 Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us this evening for a special local voices program 100 years of girl guiding in West Vancouver. My name is Kendra Sakamoto and I am a customer experience librarian here at West Vancouver Memorial Library. While I recognize that we are all in different places this evening, I would like to acknowledge that for those of us on the north shore. We are on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nations. If you are uncertain as to which ancestral territory you live on, I encourage you to visit who's.land to learn more about the traditional lands on which you reside. Nature is an incredibly important part of the girl guide program teaching girls about the natural world and the importance of protecting the environment. Here in West Vancouver we are extremely fortunate to live amongst an awe inspiring natural landscape. I am incredibly grateful to live on these beautiful lands that the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nation peoples have been the caretakers of since time immemorial. For tonight's program we will be joined by Laura Anderson and Daphne Hales. Laura Anderson is president of the West Vancouver Historical Society, serves on West Vancouver's Heritage Advisory Committee. Laura conducts the Society's Oral History program, produces heritage and community related events, and she writes and edits family histories and memoirs. Welcome Laura. Welcome to Local Voices, our community conversation series. West Vancouver Historical Society launched Local Voices in partnership with the library to explore what we value about the place where we live. It is fitting that Local Voices returns with a story unique to West Vancouver, the centenary of guiding in our community. Guiding goes back 100 years in West Vancouver, which was incorporated in 1912, only a few years earlier. Our origin story, that of West Vancouver, the municipal and commercial entity, I mean, is still within living memory. If we factor in the stories and memories of our parents, grandparents, and increasingly our great grandparents. So we can say that the history of guiding reflects or parallels the story of West Vancouver. Daphne Hales, dedicated guide, researcher and local historian, is here to tell the story of guiding. We will see how that story illustrates the value and significance of our community history. Daphne will talk about Phil Mundy, who with her husband Dawn climbed most of the mountains in British Columbia, and who gave her name to the Nature House at Lighthouse Park. Thanks to Guiders Mae Loudon and Pat Bonham, a guide leader before she became West Vancouver's first female mayor. Daphne will tell you about Gladys Davies, whose family owned the Blue Dragon Inn at Horseshoe Bay, and who became West Vancouver's first female counselor. Women like Phil and Gladys, and all the guide leaders who came after them, including my own mother, help girls become women of character and self-reliance. The contributions of Guides and Brownies leaders, and of the Guides and Brownies themselves, help build our community, and continues to do so today. I'm sure many of you here have your own stories and memories and experiences as Guiders and Brownies, or as parents of same. We look forward to hearing those stories following Daphne's talk. This is how community history takes shape by gathering our personal stories and memories and contributing them to form the greater story. We are creating our legacy to future generations. Thank you for your interest and for your contributions to West Vancouver's story. Tonight, we are also delighted to have with us Daphne Hales. Daphne has been involved with guiding in West Vancouver since the 1970s. Originally from Liverpool, England, Daphne began her guiding career as a Brownie in the late 1940s. Having spent the war years as an evacuee child in Peterborough, Ontario, she was determined to return to Canada after university. She has held several positions with the Girl Guides of Canada since 1972, including leader, provincial camp advisor, vice chair of the local tree foiled guild, and chair of the Girl Guides of Canada Phil Monday Nature House and Lighthouse Park. Welcome Daphne. Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here with you all. First of all, a big thank you to the library and to the West Van Historical Society for inviting Girl Guides to share our story with you. So many wonderful women have been involved in guiding here in West Van over the hundred years, and all of them would have had stories to tell. Often funny, sometimes frustrating, but good stories of camping and hiking, giving service, learning new skills, and making lifetime friendships. Each of us would tell you a different story, so mine isn't the only version, and forgive me if I leave out important people, events and memories. I'll tell you about just a few of the local women involved in guiding in the early days, some of whom I actually met, and a bit about guiding here in West Van more recently. One thing we would all agree on, if it isn't fun, it isn't guiding, as the founder said. So Girl Guides has been around in West Van for a hundred years, and for those of you who might not know how it all began, I'll briefly begin at the beginning. Once upon a time, in 1857 actually, a young lad, Robert Baden Powell, was born in the south of England. He was one of several children. His father died when Robert was young, and his rather unconventional mother seems to have pushed the children hard to do well. Robert, known as BP, was an adventurous lad. At boarding school, he was always sneaking off into the woods, snaring rabbits, skinning and cooking them, just to show he could. He joined the army, and in South Africa during the Boa War, he became famous for holding the fort in the town of Mafeking for months until the British troops arrived. He got the local boys involved in helping in all sorts of cunning ways to fool the enemy outside the walls, and it was this in particular that made him feel boys weren't given credit for their ability. So back in England, he wrote a book called Scouting for Boys and tried out his ideas. He held a camp on Brownsea Island just off the south coast of England for boys of all levels of society, all wearing the same uniform and all being treated equally. It was a huge success, and his ideas of learning to be independent and ready to serve one's country were taken up by little groups of boys all over England and by many of their sisters who tagged along with their brothers, eager for adventure. In 1909, BP held a rally at the Crystal Palace in London to discover just how widespread scouting had become. Thousands of boys registered to attend, and girls showed up along with the boys in several units, and right at the end came a group of girls all on their own. They were late and hadn't registered, but they gate crashed. Now here's where the legend begins. Apparently BP said, who are you? And they said, we are the girls' scouts. And he said, well, you can't be, there aren't any. And they said, oh, yes, there are, and we're them. In fact, he did know that girls had belonged to some of the groups and thought good for them. But when he realized the extent of the girls' enthusiasm for this game, as he called it, he recruited his sister Agnes to start a separate movement for girls. He suggested the name Guides after the men he had worked with and admired in India. So Agnes, rather more prim and proper than her brother, picked up the reins and the Girl Guide movement was officially born in 1909. Mind you, Agnes' idea of girls was that their duty to the country should be to hold hearth and home together and raise good citizens. The girls didn't think much of that and were out skinning rabbits with the best of the boys. And if they didn't have a leader for their little group, some of them parceled up their skin rabbits and mailed the smelly things to scout headquarters so they could earn their badge. By the next year, 1910, a unit of Girl Guides had opened here in Canada in St. Catherine's, Ontario spearheaded by Mrs. Malcomson on the right. She had been at the Crystal Palace Rally and then the idea spread like wildfire. After all, girls in Canada then were used to the pioneering life rather than to Edwardian drawing rooms and they took to guiding like ducks to water. Administration was soon needed and here on the left we see Lady Pellet, the imposing lady in the centre. She was our first dominion commissioner. We talk about West Van opening its first company of Girl Guides in 1921 and that's true, but in fact we had a Girl Guide here before that. Her father was the lightkeeper of the little squat lighthouse at the mouth of the Capilano River on the West Van side and Dorothy Harris was a Girl Guide. In 1911, she had joined Phil Monday's company in Vancouver, which Phil's mother, egged on by her eager daughter, had started the year before. When the Harris's moved to the light station shortly after, Dorothy's father rode her once a week across the often rough first narrows to Stanley Park and then Dorothy walked along Georgia Street to her guide meetings and we complain about the drive to town. Thanks to Dorothy's granddaughter, we have a photo of her with this guide company in Stanley Park. Her father is peeking over somebody's shoulder in the back row and there's her mother who assisted Phil's mother. Other photos show they went to camp at Gower Point on the Sunshine Coast in 1916, making their own tent poles or shears, setting up their old fashioned canvas tents. There's Dorothy's dog with them. Just look at the uniforms, long sleeved blouses with wide midi collars, huge bloomers, the long braids. So we're actually celebrating more than 100 years of guides in West Van. But there was a pause after Dorothy. Maybe the community here was too small, too isolated. But finally in 1921, a small company of guides started in West Van. And three years later, it was sponsored by members of the IODE, the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire. This was a patriotic group intent on service to King and country with the feeling that women had an important role to play. So this was the ideal group to sponsor the equally patriotic girl guides. Mrs. Malcomson back in St. Catharines was a member of the IODE and the idea percolated across the country that this organization could help to encourage the new girl guide movement. Nearly all our early leaders in West Van of guide units and of brownies when they came along were members of the West Van IODE Duncan Lawson chapter. Here they all are smiling away. And our first West Van girl guide commissioner, none other than our first female municipal councillor, also a member of the IODE, Gladys Davies. Here she is sitting on the left of Reeve Gisby at the dedication of the memorial arch just across the road from the library in 1925. She's in her girl guide commissioner uniform, severe navy suit, large leather gauntlets, sturdy black lace up shoes and the hat. A navy felt large brimmed hat turned up on one side and held there with a light blue cocaine. What an awe inspiring sight. In fact, Gladys wasn't nearly as stern as her uniform and posture indicate. She was much loved and played a large role in guides. She was an early role model for the girls, a businesswoman who ran a tea house in Horseshoe Bay. The Blue Dragon Inn was a popular destination for West Vancouverites, who would take this train that you see on the left from 14th Street out to Glen Eagles, and then walk down into Horseshoe Bay to Gladys tea room. Marine Drive didn't go that far then. And Gladys was doing her civic duty as a municipal councillor. She took various roles in guiding. By 1929, she was deputy provincial commissioner for BC. Here's the newspaper article announcing her election into that position. She was the first of many West Vanguiders who helped at provincial and national level too. The captain of that first guide company, of course, they all had military titles in those days was Ruth Robinson, a teacher at Hollyburn School. She opened the company in 1921 in September and by Christmas, 40 girls were enrolled. It was popular. She was lucky enough to meet Lady Baden-Powell when she visited Vancouver in 1923 to inspect the local guides. Here's the photo from the province May the 8th, 1923, with Ruth Robinson and Mrs. Protherow, both of the first West Vancouver guide company. And Phil Monday is here too, staff captain of the first Vancouver company. You can see Phil in the middle and look at the picture on the right. Phil then in 1923 lived way up Grouse Mountain with her husband Don and little girl Edith. So every time guide company meetings happened, Phil hiked down the mountain to Lonsdale, caught the streetcar down Lonsdale, caught the ferry across to Vancouver and walked to her guide company. And then reversed the procedure later in the evening with Don hanging a lantern in the window so she could see her way up the mountain. And there, bottom right, you can see our spunky Ruth Robinson, our very first guide leader. One of the girls in that Ruth's guide company was another Ruth, Ruth Jackson, who herself went on to marry a blue bus driver. They got their friendly reputation early on those blue bus drivers. Ruth said that Bert drove them all to the May Day Parades, for instance, and helped to carry all the paraphernalia. And there's Ruth at her very one of her early camps. I met Ruth twice, and she gave me old photos and some handwritten memories that she had jotted down. Her family moved to West Van in 1923 and rented rooms at the old Fortune Cup Inn. What a strange place, she said. Their rooms were one behind the other. So you had to walk from the front room through one bedroom to get to the next bedroom. But it did have a big room downstairs where the girls held a series of teas to raise funds for their activities. And here's one of the original posters. See the Fortune Cup Inn is mentioned, cost 25 cents to come, and there would be entertainment. And this Ruth had made and kept all these years. Ruth joined Guides as soon as she arrived in West Van. They met in the basement of St. Stephen's Church Hall. Very basic, dirt floor, wooden benches along the walls, near where the ice rink is today. She walked through the forest, she said, from Dunderave to get to the meetings. On one memorable occasion, the Guides were putting on a banquet for their parents, doing the planning, cooking and entertainment as part of their homemaker's badge. Ruth's patrol was the White Rose Patrol, and she cajoled her mother into lending Ruth her wedding china with its border of white roses. Ruth piled it all onto her brother's wagon and pulled it to the Masonic Hall on Bellevue at 17th, where the banquet was held. Her patrol won the Best Decorated Table Award, and the china got home safely. It was so neat to read the report of that banquet in a 1926 newspaper, and then to have Ruth tell me in person the details of this event from 70 years earlier. And here she is dressed for another of their teas, a Japanese one this time, and the advertisement she had made for it and kept. This homemaker's badge was very much in line with Agnes and BP's vision of guiding, as were the many fundraising teas. Teas were polite and ladylike, but the fundraising was for the other activities, the camping and the hiking. Same goes for cookies today. Guides are often known for their cookie sales, but the cookie sales allow the fun stuff to happen. Ruth said they camped at a farm in what is now the British properties. A pheasant farm, someone told me. Anybody got any ideas where that could have been? And they camped at Eagle Harbor, presumably on the four acre property given to guiding by Mrs. Brock of Vancouver. She was the Vancouver guide commissioner and had given the land to guiding on the understanding that if Eagle Harbor became too developed, the land could be sold to purchase property further afield. Ruth's company did lots of hiking, not surprising with these mountains on our doorstep. One time she said they hiked over to Cyprus Creek from St. Stephens at 22nd and uphill quite away. They stopped to cook their sucker and weren't the first or the last guides to eat undercooked potatoes around a campfire. Darkness fell and they decided to head home. So they hiked on until they came to one of the flumes, which the lagers used for floating the huge tree trunks downhill. And the girls crawled down that flume all the way to West Beach Beach and then walked home. Our mothers weren't worried, Ruth told me. We knew what to do. We were girl guides. In 1927, Ruth was selected as a junior leader to go to the first countrywide Dominion camp. It was held in Victoria and Ruth took this wonderful photo of the big weeks and imposing lot. On the left, our West Van district commissioner is there, as is the provincial commissioner, one from Quebec and the national or as she was known then the Dominion commissioner. I have to compare it with the photo taken 70 years later, the one on the right, when the national commissioner of the day visited us and came to an event in Lighthouse Park. Again, we have four commissioners, local area, provincial and national, looking a lot more friendly and a lot less stuffy. Ruth also went to the first camp held at Wilson Creek on the Sunshine Coast. It was rented from a farmer in 1927 and later purchased partly with the money from that Eagle Harbour sale and named Camp Olav after BP's wife who had taken over from Agnes as the chief guide. It was quite the journey to get there. First the girls crossed over to Vancouver by ferry, then they got themselves to the Union Steamship dock where this photo of happy campers was taken. I just love these kids with their knee socks and their little shoes and their big hats. They disembarked at Davis Bay where the farmer met them and took their baggage in his horse drawn cart while the girls walked to the camp, which was just forest and field, no buildings except for a couple of old cottages and a barn. Here they all are around the flagpole in their horseshoe shape, looking very grim, all in full uniform. Phil Mundy now in her 30s was one of the camp leaders. Here she is second from the right standing up and helped to run the camp with a Mrs. Deal. Ruth on the far left was a young junior leader and stayed in a tent with the young woman who was the first Ada. Here's the two of them. As you can see, they wore their full uniform the whole time too, though our daring Ruth has rolled her sleeves up and her stockings down. A former neighbour of mine, Betty Grant was at that first camp, and remembered they stuffed their palliasses with hay from the farmer's barn, put up old fashioned tents like this one. But the weather was fine so they slept outside. She awoke the first night to heavy breathing and footsteps approaching. When she was brave enough to open her eyes, she found herself looking at the farmer's cow. Ruth described the latrines in detail. They must have made a real impression. The farmer had dug a long ditch with wooden butter boxes anchored on poles over it and upside down with a hole cut in the seat, and canvas stretched around one and then the next so that the opposite sides were open to the world. She remembered the strong smell of lime, but it was a wonderful campsite with its beautiful stretch of beach and it's still in constant use today. Except during COVID of course. Ruth stayed involved in guiding all her life as a leader, division commissioner for West Van, and then provincial camp advisor. During her term in that position, she and the ever helpful Bert were instrumental in finding the wonderful Fraser Valley property known as Suna for our provincial training centre and campsite. When a second guide company opened later in the 20s, Joan Durbin was the captain. We didn't know anything about her, but thanks to the late Rupert Harrison and his stash of old newspapers, we have come to know her a bit. Off his own bat one day after I had asked him a question, he went through every newspaper from 1921 to the 50s, looking for Girl Guide articles. What a treasure trove. And there was this lovely picture of Joan Durbin about to give a recital. I discovered she ran her own private girls school in Dunderave. She was a talented musician in constant demand at recitals, and she took the time to run a Girl Guide company. Her campfires and the singing around them were memorable. The girls adored her and were distraught when she decided to return to England. She had even taken them camping to camp to the camp at Wilson Creek in 1928. Ruth acted as her second in command, and a youngster called Lucy Smith was one of the guides at that camp. Thanks to Rupert's newspaper collection, we have the article from The Times announcing the camp and the price. $5 for a week, $7 for 10 days, including transportation. Ruth and Lucy both told me that Joan's camping skills were a disaster, and a big week was coming to test her. Ruth and the girls rallied round, and although Joan failed the test, the girls worked so hard they were able to stay at the camp. Goodness knows what Joan is doing in this photo which Ruth took, hiding from the tester perhaps. The second commissioner for West Van, after Gladys became the commissioner for the whole of the North Shore, was the regent of the local IODE, the Elegant Sybil Small. She, like Gladys, played many roles in guiding. Among others, she was the BC delegate to the 1929 Girl Guide Annual Meeting in Toronto. That must have been quite the journey. She reappears several times during the 30s as a leader and again as commissioner, and much later in 1952 Sybil had the dubious honour of being selected by the local Times newspaper as Man of the Year, there being no category for women. The youngster I mentioned at Joan's disastrous camp, Lucy Smith, had become a guide just that year and stayed in guiding all her life. Things were changing, the uniform was a little less formal, and the activities changed as life changed. Not for nothing had BP said this is a movement, not an organisation, so it never stands still. Where once keeping up a good home and looking after children were paramount, soon guides were branching out into sea rangers, learning ways to help their sister guides around the world, as well as giving service locally. Lucy vividly remembers Gladys Davis enrolling her, and it wasn't long before Lucy was a leader herself. Here she leads her company through Ambleside at a May Day Parade in the 30s. She's on the right of the float. Guides were always heavily involved, running a better baby competition, decorating floats, providing the first May Day Queen, and for years the entourage of the Queen of the Day. Lucy went on to become a sea ranger leader, and here she is with a group of her sea ranger, climbing the rigging on a visiting ship in Vancouver Harbour. By the 1950s, they held large regattas at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park. Here she is with her group right there beside Lost Lagoon. She took the sea rangers and others from around the province on a cycling tour on Vancouver Island one year, and by the time they got back to Nanaimo, the trains and the ferries were on strike. Luckily, Lucy worked for a marine company, thanks to her sea ranger experience, and she persuaded a tugboat captain to load them and their bikes onto a barge and take them back to Vancouver. Then she had to get everyone home by bus all over the province, leaving their bikes hanging on nails at the bus depot. When the train strike was finally over, Lucy and one of her sea rangers went to the bus depot and rode the bikes two at a time to the train station and saw them all loaded onto the correct trains. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes organising that goes on in Girl Guides. 1939 and the King and Queen came to open Lionsgate Bridge, and here's another instance of the behind-the-scenes work. Guides and scouts would line the route through Stanley Park as the Royal Family enthusiastically supported both movements. Lucy was asked to get there early, to dig a hole in case any brownie got caught short, and she dug it behind a concealing stump. Then the woman in charge came along. Nice hole Lucy, but it's right where the scouts will be standing, so off went our Lucy to dig another hole. This next photo is only West Van History by Association, but I just have to tell you this story. Here's our redoubtable Lucy on the right, with her good friend, Autance, worn from Vancouver, known to all as Hort. She's the girl in the centre. As teenagers, they were sea rangers together, and here they are camping at Camp Olav in the 1930s. At the beginning of the Second World War, Guiders in England had met to discuss how best to help, and the Guide International Service, the GIS, was created. The Guiders had realised there would be thousands of people in Europe displaced by war, as sadly there always are, and this was where guiding could help. Guiders from all over the British Empire volunteered to do a shift, a year or more at a time, and an extensive training for the Canadian contingent was held at Queen Margaret School in Duncan. Hort and Betty Fleming from BC were selected to go to Europe and worked literally for years in displaced persons camps, running little schools and nurseries, helping in the hospitals, organising supplies, and filling out reams of forms to help families be finally on their way to new homes in Scandinavia, Australia, Canada, where Guiders would meet and befriend them. The GIS ladies worked in those camps until well into the 1950s. But meanwhile, back here in the Second World War, guiding slowed down. What with war work and holding the fort alone at home, there wasn't much time to be a guide leader. We still did have two companies, one in Ambleside and a new one in Whitecliff. The girls knitted socks for the troops, collected silver paper, magazines, and also children's clothing to be shipped off to Europe. Frida Hanford became a leader and Lucy offered to have Frida act as her quartermaster at a camp for experience. Lucy said she was horrified when Frida listed cream of tomato soup on the menu. This was a newly available luxury item which Lucy felt had no place at guide camp. Lucy volunteered to drive the West Van Ambulance during the war. A converted Fargo truck, like the one on the left, provided by St John Ambulance. She had to prove to a policeman that she could change gears on our steep hills. In the early 1940s, the Girl Guide Dominion annual meeting was held in Vancouver. And Phil Mundley and Lucy decided that a picnic supper on the banks of the Capilano River would be fun for the visiting dignitaries. The Rangers collected firewood and started cooking a stew and a pudding when suddenly the heavens opened and it poured. Being Girl Guides, a backup plan was in place in case of rain, but no one had thought how to move a very heavy hot stew pot simmering away on a campfire. Not to worry said Phil, we'll borrow the St John Ambulance. So Lucy nipped up to the West Van Municipal Hall and drove off in the ambulance. She told me no one queried why she was taking it or why she would wearing her Guider uniform and the pudding, the stew and seven or eight dignitaries were transported safely back to Vancouver. The fifties brought an explosion in the population of West Van and consequently in schools and therefore in guides and brownies. At its height, we had over 500 members here. Joan Smart was one of the mums asked to help revitalize Girl Guides, along with Ruth Thompson. Both in turn acted as division commissioner with Joan going on to be the national training commissioner, while Ruth was provincial camp commissioner. These women really helped our girls travel to nationally and internationally. In 1957, a world center for guiding was opened in Mexico called our Cabana. And Ruth decided to take a small group of West Van girls that same year. They went by bus nearly all the way, except for a stretch by train between Seattle and Los Angeles. She said when people saw the word Canada on their uniforms, they were so welcoming. Ruth was astonished to find on arrival at the beautiful Cabana that they were the very first Canadian group to visit. In 1964, this journey was repeated, but by bus all the way, five days and nights each way on a bus. Betty Anderson and Joan Thompson took a contingent of West Van girls. Joan, on the right, had found herself officially in charge of a brownie pack at Pauline Johnson School during the war at the tender age of 15. Certainly didn't put her off. And Betty on the left was one of the most vibrant enthusiastic women ever. She started brownies in Horseshoe Bay in the 50s, followed by guides later that year. And she was our division command camp advisor. In the 60s, she ran marvelous week and 10 day long camps at Camp Olaf, taking over the whole site for camps for 150 to 300 girls. On the trip to Mexico, the West Van girls stayed with a group of girls scouts in San Francisco on the way down and had so much fun with them, they decided to stay a while on the way home, having first wired home for more money. Allison Spears on the right was on that trip and is still in guiding today as an area trainer. It is Allison who made our incredible division badge blanket, which is in the exhibition here in the library. In 1955, Lucy helped fill Monday run the very first all Canada adventure camp at Lake Ohara in the Rockies. What an incredible experience to camp with that by then famous mountaineer and botanist Phil. A hundred girls were chosen from across the country and a few from the states. All these shears, the long poles, had to be carried in and out. The pack horses were spooked by them and wouldn't carry them. And Phil insisted that what was carried in must be carried out. So there's Phil, now an energetic 61 year old, carrying her sheer with her big backpack on her back. West Vans Catherine London was on staff to our division commissioner of the day. There she is in the back row second from the right with Lucy in front of her in her big hat and down sitting on the left is Phil herself. Here's Catherine's patrol. Many West Vans girls but mixed with girls from all over the country and the states. They did some fantastic hiking. 93 of the hundred signed up for for a three a.m. hike up to see the sunrise over a particular peak. And all 93 showed up, including a Texan celebrating her 16th birthday by building a snowman in the first snow she had ever seen. Two years later, Lucy was chosen as the Canadian representative to a huge guide international camp in the Philippines. And she was invited to lead them singing the world song at the opening ceremony, which you can see on the left. And here she is with a new friend, one of the Filipina Guiders on the right. And thanks to the nurturing of these terrific leaders, followed by hundreds more, our girls have been selected for many international camps. Norway, Denmark, the US and the UK. Here's a group actually camping at Brownsie Island, the original site where BP held his first camp. So these are some of the memories I have of these pioneer Guiders in West Van. Ruth Robinson left early, but she started it all. Joan Derbin unfortunately went back to England. Sybil and Gladys stayed with Guiding for many years. And the others, Ruth Thompson, Lucy Smith, Phil Monday, Joan Thompson, Joan Smart and Betty Anderson stayed involved their entire lives one way or another. And here's a little of what Guides in West Van have been up to since those women held the stage. By the 1970s and 80s, West Van Guiders were taking a group of girls to Archibania every three years. And later some crossed the Pacific. Exchanges with Girl Scouts in Jiba, Japan took place several times. And we in West Van have entertained girls from the UK, the US, Sweden and Papua New Guinea to name just a few. International Guiding for a fostering peace among nations and supporting Guides in other countries has always been extremely important. Also in the 70s, Kari Madal and Kay Halstead started a really popular hiking club for West Van Guides. It had a hundred members, but only 30 could go on each of the monthly hikes and only if they were properly dressed. Those who weren't were sent home. The 80s saw the arrival of a new branch of Guiding, the Pathfinders. They took the place of the last two years of Guides with a much more independent program. Here they are snow camping and doing really good strong service projects. This lot are hauling Ivy out of Lighthouse Park. Many of the provincial camps for hundreds and national camps for thousands of girls were planned, and several lucky West Van girls were selected to attend them. Many of the provincial camps required minimal experience, so every girl had an opportunity to go to one. And we planned an exchange across Canada with girls from Whitby, Ontario. We are at the Parliament buildings, and we were billeted in Hull. They're all speaking French, said our wide-eyed girls. And in Oshawa, a tornado rushed through the camp. We were up all night, but the girls thought it was a great lark. And one last glimpse of film. Our Guides since the 1920s had made expeditions to our beloved Lighthouse Park. And in the 60s and 70s, Phil led annual nature workshops in the park for Guiders, so that they could then teach their girls an appreciation for nature. Guider May Loudon remembers one walk to the seashore, which got no further than an earless log, where the fascinated audience listened to Phil's description of all that was going on inside that log. May was inspired by Phil, and in 1985, asked if we could use one of the Second World War huts in Lighthouse Park as a nature centre for Guides. Pat Bonham was a girl guide district commissioner then, and municipal councillor, and she helped us create the Phil Monday Nature House. Here it is in the park. The last glimpse we have of Phil is when May took the ferry over to Nanaimo, where Phil, in her 90s, was living in a senior residence. May went to ask her if we could name the building in her honour. But Phil was nowhere to be found until someone pointed out that she was leading a nature walk outside for the other residence. So many people I find they don't see anything really, but actually you can see everything from under your feet to the sky above you. If you keep your eyes open and your ears open, it's very important to keep your ears open too. What could you hear? Well, you can hear the birds, and you can hear the wind in the trees, you can hear the creeks. That is very important too, because it's a very noisy creek, you usually find it's a wild one to cross. She was delighted with the idea of the nature house, and it has been the scene of many workshops for the girls, as well as many meetings and events. We open the small nature room to the public on Sunday afternoons as a way of saying thank you to the municipality for letting us rent the building. We also planted a native plant garden at the rear as a gift to the municipality in its 75th year. Pat Bonham was mayor by then and graciously accepts the garden from May Loudon, along with our offer to keep it weeded and well tended. That was the year West Van won the Communities in Bloom award, and we got the plaque for Best Community Garden. In 2001, the nature house committee had a triumph when Jane Goodall accepted our invitation to spend an afternoon with our entire North Shore guiding family. She is on the stage with some of the girls giving her a guiding t-shirt, and we spent a wonderful afternoon with that amazing lady. On the right, you can see the nature house committee. We just had such a good time with her. In 1985, for the 75th anniversary of guiding in Canada, we buried a time capsule at the community centre. Each unit added a bag of treasures. So here is Jennifer reading out a list of what her group has put in the time capsule with Bev Thompson, the division commissioner of the day. On the right is Councillor Rod Day hammering the lid on, and over on the left Pat Druggie and Mayor Derek Humphries actually buried the time capsule. And then we dug them up in 2010 on the 100th anniversary. And here are the same Pat Druggie and Jennifer down in the bottom right helping to open them up again. It was astonishing to realise how life had changed in those 25 years. There had been no personal computers, no cell phones, no GPS systems. We still used film in little canisters. And the older girls had been concerned about the Cold War and bomb shelters in the schools and a new disease called AIDS. After a lot of booing and eyeing and examining all these treasures, everything was stuffed back in the cylinders, along with contributions from the 2010 girls, and they are buried again, awaiting the light of day in 2035. And here's Betty Anderson at the event chatting with Allison, the girl she took to Mexico 47 years earlier. A few years later, Sparks joined the mix, the five and six year olds. They too camp and learn how to make s'mores. Cooking treats outdoors on fires has always been popular. And here's one of your own historical society members at a brownie cookout. Look who is on the very left with her signature smile. Sparks helped us plant bulbs in the new native plant garden behind the Phil Monday house. There they are with their trowels hunkered down in the dirt. And so guiding goes on. Still a valid worthwhile activity, teaching girls to be independent, accepting of all, learning leadership skills and teamwork, helping others and having lots of fun. The program keeps up with the times, but never loses sight of the underlying principles. Where else can you have the opportunity to do service in your community by making gift bags for seniors during COVID upon the top left, pulling Ivy out of Lighthouse Park and replanting with native species and learning how to make camp gadgets, learning how to make LED flashlights for going to camp. And then going camping in the snow. Here are the Rangers who've dug out an entire kitchen with long counters and campfires in the snow. And where else can you make poppies for the veterans? By Zoom, top right, every brownie at her own house or just with one friend, or in the library, making poppies and painting rocks with messages on. Where else can you go also hiking and kayaking, learning about the seashore, learning about water safety and then learning leadership skills. Going off on international trips and making new friends. All in by joining one group, Girl Guides. So I pay tribute to those early women in West Van for their enthusiasm and resourcefulness in getting guiding started here. And I take my hat off, except thank goodness we don't wear hats anymore to the women today who are keeping it going as well as ever. It's been difficult to pick out a few names from the many from all walks of life who have helped with guides. They sure aren't women with time on their hands. They've seen the value of this all round experience for girls and have fostered it through the years and gained a lot themselves. So 100 years of guiding here also means 100 years of exceptional local women. Thank you so much. That was absolutely fantastic. So we do have some time for questions. So if people would like to put their questions into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen, Daphne would be happy to answer some of your questions. And while I give you folks a chance to type in your questions, we are honored today to be joined by Mayor Mary Ann Booth. And Mayor Booth was a longtime Guider and would like to share her experiences with us as well. Well, that was so inspiring. Thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. I was a guide in the 1970s. I still have my guidebook, which I dug out. And my most memorable experience with guides, which won't surprise anybody, is the camping trip and going to Manning Park, I believe it was. And unfortunately, and this is a common experience as well, it poured rain for three days. But you know what? I still remember all the fun I had and all the great girls that I hung out with that weekend. And I have never forgotten the guide's motto of be prepared. And as mayor, that has served me very well. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. All right. All right, it looks like we have Daphne back with us. So let's see if we have any questions. All right, so one question is coming in. Was Nesta Mod Ashworth a Guider with Phil Monday? If you know, you might not know. She certainly was a Guider in North Van. I'm not sure if she actually was with Phil in a company, but they knew each other for sure. Nesta was a wonderful woman and all the kids loved hearing her story of actually being at that rally at the Crystal Palace. Isn't that fantastic? So we have another question. What is your most memorable and favorite guiding memory if you can pick just one? What mine? Yes, yours. I can remember like our mayor, I went camping in the rain in North Scotland and it rained and poured and poured all week. But the farmer had cut a whole lot of saplings for us and we made the most incredible kitchen counter that I've never forgotten. It seemed to go on for miles with places for the bowls to sit for washing up and sticks at the end to hang the tea towels on. I was just so proud of that thing that we built. It was wonderful. That sounds fantastic. Yeah, the north of Scotland definitely gets rain to rival ours. Yep. What else are you guys doing to celebrate the 100th anniversary? Oh, we're doing a lot. We're having various fun activities, we hope, but it all depends on COVID, of course, whether we can actually do them together or not. One of the things we're doing is a big service project for West Van. We're going to be planting 200 trees and shrubs in one of our parks, which needs a bit of environmental help. And having got rid of the invasive species. So we're working with people from the parks department to do that. And it's wonderful. I come to the library to see if we can do this talk after Laura very kindly invited me to do it. And the woman who's helping me was a girl guide. And then we'll go to the parks department to work with them on a service project. And guess what? She went all the way through guides and was a guide. And it's just wonderful to find that they're still keen to help with guiding and help the girls today. And we're going to be giving a delegation to council to thank council for the many ways they have helped over the years. And I just have to tell you, it's really neat. Every time we've had an important anniversary, we have had a female mayor or a female counselor on our council who was also a girl guide leader at the time. So we have a very strong connection with our council in West Van and we'll be happy to go maybe virtually by zoom to the council meeting on September the 13th. Oh, that sounds fantastic. Alright, so another question. What is your wish for West Van guides in the future? My wish for West Van guides is that every time there's a little girl who wants to join, there's a leader ready to accept her. We nearly always have waiting lists of girls. We have some incredibly wonderful girl guide leaders that we could always do with a few more. So that's my wish for the future is that we have enough of both sides to make it all work. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, this was absolutely fantastic. I'll just give another moment for people to type in any last questions. Lots of wonderful comments here about bringing back fond memories. There are lots of people watching who've had wonderful experiences as well. We have to hear them. Yes, we will definitely share them all with you. Yeah, super. When we get them all. Good. So I would like to thank everyone for joining us this evening for such a wonderful presentation and an amazing look at a piece of you know West Van history and and how that history is carrying on into the present and the future. I would also like to extend a huge thanks to Taryn Urquhart, who is the Arts and Special Events Programmer here at the library. She put this program together and it would not have happened without her. And the wonderful display upstairs in the main gallery, which is just a lovely thing for us to see and to have guiding recognized so well by the library. So thank you, Taryn. Yes, we do have this exhibit on display at the library. It's called the West Vancouver Girl Guides Centennial Celebration, and the exhibit will be up through August 31. So please be sure to stop by the library and check it out. It is absolutely spectacular. All right, I think that is it for questions, mostly just really great comments that I will definitely share with you Daphne as when we're done. So again, thank you everyone for joining us this evening. And I hope you all have a wonderful night. Good night everyone.