# The Former CFB Chilliwack - Whats Happening



## Cdnronin (23 Jan 2007)

I thought I would pass on the status of the former CFB Chilliwack for all those who have passed through the base over the past 50 years. I'm sure many memories are held by many.
There have been a lot of changes to the area. Lets start:
1.  Canex, both base chapels, Dental Clinic, Medical Clinic, Guardhouse, Power plant, and all the old quarters for jr. ranks have all been torn down and removed.
2.  The old CFOCS and drill hall (and a couple of other buildings) are now the RCMP Training Academy for E Division. The old ammo dump is now a driving track for RCMP.
3.  The old base HQ is now the Canadian campus for the University of Peking. The first students will arrive from PRC this summer.
4. The rest of the military side of the base (except for the museum/old theatre, Bas Tpt and Base Supply) was sold to the province as a "Education Park', - it will be developed this year as part of the Fraser Valley University.
5.  The base recreation centre has been sold to the city, who will tear down down the old swimming pool and build a new one. The Rec centre will be come apart of the new Garrison Crossing Community Center.
6.  About 70% of the PMQs have been torn down or remodeled. Most have been moved with new roads built to re-configure the area for the 'Garrison Crossing' community plan. They are being sold (at $300K +) as they come on the market - price seems to be no problem.
7. There is a new and large shopping plaza planned for construction in the fall of 2007 (behind where the Medical/Dental Clinics were located).
8. The 1CER HQ building still remains the HQ for th ASU.  This week a Press Release announced that the Reserve Engineer Sqn is moving fro Abbotsford to Chwk (probably the old Base Transport building).
9. The 1000 yd rifle range and small arms ranges in Vedder have been cleared and sold.  There are two sub-divisions and a brand new High school where the ranges were. 
Vedder Crossing which surrounds the former CFB has grown 10 fold since the base was closed. Many old soldiers will not recognize the area.  There are two new shopping plazas and a large number of businesses in the area. Housing has also exploded in the area.
I hope that brings many of you up date on whats happening in Chwk.


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## sigpig (23 Jan 2007)

Thanks for the update. I remember back in the summer of 96 or 97 I went  there for a week long fd ex and was shocked at the changes. I tried to find the small plaque a friend and I had put up on the wall at the Ocdts Mess but couldn't.

Being from the east coast when I first saw a Chilliwack map I couldn't believe all the contour lines  

Unfortunately, some of my memories, particularly from Friday and Saturday nights, are pretty fuzzy  

CFOCS 8409


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## SprCForr (19 Feb 2007)

> This week a Press Release announced that the Reserve Engineer Sqn is moving fro Abbotsford to Chwk (probably the old Base Transport building).



I understood it was going to be the old BSup/BMaint, directly across from Wadi al Batin (ex 1CER).

Correction:



> The old ammo dump is now a driving track for RCMP.



The track is located on what was previously the POL/CADC Compound and the Rigging Area. They also took a corner of the old Area 8.
You can see it clearly on Google Earth.

It's spooky to see the changes. Spending 17 years posted there firmly fixes things in your mind! I had just arrived at the ASU and a friend of mine wanted to show me the changes to the base. (I left when 1 CER was moved so everything was still in place.) He asked me to close my eyes and he drove to the SW corner of the Jr Ranks. He turned me to face west and in my mind I was expecting to see Pachino/Carpiquet etc, when I opened my eyes I guess the look on my face was priceless. I took me a long minute to comphrehend what I was seeing.  

Shouldn't renaming the Cheam Centre to "Garrison Crossing Community Centre" be classed as scarilege of somekind?   ;D


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## IN HOC SIGNO (19 Feb 2007)

Makes me sad.   I did Basic Training there 7708 (broke my foot just before Ex Eagle Flight) and 7801. Was housed in Pachino Barracks for 7708 and when I recoursed on 7801 was the first class in the new CFOCS Bldg....we never did get the Mess finished and we still went to the B Mess. :'(

What did they do with the training area and  the rafting area up at Cultus Lk?


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## SprCForr (19 Feb 2007)

Don't know specifically. I saw the Boathouse and other buildings have been removed from the rafting area. Again I don't know if OpsEE still belongs to DND or not. I think I know what I'll be doing this summer. Time for another "Fun-Filled Family Vacation® "!  ;D


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## AIC_2K5 (19 Feb 2007)

Was there just yesterday, just to take a peak. It's a shame, from what I saw of it, it was a nice base. Wasn't huge, but it had a nice feel to it.



> What did they do with the training area and  the rafting area up at Cultus Lk?



Are you referring to SITE C? It's still there, in use by the reserves and cadet units.


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## 63 Delta (19 Feb 2007)

OPSEE, AREA's A, B and C are still DND property. But they are no longer patrolled by the Commissionaries so who knows what will happened to the properties. Cadets and reserves still heavily rely on these areas for training.


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## Colin Parkinson (19 Feb 2007)

I think the rafting area was turned over to the Province years ago, I was out on the lake and there was nothing standing there. Still some bridging sections lying on the bottom of the lake though.

Remember the grenade & rocket range? the area was wiped out by the river. Now this appeared in the local papaers


Bomb fears fizzle after rocket turns out to be a dud 


    
   
ASU operations officer Terry Haley inspects a rocket with engineering officer Roy Lyonnais on the Soowahlie Reserve Wednesday as Norm Commodore (left) and nephew Larry Commodore look on. Norm Commodore found the rocket while fishing on the Chilliwack River on Monday. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS


By Robert Freeman
The Progress
Feb 16 2007 


An unexploded artillery shell found in the Chilliwack River sent shock waves through the Soowahlie First Nation Tuesday. 

But it turns out the shell - a 3.5-inch rocket, to be precise - was a practice round and posed no danger, according to ordinance disposal officials at the Canadian military’s area support unit in Chilliwack. 

“It was inert, safe to pick up and move around,” Master Warrant Officer Terry Haley said Wednesday. 

He said the rocket was a practice round that contained no explosives, probably used during training at a former firing range operated at CFB Chilliwack before it closed in 1997. 

“It was never meant to go boom,” he said, but to hone army troops’ skill at hitting tanks and other armoured vehicles. 

Somehow, the rocket ended up among the rocks in the Chilliwack River where a Soowahlie fisherman found it Tuesday. 

Chief Larry Commodore, who alerted the army disposal team, was relieved to learn the object posed no danger, but it was his understanding that the old firing range area had been “cleared” by defense department officials of any unexploded ordinance when the military base closed. 

“We thought we were rid of them,” he says, but now he fears there could be more unexploded rockets, given the thousands that must have been fired over the years. 

And the next one might not be a just a practice round. 

“It’s not over yet,” he says, and he wants the military to look over the area again. 

“We don’t want any band members - or anybody for that matter - tripping on a live one and betting blasted,” he says.


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## SprCForr (19 Feb 2007)

Area's  A,B and C are also known as Columbia Valley.

Good luck on clearing the old rocket range. It's spread out down to Delta by now from all the flooding. IIRC it was cleared in the 80's when it was closed.

Have fun with that, Terry!  ;D


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## BDTyre (19 Feb 2007)

I have a rocket range in my own backyard?!  I'm from Ladner and that's about as "Delta" as you can get, and no one told me about a rocket range.   

I was in Opsee about a month ago and will be going back in a few weeks.  It is definitely not patrolled as evidenced by the fact that one of the sections came across a poacher.

Has the grenade range drifted down to Delta by now?  It would be nice to visit home after tossing a few frags!


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## imahikergirl (29 Mar 2007)

There has been a tremendous amount of work done in the training areas here in Chilliwack in the past couple of months.  The old tpt bldg is owned by DND and is the proposed site for the new Res F Engr Sqn being stood up in Chilliwack.  There are still some lucky people posted here  ;D


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## villecour (29 Mar 2007)

Thanks for the update. I walked the base last September and hardly recognized the place.


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## Colin Parkinson (29 Mar 2007)

imahikergirl said:
			
		

> There has been a tremendous amount of work done in the training areas here in Chilliwack in the past couple of months.  The old tpt bldg is owned by DND and is the proposed site for the new Res F Engr Sqn being stood up in Chilliwack.  There are still some luck people posted here  ;D



Would that be a stand alone Sqdn or a Troop of 6th field?


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## Donut (29 Mar 2007)

At the moment (unless it's already changed  ;D) it's functioning as a troop of 6Fd.

It will be a stand alone Engineer Support Squadron once they've met some recruiting targets and finished getting their infrastructure in place.  That will give BC two Fd Eng Sqns (6 and 44), an ESS, and the Airfield Eng Flight at Abbotsford.

I understand there's been some teething issues with the new ESS, but that they're slowly being overcome.

DF


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## Colin Parkinson (29 Mar 2007)

Excellent news, glad to hear about some growth, the area has the population to support the units.


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## JasonSkald (29 Mar 2007)

Pte (R) B said:
			
		

> I have a rocket range in my own backyard?!  I'm from Ladner and that's about as "Delta" as you can get, and no one told me about a rocket range.
> 
> I was in Opsee about a month ago and will be going back in a few weeks.  It is definitely not patrolled as evidenced by the fact that one of the sections came across a poacher.
> 
> Has the grenade range drifted down to Delta by now?  It would be nice to visit home after tossing a few frags!



I'm from Ladner too - I didn't know there were any military facilities in Delta... I thought the closest was the arsenal and DND owned forest property in Richmond.


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## Donut (29 Mar 2007)

They're also getting some "old" sappers back to BC as the RSS/RFC/TLA of the day, which is really great to hear, some excellent corporate experience, and some "old" sappers getting back to their youthful haunts   >

I've heard Teddy is one of them, but I've already forgotten the names of the others.

DF

There's no rocket range in Delta or Ladner, what he was saying was that rounds may have been washed downstream into Delta and Ladner, not that there's a facility there.

There's still rounds that wash up in the Okanagen from Vernon and other sites, and that hasn't been a mortar range in decades.


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## BDTyre (30 Mar 2007)

There's actually a former DND installation in Ladner, just north of Boundary Bay.  I've been in there -its fairly accessible and there's nothing secret.  In fact...there's nothing much at all...its been closed since 1971.

Coincidentally, some of the units in the lower mainland sometimes use the south-east of Boundary Bay Airport for training.  And there are explosives stored there, but they belong to a demolition company.

Hehe...maybe I should scout out along the river and see if I can find some rounds.


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## I_am_John_Galt (30 Mar 2007)

Pte (R) B said:
			
		

> There's actually a former DND installation in Ladner, just north of Boundary Bay.  I've been in there -its fairly accessible and there's nothing secret.  In fact...there's nothing much at all...its been closed since 1971.
> 
> Coincidentally, some of the units in the lower mainland sometimes use the south-east of Boundary Bay Airport for training.  And there are explosives stored there, but they belong to a demolition company.
> 
> Hehe...maybe I should scout out along the river and see if I can find some rounds.



Boundary Bay Airport itself was a WW2 training installation ... the decommissioned end of one of the runways is used by LEOs for driver training.


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## Mcpl House 1CER (9 Aug 2008)

Thanks for the update I was with 1CER from Feb,1983 till Summer 89. Moved over to CFSME mine warfare and demolitions cell as instructor. I was there for a short time had a motor vehicle accident August 19, 1990 on Prest road. I was in a coma and my wife died my daughters were ok thank God.I was medically released Feb 1992 and moved back home to Sydney Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia Feb 1994. I have been out there 3 times before the base was closed down and once since it was closed but my daughter was graduating and did not have enough time to take a close look. I was at 13 Coguitlam  PMQ until I was released. I wonder what happen to the demolition range up on Sarse. I have a brain injury do to accident so please forgive my miss spelling please. CHIMO
The former Mcpl Donald Francis House


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## Colin Parkinson (9 Aug 2008)

the guy with the T-55 lives a few blocks from me, it was cool seeing it there all of the time.

North Shore Outlook 
Everybody must get Tanked

By Kelly McManus - North Shore Outlook

Published: August 06, 2008 4:00 PM 
Updated: August 07, 2008 10:40 AM It’s a lazy, sunny afternoon in Chilliwack, but not from where I’m sitting. I’m deep in the bowels of a lurching tank – four decades old, Czech-issue, model T55-A, weighing in at about 40 tonnes.

Momentum pitches me around the cab as the machine thunders forward, the massive steel and rubber tracks groaning along the pavement. 

I imagine that sitting here, hands under the seat, elbows locked, shoulders bearing down, head flopping side to side, I must look a little like a bobblehead-figurine. 

Peering through the scope, I watch the incredulous families who stop and wave or even just point as the camo-painted tank – complete with a decommissioned 17 foot, 100 mm artillery cannon – trundles along the grounds at the old army base in Chilliwack.

That’s when North Vancouverite George Clark pops his head through the hatch and yells something I can’t quite make out.

From my view in the dim interior, Clark’s head over the hatch is haloed by the blue sky and cottony summer clouds. 

“This your first time in a tank?” the lean 50-something shouts for about the third time, a wide smile stretched across his face.

A defining point about George Clark, father, husband, BC Hydro worker and historian collector of military antiques: nearly everyone in his life would answer no, this is not my first time in a tank. 

“Don’t be shy!” he calls, “Stand up; look around!”

I do as I am told. My top half emerging from the hold, I prop my elbows on the lip of the hatch.

Clark is perched on the side of the lurching hull, loosely gripping a railing, soaking in the Sunday afternoon ride around the base. We trundle past a park, leaving a swath of open jaws. 

Clark shouts over the racket: “You can have all the Ferraris you want. You can have all the Lamborghinis you want. Nothing beats a tank.”

We park the tank in front of a squat, unassuming building marked R.C.S.M.E. Quartermaster Stores. Officers on the base once came here to get their uniforms and gear.

Now, it’s the site of a new museum: The Canadian Military Education Centre, home to vehicles like this one, donated by tank aficionados and military collectors like George Clark and Mark Fleming, also from North Vancouver.

Fleming, a tall, broad-shouldered carpenter who looks like he could be anywhere between the ages of 30 and 45 (he’s 39), owns this Czech-issue beast. As it comes to a stop and the engine sputters quiet, he pops up from the cockpit, grinning. 

His girlfriend, Michelle, walks alongside the tank, holding a giant Allen key. She tells Fleming about the loose tracks and how they struggled on the hills.

She’d be riding in the tank too, but she’s six months pregnant with their child. 

“It’s not like a car,” Fleming explains of the do-it-himself repairs he’s administered since importing the tank in 2007. “When I bought it I didn’t have a manual for it. I just had to figure things out.”

Since he started collecting military vehicles, tinkering with wee trifles like cars and motorcycles doesn’t cut it, he says. 

“There are always skeptics,” says Fleming. “People say, why did you buy a tank? And I say, well, why did you buy a Porsche?” 

The history bunker

Clark and Fleming met at an antique swap show in 2003. They got to chatting about Clark’s half-track truck and Clark later let Fleming take it out for a spin. A friendship was born.

The men discovered they had something in common, more than just a curious hankering for military antiques: history gives them both the goosebumps. 

For Fleming, it started when he was 13 years old, standing in the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence, Italy. He placed his hands on Galileo’s tomb. He knew that he stood where the greats had also been – Dante, Machiavelli, Michelangelo – and the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

“Knowing he’s right there,” says Fleming “I want to know the bigger story.”

Later in Greece, he stood at the Temple of Poseidon, where Napoleon had once scratched his name in a rock. 

“I touched Napoleon’s signature.” He mimics placing his hands on the rock, eyes going wide. “I guess that’s a feeling I just instantly identified with.”

Clark was eight years old when he first discovered the thrill of military history. He started a helmet collection after a gift from his uncle, who fought with the Canadian forces in World War II.

Five years later, he visited the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the infamous 1876 battle between General Custer and the 7th Cavalry and Lakota-Northern Cheyenne forces.

“I stood where Custer had fallen,” Clark says, describing how, as a wide eyed youngster, he imagined the heat of the battle, the clap of pistols, the cries of dying soldiers and Native Americans alike in one of the most infamous battles of North American history. 

“I just didn’t get over that. I’ll never forget that feeling... It’s an addiction; I live with it. I eat and breathe and love history.”

Clark and Fleming are what you might call “hands-on” collectors; they take a use-it-or-lose-it approach to their artifacts. A tank runs better when it’s all juiced up, not when it’s been sitting roped off in a museum for months or years, they both explain. But there’s more than just practicality at work when they hop on the vehicle for a Sunday afternoon ride. Just watch their gleeful, boyish expressions. 

Replace Peter Pan’s treehouse with a Czech-issue tank circa 1969 and you might have shades of the lost boys here. You might, but not quite, because these two men are genuinely thrilled by interactive history lessons.

Even “interactive” is a paltry word for describing Clark’s collection of military and non-military artifacts at his home in North Vancouver. He’s immersed, awash, orbited by a cloud of stuff. 

Upstairs: signed movie posters and autographs cover most surfaces: Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in Indiana Jones, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, John Wayne caught in candid, the Beatles, Gary Oldman licking a razorblade in Dracula; strolling around, dogs in various sizes, from German Shepherd to Chihuahua named with military references, Poncho, Sherman and Wolfe; along the walls, movie props and military uniforms from movies like The Alamo or Desperate Journey.

“Sometimes you can see the fireplace and sometimes you can’t,” Clark grins, making his way through piles of stuff.

Downstairs he keeps the real gems. 

“I call this my bunker,” he says of the tiny basement room that was once his childhood bedroom. Now it’s packed with about 300 military uniforms from World War II through to Vietnam, 200 or so helmets from those same eras, military figurines and autographs – several dozen binders’ worth.

In the 1980s, Clark formed the Military Autograph Collectors Club of Canada (MACCC), contacting generals and Commanding Officers from Allied and Axis forces, having them autograph photos and provide accounts and commentary about the war. With his self-directed archival work, he became a pretty well known and respected philologist (someone who studies signatures and handwriting). His autograph collection totals somewhere around 5,000.

Then he became fascinated with Victoria Cross and American Congressional Medal of Honor recipients (awarded for bravery) and he befriended a number of ace-pilots, taking down their stories through his MACCC.

Sifting through the trove of helmets, papers, knives, medals, toys, Clark races from one fantastic story to the next, pulling out item after item, shifting his collectables from pile to pile. 

“You’ll notice that nothing’s in the same place twice,” he laughs. “That’s because I use this stuff... that’s history: you have to write on the back of pictures.”

It’s the same way that Clark wants his visitors to hold that knife from Little Bighorn. When he shows it to people, he wants them to run their fingertips over the pitted corrosion on the iron blade. He wants them to test the weight of the carved-bone handle. 

Holding the knife, he explains, “Cooke, Napoleon – that was 200 years ago. That’s four generations of people. Well that’s just yesterday. But we look at it as forever... People just don’t realize history is now – history is right now. You’re making history. People think history is when you go far, far back.”

Hands-on learning

Get tanked. That’s the slogan on the T-shirts Fleming gives out, advertising for his side-business, Blueleader. When not busy with his carpentry business, or renovating the turn of the century character home he shares with Michelle Ross in Lynn Valley, he rents out novelty vehicles to movie studios or parties. Currently he’s outfitting a big, yellow 1980s fire truck for stagette bashes. His Czech tank has appeared in a number of local parades recently (he doesn’t charge for those community appearances). 

Pulling up to his house, visitors might spot a 1952 Dodge M-37 Power Wagon – a restored Canadian military vehicle – parked out on the street. The fire truck he keeps at the neighbour’s. The tank now at the CMEC in Chilliwack once sat in the front yard. 

All told, Fleming owns six military vehicles (even the fire truck qualifies as it once belonged to the army base in Esquimalt). Couple those wheels with the small zip-line and greenhouse he built for his step-daughter, Erica (Ross’s daughter from a previous relationship), a hot tub, and a sprawling porch where the couple likes to sit with their friends, Fleming’s house is a pretty cool place to hang out.

Although, according to Ross, when some people hear about Fleming’s military collection they ask, but why?

“They look at me like, why didn’t you stop him? But if he can get it (the tank), why not? It’s like telling someone, your dream, it’s not okay. You can’t do that.”

Fleming says he appreciates his girlfriend’s enthusiasm. 

“But I know she’s tired of watching the History Channel,” he laughs. 

There’s an important qualification to make here. For whatever reason, most people hear “military collector” and they think of hostile, obsessive-compulsive types who sit in a dark bomb shelter somewhere polishing a pile of weapons, muttering about neighbourhood gripes. These two men do not fit this stereotype.

For Fleming the collection enables him to do two things: one, interact directly with objects that shaped the world (there’s a difference between weapons and collectables, he says), and, two, fix up old things. 

“I’m a sucker for anything that needs fixing,” he explains, citing weekends spent with his nose in a tank engine, or discerning the track braking system. “They don’t come with a manual,” he laughs, “so you have to be willing to just get in there and figure it out.”

For George Clark, what gets him excited is the story behind the objects, the interview process, the challenge of preserving the accounts for generations who come after. 

But for all their fascination with the big vehicles of war, the stories of bravery and camaraderie, the fact remains that the stuff in these collections ended lives. 

The two men discuss this one day in a North Vancouver Starbucks. Fleming wears his Blueleader T-shirt. They both strike me as pretty gentle guys who hope people won’t find their hobbies offensive. 

Clark explains how one fellow military collector once said to him “you know, we do collect death... this is all geared to killing.”

Clark answered, “I don’t see it that way. To me this is history. It generates how we live.”

Fleming pauses thoughtfully for a moment before he says, “We also realize that what we collect has destroyed nations, and you’ve got to remember, he (Clark) and I have never been shot at.”

They’re not glorifying war or violence, they say. This is a hands-on history lesson.

Fleming recalls a Remembrance Day event the CMEC founders held in Abbotsford last year. They brought school kids together to see the tanks and hear veterans talk about their experiences in battle. 

“It made it concrete,” says Fleming. “They could see it, touch it, sit on them (the tanks)... It’s like a time capsule (a tank, a knife, or a military uniform). You can envision events when you touch it.”

Now that’s creative education, says Fleming: “When (students) are just sitting in a classroom, they can’t wait to get out of there.”

If you ever get the chance, wrap your knuckles on a tank; it’s like punching a sidewalk. 

Think of it as “kinetic history,” explains Clark.

But as Fleming’s and Clark’s collections developed over the years, their families could only exist in the midst of so much hands-on learning spilling into their living rooms and front yards. 

Luckily, about five other guys from around the Lower Mainland had the same dream to start a military museum. They pooled their resources. Grant McAvoy, a retired teacher, had always dreamed of creating interactive exhibits to help kids understand the meaning of Remembrance Day. Together with Brooke Quam (a welder) and Dan Jahn (a vehicle expert), Clark and Fleming started to amass a collection that would be open to teachers, kids and the general public. 

“It’s an amazing journey,” says Clark. “And we’re just the keepers, the custodians. We hope this goes on a lot longer.”

Get tanked

Sunday morning at the Canadian Military Education Centre in Chilliwack. 

After closing Saturday afternoon, the museum became a site for military collectors from as far away as Seattle and Victoria. Members of the Western Command Club and the Puget Sound Club, mostly men between the ages of 40 and 60, roasted a pig and camped out on the grounds. Clark fired off the cannon (he’s a cannoneer) and the guys talked late into the night about their tanks and motorcycles.

This quiet summer morning, civilian men dressed in khaki colours wander about, sipping coffee and surveying the military vehicles parked out front: an armoured convoy, a jeep, Fleming’s Czech tank. 

The collectors mingle with museum visitors, young families and veterans who wander through the grounds and the museum exhibits inside with looks of fascination.

David King packs up for the trip back to Seattle: government issue med-pack, canteen and T-blade shovel, demilitarized grenades and Thompson submachine gun. His oiled leather saddle bags are the real deal. His army-issue, 1942 Harley Davidson is just like the one his father rode as a mail orderly, serving with the American forces in Europe during World War II.

“I always respected what they did for us,” he says of veterans like his dad. “They did the whole world an honour by protecting us.”

He almost signed up to fight in Vietnam, but his father talked him out of it. 

“He wanted me to become a carpenter like him.”

King winks and gives me an imitation grenade to remember him by before hopping into the wide, brown leather saddle, pulling figure eights in the parking lot and waving good-bye to his buddies. His foot pedal siren gives a very vintage holler into the cool morning air. In his World War II tanker helmet and navy flight jacket, King seems like he’s straight from a movie set.

That’s the appeal: this stuff looks utterly incredible. It’s why Fleming gets so many requests for his tank to make public appearances.

“I’ve taken my tank in parades,” says Fleming, “You get the odd person who hisses and boos at you. People say, that’s a war machine. That was used to kill people. Maybe it was at one time, but now it’s covered in children distributing candy. We’re lucky enough that we’ve never seen it in its original context.”

The CMEC volunteers have big plans for Remembrance Day, again bringing veterans, school kids, and vintage tanks together for a kinetic history lesson, this time at their new museum. Preparation will take months. Their weekends out at the museum will stay busy as volunteer collectors and enthusiasts give tours and the core group at the non-profit keeps the wheels in motion.

On one such Sunday, Clark bustles back and forth between chats with a mechanic (working on one of the convoys), trips to the back room to deal with leaky pipes, and giving tours including his artifacts about aviators and Aces. 

He talks about the torn Nazi flag, possibly defaced by Canadian athletes after the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and he tells stories about Stocky Edwards, Canada’s top living ace from World War Two. From one artifact to the next, the stories keep on coming.

I ask him if, during his lifetime of hobby and volunteer hours put into careful, original research, did he ever consider a career in academia?

“I didn’t like school very much,” he says. “But history, it’s the only A I ever got.”

Outside, Ian Fryatt, also a military collector from North Van, revs up the armoured convoy and hollers for me to come take a ride.

Grinning, he insists that I ride in the turret, the rotating, open section of the vehicle where the machine gun is perched.

I rest my elbows on the lip of the hatch, as I did the tank, and take in the sunny afternoon as we cruise around the base. 

This isn’t how most soldiers would experience a turret, or a trip in a convoy, I think. They’d be holed up inside, escaping bullets and shells and pelting out the same; but with the wind in my hair and engine rumbling beneath me, I can see what keeps these guys out here week after week. I can understand why Fleming keeps a fire truck in front of his house and why Clark was so eager for me to ride in the tank. 

This is one history lesson I’ll never forget.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vancouver/northshoreoutlook/news/26359784.html


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## baldpaul (3 Mar 2010)

Good to see some old names.  MCpl House...we were in the same troop for awhile in 1CER (3 troop...track).  I was there from 86-88, I drove 13 Delta.  Anyone that remembers when Sgt Dawson was my section commander, I lost a few rifles out the back of my APC because the ramp didn't raise properly (thats my story).  That was in RV 87'.  Shortly after that they sent me on 1 year French Course in St Hubert.  I don't know if that was punishment or a reward?  Served also in 5RGC and MCE in Ottawa, got out in 94' and moved back to Chilliwack to start my Financial Planning business, Money Concepts.  Still here.  I see a few of the guys from time to time at hockey.  I still play and I have two boys in hockey.  My older boy just joined the Reserves as an Engineer...makes an old Sapper proud.  He is in 54 FES right on the base, only 2 minutes from our house.


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