Born Oct 15, 1945, passed away August 30, 1992
Jack Blair recalls Bob was one of his campers back in the day. “He was a straight up, well liked kid back then and I’m sure he was a champion of a guy as an adult”.
Bob became a CIT in 1963.
Jim Acheson writes… “I remember him as a thoroughly nice guy whose hair was red during the year we were CIT’s together, but turned brown later on. Bill always said that the change of colour was a function of kitchen grease (he was joking, of course).”
Bob later worked at camp for several summers as kitchen staff and then as head cook. In 1976 he was Food Service Manager at the new Chilver Lake site for a short period. Bob passed away several years ago.
Gary Luthy writes…. Bob was a camp character. There was no denying it.
I first met Bob at Winter Camp in December 1962. Winter Camp in those years was pretty much a prerequisite for becoming a CIT the following summer. Ed Johnston was the Camp Director and it was during Winter Camp that he had the opportunity to assess the new crop of Pioneer campers that aspired to be low paid camp staff.
Bob and his brother Bill were in attendance and it was there we began to learn of Bob’s affection for cooking. Campers took turns cooking the meals in the kitchen of the (old) Hector Lodge. For many of us it was the first time to cook on an industrial range and make giant pots of oatmeal or a hundred pancakes in one session. I am not sure if Bob had done cooking before camp, but he certainly took to it like a duck to water. In those early days he became an expert on the grill and loved to have a couple of dozen eggs sizzling away on the flattop.
In 1963, Bob and I were part of the ten man CIT group for that summer. I can’t say I remember a lot of times working with Bob that summer because he was assigned to the Kananaskan Section (intermediates) while I was mostly working with Chinikis (Juniors). However, Bob’s nature became well known to us. Bob was big…. he could have easily been a wrestler. But like many big guys, he was careful to use his strength for good. He took delight in threatening to put you in a headlock or to pick you up and carry you to the lake but almost always in jest and always with a laugh.
The summer following, most of the CIT’s from ’63 became counselors but Bob decided to follow his first love and get a job in the kitchen at camp. The glamorous job title in those days was “kitchen boy”. That summer, Bob and the two kitchen girls (Jennifer Douglas and Sue Warr) worked for Mrs. Bishop, aka Mrs. Bee. I think Bob got assigned most of the heavy lifting tasks, like putting the 50lb metal milk cans into the milk cooler, unloading the Bridge Brand delivery trucks and hosing out the garbage cans after they came back from the dump. (This was before plastic garbage bags came into general useage.) But anytime there was stuff to be cooked on the big flattop, Bob jumped in and took over. Bob was pretty much insensitive to heat and could stand over fifty sizzling and smoking pork chops and make sure nothing burned. Over the next few years, Bob made his passion for cooking a career by attending SAIT and getting his food service certifications. Eventually, in the later 1960’s, Bob returned to camp in the role of cook.
I remember a variety of events involving Bob. In 1968 when I was Pioneer Section Director I recall ending up in an arm wrestling contest with him. I’m not sure how this came about, as Bob’s arms were about 4 times the size of mine. The resulting strain on my arms, shoulders and neck was such that I couldn’t turn my head for 4 days, which was tough when you were leading a canoe trip down the Bow.
Bob helped me run Winter Camp in 1968. That year it was -40 for the first 4 days of Winter Camp. To put it mildly, it was a bitch. We couldn’t get the kerosene heater going in the Craft Hall so the only places we could heat were the camper cabins which had wood stoves and the kitchen area in the main lodge. The only heat source in the kitchen was the big propane cook stove. The program for the kids that year was “keep warm” and “eat”. Bob and I also spent a lot of time trying to start the ’67 Chevy van, which had frozen up the first night. When Bob wasn’t using the oven for making supper we would put the truck battery in and try to warm it up. We did our best to not get confused as to what was in the oven at dinnertime.
One night we did NFB films in the kitchen for the kids. Bob set up the projector with a big reel of film and everyone was able to forget the cold for a time while we watched weird NFB cartoons. However, when the lights came up it turned out the take-up reel wasn’t working and the entire film was unrolled on the wet floor!
Because we could not get the heat to work in any of the staff cabins, Bob and I slept on the counters in the kitchen. Other than being hard and uncomfortable, this worked fine until the third night when the big pot of lake water that we kept on the stove for washing up boiled dry in the middle of the night. Because we were using lake water it was full of little crustaceans and other fauna. When the pot boiled dry, all the little bodies started to burn and smoke. We awoke at about 3:00 am to an acrid smoke and an overpowering stench. There is nothing that wakes you up more quickly than opening all the doors and windows at -40 to air the place out. In retrospect, it is wonder that no one at Winter Camp that year got frostbite, died of carbon monoxide or was overcome by noxious fumes. But I surely remember the experience and Bob’s perseverance that winter.
When Bob was cook at the Bowfort site in the summer, his staff accommodation was the so-called groundsman’s cabin. This was a tiny cabin about 8 feet long and 6 feet wide located between the main road the lake. Bob brought his old cabinet style TV out to camp, hooked up an antenna to get the signal from the Exshaw repeater and spent his evenings watching shows like Mod Squad and Hawaii 5-0. However, on July 20, 1969, Bob set up his TV atop a couple of tables in the lodge and tuned it in to the NASA broadcast of the moon landing. Just after 12:00 noon (camp losing time), the staff and campers in the lodge were able to watch the first manned spacecraft land on the moon. About 6 hours later, we were able to watch the first steps on the moon taken by Neil Armstrong.
That same summer of 1969, I was Assistant Camp Director and was assigned to “supervise” Bob. I have to say that supervision of Bob was a bit of challenge and we had a lot of conversations that summer with Bob’s point of view mostly prevailing. I recall that he had a certain fixation with serving liver. Bob figured that liver was inexpensive and good for you and all campers should be eating it at least once a period. I finally won the “no liver” conversation by pointing out that 100 lbs of liver went out on serving platters and 98 lbs came back. I am not sure what happening to the 2 pounds that were missing but I think they became craft projects. I did learn the skill of turkey carving that summer when helping out in the kitchen…Bob taught me how to quickly break down and carve a turkey so that the 10 or 12 turkeys required to serve the full lodge could be quickly dealt with while still hot.
Bob loved to do special meals and special events. One of his favorite days at camp was “Indian Days” when we invited the Stoneys over for games, dinner and dancing. Bob would fire up the barbeque down near the horse corrals and cook up hot dogs, potato salad, and burgundy grape drink for 400 people. One year, after camp, there was a staff party planned for Hive Lake over at the base of Yamnuska. Bob did up several 5-gallon pails of pickled eggs and pickled wieners. In 1971 when Jean and I got married after camp, Bob made the wedding cake. Fortunately, it wasn’t pickled and contained no hot dog meat (that I know of).
Bob’s final stint at camp occurred in 1976 at the Chilver Lake site. While his time at the new camp wasn’t a long one, it did serve to transition some of the old traditions to the new site. Bob was a long time staff member and always had the best interests of the camp in mind. During his tenure at camp he created a few legends of his own. It was unfortunate that he died relatively young and didn’t get the chance to sit around with the “old” guys at the latest reunion and tell tall tales.
Gary Luthy
November 2012