is this 'quality of community' that people remember about the town and why they enjoy being reminded of it."

Some may recall the toboggan slide on Slaughterhouse Hill from the 1930s.

Thanks for your help Ian, and let me just add a few words about him. Ian began working for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a fireman in 1956 when he was in Grade 11 at CHS and he was one of the last to be trained on steam power. However, he later attended the University of Manitoba, graduating in 1969 as an architect.

After working abroad Ian joined the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba in 1978, and was promoted to full professor in 1993 and then served as head of the graduate department of architecture at the university starting in 1999. Ian is officially "retired" now but having worked with him on a chapter for Bill McLeod's new book, he seems to be very busy.

One of his projects is an architecture program for Athabasca University.

See also http://chapleau.com/