Building a legacy

Camp Stephens looks very different this summer. No kids are on the island.

Due to the pandemic, in the best interest of the health and safety of campers, staff and the surrounding community, camp and the wilderness canoe program was cancelled in May.

So camp looks and sounds like nothing we’ve seen. An empty dining hall, a quiet swim dock – the normal sounds of a normal summer at camp are missing.

Camp staff and volunteers are using this time to get several repairs done on the island that haven’t been possible in past years.

The largest project at camp is the new 4,507 square-foot depot. It will be a welcome addition to camp when kids return. While the depot is almost finished, funds are still required to pay for the cost to build it.

More needs to be done. 

Fixing staff and camper cabins, repairing the main boat dock, upgrading the kitchen and dining hall windows and a building a fence for the new shop are but a few things. Upgrades to the shower house and washrooms, built in the early 1980s, are another priority.

The financial need to pay for some of this work has increased. With no campers, camp has no income. Yet the work still has to get done.

You can help by donating to Y’s Build a Legacy Campaign. Your donation will ensure camp is in a stronger position when campers return, providing young people with unique and challenging experiences to grow in spirit, mind and body. 

To donate to, or talk to someone about the capital campaign, please see Capital Campaign: Help us Build a Legacy.

The new depot will be a safe, welcoming place when campers return.

 

What the new depot looks like inside.

New depot interior.

Inside the new depot.

Dining hall windows need repairs.

The balcony on the lodge is partially rotten and closed for use.

A fence needs to be built at the new shop building for camper safety.

Staff cabins required major repairs if not replacement.

The interior washrooms were built in the early 1980s and need to be upgraded.

"A Living Tradition"

"I'll be going down to camp as long I am able to carry on."

This was written sometime in the early 1950s. Davey's last summer at camp was 1961. I believe this article appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. The reporter, Clell Bryant, would later be posted at the London bureau of the Montreal Gazette and later become the editor of Time Canada.

Bryant's story refers to Davey's 1947 trip paid for by some of his "boys". I've posted another newspaper article (I Write What I See) that details that trip.


Below is a second article by Bryant he wrote in July 1951 after a visit to Camp Stephens.


"High point of the season is Little Chief's Day, when most of the staff leaves the island and the boys run the camp."



Jim Leggat~Leg's Place

Jim Leggat

At the end of the summer in 2006 family of former camp director Jim Leggat and close friends gathered at Camp Stephens at the place where Y's Men once stood. The first cabin on the line had been replaced with a new one, named Leg's Place in his memory.

Leggat died suddenly Nov. 11, 1994 at age 41 while hiking in British Columbia.

Here are the words spoken that day.

They and the photos were provided by Leggat's sister Carolyn Schram and his brother John Leggat.

Speaking is former camp director Grant Platts:

Camp Stephens - August 26, 2006

I was honoured when Carolyn asked me to say a few words today about Jim and his history at camp.

Jim started Stephens as a camper in 1968 -- at the somewhat advanced age of 15. Apparently he was not all that keen to go the first time, but once he got there, he was bitten by the bug. Not only was Stephens a major part of his life for the next 11 years, but it also provided the foundation for his lifelong career in camping.

After his first year as camper, Jim followed in 1969 as a counsellor-in-training (CIT) under the leadership of Brian "Stubby"Law. Included in that group were a number of guys (including Jim, Neil Robinson, Jamie Grant and Mike Pawluk) that went on to play major roles at Stephens in the resident and wilderness programs throughout the next number of years.

Jim was a counsellor and canoe tripper during the early 70s culminating in his leading the fourth ever boy's six week trip in 1973. That trip was perhaps the most remote and challenging ever, a route that started in South Indian Lake and travelled the length of the Seal River into Hudson Bay, north of Churchill, Manitoba.
During the next few years Jim was back in camp as a section director and canoeing specialist. Winters saw him working at Kinsmen Lodge at the Y's Camp Manitou.

In 1977 Jim was appointed director of Stephens where he remained for the next three years. His last summer was 1979 after which he accepted a position with the Victoria YM-YWCA as the director of Camp Thunderbird, where he remained until his untimely passing.

During his time as Stephens' director, Jim made a number of positive changes. Among the more notable was the lengthening of the girl's invitational trip from four to six weeks and the change from one tripper and five participants to the current two and seven ratio, a move that significantly reduced risk, but one that was not altogether met with open arms by the macho men of the woods.

Jim's sudden death in 1994 came as a shock to his family who lost a beloved son, brother and uncle, and also to all of his friends. After Jim's funeral, a suitable wake was held in his honour at the Victoria Inn in Brandon. Jim would have been proud.

I'd like to finish by reading messages sent by two of Jim's closest friends.

The first is from Neil Robinson:

When I first met Jim Leggat as a CIT he was solid with large and extremely strong legs. Also, given the fact that his last name was Leggat, he was quickly known as "Legs" around camp. Everybody knew who Legs was, campers and staff alike. Whether Jim was a camper, CIT, counsellor, section director, canoe tripper or camp director, he truly loved camp and each winter looked forward to getting back to Stephens.

Legs loved dealing with everyone at camp and could be seen tilting his head back and roaring with laughter, or, with a twinkle in his eye, make a joke and giggle. I've never met a large man that could giggle so well.

One of my favourite recollections is of Jim as the camp director. Picture this: Big Jim, likely having a cigarette in his director's cabin, and then ringing the camp bell early in the morning to signify the daily camp run and polar bear swim. A group of 20 junior campers (Junies as they are called) are dwarfed by the fearless leader Legs. After an appropriate warm-up of two jumping jacks and three pushups, the group is off and jogging. Around the island they go in a line behind their leader, with Jim cracking jokes and making every Junie feel welcome. The polar bear swim is a welcome relief for the Junies and their overheated leader Legs.

Other than Jim's fun side, which was huge, there was a dedication to make camp a better place. He made positive changes to the tripping program and to camp life and believed in the ideals of the YM-YWCA.

It is an honour to have know Legs and to have a cabin named after him. When I am back on the island, I will go there first.

And finally, this tribute from Jamie Grant:

One of my more vivid memories of Legs is of the day he and his six-week crew returned to Stephens from their trip down the Seal River. In keeping with his character his presence that day was again larger than life. His presence and his calm permeated the crowd gathered that afternoon. His stories of their travels captivated everyone present. I remember hanging onto every word of their adventure. I felt like a kid listening to a great storyteller. That was his day. His ever-present smile with a chuckle was replaced with a sense of serious reflection. However, that twinkle in his eye was ever-present.

To me, the experience of that trip and what he was able to see in himself initiated a belief and created a stepping stone that eventually led him to become director of Camp Stephens and later Camp Thunderbird.

He understood what it was to be a leader and decision maker, how to teach and influence others... how to build a team. You could see it flow from his six-week group that afternoon and subsequent evening. He was proud of his ability to influence others. I believe he had learned that he had certain skills tucked away under the carefree character of his that he may not have known he possessed. He could now move forward on his own terms... which he certainly did.

I paddled that same route as Legs and his group had down down the Seal River about eight years later. We came across a cabin close to a set of rapids where we stopped for lunch. On the wall was a note written by Legs and his group. I added a follow-up note to their etching on the wall. All I could really write was, "the Spirit of those that have preceded us prevails". I was thinking 0f Jim as I wrote. His spirit was ever-powerful as I sat at that table in the cabin that day. It is now once again overwhelming as I write this note... and I am sure it is the same with all of you gathered today for this dedication to Legs.

I wish I could be there today. Sorry I cannot.

My best wishes to Marion Leggat and to all members of the Leggat family.

Jim was a wonderful friend and I miss him. His Spirit continues to prevail ever so strong!

Lount Lodge (Updated May 29/10)

This will eventually be a post about the building of Lount Lodge.

Over the coming weeks and months I'll add the bits and pieces I have, and what I remember, to put down in one place how a bunch of us built Lount Lodge.
Suggestions are welcome. Here's a bunch of paperwork to start things off, including The Rules. ~Bruce

We cut down 230 trees, all Red Pine, on McPhearson Island, which is about 90 minutes by boat south of camp near the U.S. border.

Bob Backhouse drove the skidder, used to haul or drag the trees we cut down, to a ramp we built on the shore of the lake. Where the tree was cut down, we "limbed" it; cut off as many branches as possible. At the ramp, a short distance away from the cutting area, we had an electric generator for a big drill.

Once Bob had dropped off a tree, sometimes more than one with the skidder, we manhandled them into place to drill holes at either end to allow steel cables to be threaded through to make the boom. Once the holes were drilled, we rolled the logs down the ramp into the lake. As more logs were rolled in the water, we got in boots and all and made the boom.

We lived on-site for about three weeks, camping on a small island a short distance away. We lived on mostly on trail food.

We named the island Ralph Island after Bob and I (left alone to fend for ourselves; big mistake) cooked up some mac and cheese and added bacon that was well past its prime. We figured if we cooked it long enough we'd be safe. We were wrong. By dawn we, in unison, were drowning out the sound of the birds.

Bringing the boom to camp was a hoot, but it was also a challenge none of us could have even imagined. What could go wrong did. Almost.

We were delayed in bringing the boom to camp because a severe storm that lasted a couple of days. On the day before we arranged to tow the boom to camp, towed by a tug (a picture of it at dock in Kenora is at the right) we left camp by boat at about 5 a.m. to check on any damage the waves caused to the boom.
When he got to McPhearson we discovered many of the cables had broke, and we had to rebuild the boom and fetch wayward logs. About 16 hours later, working in cold, fishfly invested water, we finished. But we were still far from home.

I have a letter I wrote home about what happened next, and will post some of the contents of it when I get the chance. Reading the letter, written in early July 1980, it's clear I have forgotten a lot.

Suffice it to say, cutting down the logs and getting them to camp was gruelling work, all of it. But it was nothing to what was ahead. None of us had done this type of work before. Except for Burton, we were all university students without a clue.

Where We've Been

These photos were taken in the early 1900s through to 1966.
The first rec hall was built in 1911. It was also the dining hall up until 1962 when the current dining hall was built.
The old rec hall was replaced by Lount Lodge in 1982.
Thousands of kids have gone through
View Larger Map'>Camp Stephens since it was first established in 1891.

The Wonder and the Mystery

By Bruce Owen
Fletcher canoeing at Camp Stephens

“There is a sense of eternity in the wild, where there are no clocks and no artificial barriers between a person and the natural world to which we all belong. Science talks about infinity, time, mass, energy. As a naturalist I would add wonder and mystery to this good list.”

– Steven Fletcher, from his biography What Do You Do If You Don’t Die? by Linda McIntosh


Before he hit the moose Steven Fletcher danced across the water.

A paddle in his calloused hands, he cut through miles of rushing wilderness white water, getting better and stronger with each stroke.
“It’s kind of like high-level canoe ballet,” Fletcher said, describing his love and ways of the paddle.

In the late 1980s and early ‘90s the now- Winnipeg MP was a canoe buff. With his family, friends and the Manitoba Naturalist’s Society, young Steven mastered flat-water and white-water canoeing. He also took to kayaking, becoming the 1988 and 1989 Manitoba kayak champion and competing in the 1989 Canada games in several events.

He also spent a short time, only one week, at Camp Stephens.
He said he had a chance to work at camp as a counsellor, but instead took a job with the naturalists. They paid him $5 an hour, a princely sum for a young man working his way through university.
“That’s a lot of money in the camp counsellor world,” he said.

In late summer of 1995 he ended up at Camp Stephens at the invitation of friend and then-Wilderness Director Zoe (Herbert) Routh.
She enlisted Fletcher to conduct a five-day canoe school for staff under Canadian Recreational Canoeing Association standards.

Students included Routh, Jen (Sulkers) Wetherow, Dave Ross, Scott Feindel and Patsy Barker. Former tripper Stephen Sawchyn was an assistant leader for the course.

“Camp Stephens has always run great a great wilderness program, but Zoe wanted to raise the bar and help trail staff become officially recognized by the CRCA,” Wetherow said. “Steven agreed to help lead this course during the last week of August in 1995.

“The trail staff involved had all just finished a fabulous summer. We were well tanned, muscled and figured we knew just about everything about canoeing so this course would be a breeze. We couldn't have been more wrong.”

That’s because Fletcher had other plans.

“I worked them hard,” Fletcher smiled from his wheelchair. “It was just great. We were up before the bell rang and we canoed all day.

“They were all granola crunchers,” he added, his grin widening. “I didn’t tell them I had a Reform Party membership. It wouldn’t have gone over too well.”

Wetherow said on the first morning Fletcher had them up before dawn.

“Steven came whistling down the path to announce the start of our day. After several nudges (and probably some curse words) we made our way to the dining hall to begin lessons.

“The first thing we learned was how little we actually knew about canoeing. Over the course of that week, Steven helped us all to understand that paddling is a fine art form. With the water as our canvas, we used boats and paddles as our paint and brush.”

Routh agreed.

“I remember Steven doing handstands in a canoe,” the Australian business consultant said.
“I think canoe tricks was even one of the sign-offs for advanced canoe techniques. And then the video camera came out and Steve started doing this wild Bon Jovi dancing, his inner rock god released at last after a week of being so serious and hard-nosed.”
Fletcher said he still has the videos of the canoe school – 20 hours’ worth.

“It’s tough to watch the tapes,” Fletcher said in a private moment.
Wetherow, a former camper, counsellor, tripper, wilderness co-ordinator and camp director at Stephens, said Fletcher passed on his love of the paddle in those five long days.

“It was nothing short of magical,” she said. “Steven pushed us to our absolute limits of ability and then a little further. He taught us that great art requires great discipline and practise. There were tears of frustration as Steven pushed us to work harder than we had ever worked before. And there were tears of joy when we realized we were capable of meeting those expectations.

“Steven was only at camp for a week but he made a lasting impact on all of us and I am so grateful for having had that marvellous experience.”

Less than six months later Fletcher’s life changed forever.

On Jan. 11, 1996 he was driving by himself to Bissett where the recent University of Manitoba engineering graduate worked as a mining engineer-in-training at the Rea Gold Corporation.

More than halfway through his early morning trip the 23-year-old swerved to miss a calf moose that had stepped in front of his car. In an instant he struck a giant moose coming up behind.
The animal bounced up over the hood of Fletcher’s car and peeled back the roof as it went.

As the car skidded off the road into a ditch, the animal was flung off the car’s trunk back over the crumpled roof, slamming it back down and snapping Fletcher’s neck.

Fletcher now spends his time between Winnipeg and Ottawa. He’s been the MP for Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia since 2004, easily winning re-election in 2006 and 2008. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Fletcher as Minister of State for Democratic Reform following the 2008 federal election.

“I wonder what would have happened if I took a different path,” Fletcher said as one of his aides tells him he’s expected soon at a political meeting.
“There are a lot of things I miss,” he said, his special wheelchair about to scoot away to the private gathering. “Canoeing is one of the things I miss the most.”

To The Mouth Of The Seal

By Bruce Owen

“Again the sun amazes us by just being present. Louis and Jim woke up first about 6:10. Louis, the pig, soon after came into our tent (Norm, Chuck and Rhos) and woke us up by violently vibrating his tonsils and excreting nauseating sounds. He and Rhos finally made breakfast and after all the duties were completed, we got on the water at 8:00. Not bad for this crew!”.-- July 10, 1973

It will be 37 years ago this summer that Jim Leggat (left, up top) took five teenage boys on a trip of a life time.
The 1973 six week followed the route of the early voyageurs, 600 miles starting at Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba to the mouth of the Seal River at Hudson Bay.
“I learned more in those six weeks and in preparing for the trip than I had to that point in my life,” Rhos Dyke says.

“The trip changed me dramatically in how I carried on into 11th grade at Kelvin High School. I took on more responsibility at school and in the community. I learned a ton about teamwork.”
Dyke now lives in Los Angeles and is executive vice president at software company Cloud Creek Systems.

Also on the trip were John Russell, Louis Keene, Charles McLandress and Norm Krolman.
Russell, a professional engineer, splits his time between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He is director of operations at Sebastian Construction Group, a builder of high-end homes.

“It was the high-light of my life,” Russell says. “I think Leggat was only 21 and we were 16. There was supervision, but compared to today’s standards we were pretty free-wheeling.”

McLandress, lives in Toronto and is a research scientist in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. He still paddles, and in 2006 canoed the Seal River a second time. “It taught me the importance of team work and the meaning of ‘group’ that can only come with such an experience,” McLandress says of the impact of the trip on him.

“Although I have many fond memories of the trip, the most vivid is our visit to a Sayisi Dene community on the shores of Tadoule Lake. They had only recently moved there from Churchill to ‘get back to the land’ and live the traditional life of hunting and fishing.
“We camped there one night, staying up late to watch the Northern Lights with some of the Dene boys and exchanging stories of our experiences as 16-year olds.”

Keene, an architect, lives in St. Simons Island, Georgia. He paints in his spare time.
“For me, it would not be overstating things to say that the experience gained that early in life really did set a course for me.
“I have continued to value travel at the top of my list. I have done a lot of mostly solo trips since, by motorcycle, sailboat and backpack through the Americas, the Middle East and Europe.
“I have always worked hard and done well enough but I am ambivalent about that part of life--moving down the road with endless days ahead and a sackful of good books to get into, ahhhhh – that’s it!

Two of the six on the trip have passed away.
Jim Leggat died suddenly Nov. 11, 1994 at age 41 while hiking in British Columbia. The first cabin on the line at Camp Stephens is named after him.

Norm Krolman, 39, disappeared Sept. 7, 1996 shortly after withdrawing cash from an ATM in Winnipeg.Winnipeg police say all of his belongings were still at his Wardlaw apartment, a sign the self-employed computer programmer intended to return. Foul play is suspected.

His brother Ranald says Norm was creating virtual-reality applications on his own at the time.
“I'm not sure either if I could write accurately about the impact the trip had on Norm,” Ranald said in an email. “It’s my mother’s retelling of Norm’s stories about the six-week trip that I remember better than his original telling of them, like his coming around a rock on a polar bear; his pulling out his knife; his showing us how large the bear's print was, to show what a derisory defense his knife would have been; the bear backing away.
“His voice, the story itself, is overwhelmed in my memory by the sound of my mother's exclamations, her feelings about the danger he'd been in, her conjecturing about the miraculous reprieve. But I think an impact of the trip may have been how it helped to develop in Norm an ability to stand up for himself. He'd been pretty cruelly bullied in school.”

For Dyke, Russell, Keene and McLandress, they went their own ways a long time ago. Like so many of us, university followed by careers, family and other things scattered them.

Late last year, Jim’s brother John gave me the logbook for the 1973 Camp Stephens Six Week Trip.
He said it the trip was unique not only because of the route, but because Leggat was the only tripper. It was also one of the early trips where more thought was put into making it challenging. Like canoeing and camping in polar bear country. Subsequent trips saw increased focus on safety, including two trippers.

“It was extremely challenging,” Russell says. “I remember dragging our canoes over deadfall and rocks in shallow creeks with the bugs draining the life out of me.
“I remember collapsing one night in the tent with barely setting it up and then back at it the next day.”

It started July 1. There was no sunrise ceremony; only a few goodbyes from trail staff; Jamie Grant, Mitch Halprin and Hugh Burton before the van pulled out of Winnipeg for The Pas.
When the van pulled into The Pas with Leggat, his boys and all their gear, the tone for the next six weeks was set.
Jim Leggat wrote: “We went up to Clearwater Provincial Park to look for a campsite. It was raining cats and dogs – couldn’t find one, everything was completely booked up – decided to ruff it and stay in a motel.
“We found the Wescana Inn – booked suite 17 but then we moved up to the executive suite and room 21 beside it – really nice.”
The first night of the trip was spent eating pizza, watching TV and throwing ice cubes at one another.

“We woke up at 6:45 a.m only to discover that the rain had not left us – oh poop!” Dyke wrote in the logbook. “We once again had scrambled eggs, once again we resisted the temptation to puke.”
The next day didn’t start on the water, but loading canoes and gear onto a train pointed towards Pukatawagan.
Leggat wrote as the train rolled north:
“The country seems to be getting pretty rough – started wondering what the hell we have signed up for.” About nine hours later the train stopped at Pawistik, a siding near Pukatawagan on the Churchill River.

The next morning, after an oatmeal breakfast, the two canoes hit the water.
The weather was perfect. Over the next couple of days they were ahead of schedule. And they hadn’t even broken a sweat. The fishing was also good.Louis, John, Norm, andChuck each caught fish, some they threw back, some they ate.
On the fourth day on trial it started raining.
“Decide to stay in bed,” Leggat wrote. “Broke camp around 10:30. Not to impressive – that’s too bad.

It rained steadily for the next few days.
In the days ahead the rain continued along with heavy winds. The rain they could handle. The wind, not so much. It whipped up the water making it dangerous to canoe on open water because of the high waves.
Waiting out the lousy weather and living in such close confines also brought out conflict.
“More strains on the trip are showing through as they boys were at each other’s throats in an argument over new positioning of the canoes,” McLandress wrote at the end of the second week. “Now once again tempers have died down and all grievances settled. We decided to hit the sack. That’s all for today. Covered 0 miles.”
When the weather changed the group of six made up for lost time on the Little Sand River.
“By now we were all rather upset at the bugs which seemed ravenous all the time,” Keene wrote.

Two days later the trip hit the Seal River. The boys lucked out when they came across a Lamb Air cabin, one of many scattered throughout the north used by the northern airline.
In the days ahead the six shot numerous rapids, one which saw one of their canoes badly crunched when it went through some white water sideways:
“When it was all over, only one paddle was missing and three boys had the symptoms of pneumonia,” the July 29 log book entry reads. “Jim tried to kick the now four foot dent out and succeeded partly.”
On July 31 the trip saw their first seal—they called it Herbie—and seven days later saw their first big polar bear.
“I was really scared because I didn’t know what it would do,” Dyke said in the logbook.

In the days ahead, as they paddled towards Hudson Bay, they saw more polar bears. A lot more.
A week later they flew to Winnipeg from Churchill. Then trail director Jim King met them at the airport and took them to Pizza Place before driving them out to Kenora. They’d covered the distance of the six-week trip in about six hours.
On August 16 they paddled into camp.
“Two days ago we were sitting at Hudson Bay wondering if we would make it home to Camp Stephens,” Dyke wrote in the log the night before. “Camp seemed to be far away and almost in another world.”