This column started out as a profile of a man named Karl Barth. He volunteered with the Lions Bay fire department for over 25 years. He has been a member of the West Vancouver Fire Services Society Museum & Archives going on eight years. Karl would turn 91 on March 20, the first day of spring. A good basis for a column, but not according to Karl.
“The story is not about me. I’m just a tiny part of it. The story is the museum.”
The WVFSSMA story is about patience and perseverance as a group of colleagues and friends worked to achieve their goal.
Go back 40 or so years to the 1970s when a pile of photographs discovered by Tom Bell in a drawer at West Vancouver Fire Department. became the beginning of an informal archive. Over the years, scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and memorabilia stacked up in boxes in the hall’s basement alongside log books and fire reports going back to 1925.
Back then, the community’s fire fighting force comprised 11 volunteers, all male, and one chemical tank truck at the original station at Marine Drive and 13th street:
August 29th, 1925. Call at 3.40 a.m. to Travers Ave, West Bay. Car # BC 54-524 belonging to Mrs. Ericson on fire. The chemicals were used and the fire put out. The body and 3 tires being completely damaged - Cause unknown but tail light had been left burning.
1932 Call to the Fortune Cup Inn, whole west end of building in flames.
On first reading, the logs from those early days are simply reports: dates, times, type of fire, number of crew members attending. Look again and you’ll find they are a window into our community’s history.
The Fortune Cup Inn is fading from our community memory. Built in 1920 to serve the tourist trade from Vancouver, the inn was also a community centre ‘out west’ in the Dundarave area. By 1971, it was gone, demolished to make way for the Dundarave Park expansion.
Over time, as the motley collection outgrew its space in the WVFD basement, it became clear that this material was a valuable asset for the community, and needed a permanent home.
Some old timers needed a home too, three vintage fire trucks, each one with a story. The 1946 Willys Jeep, purchased to combat brush fires on the mountains in West Vancouver’s backyard, needed restoration. Old 98, the 1929 La France, was a Vancouver Fire Department truck, sister to the fire truck at Second Beach. Old 98 was rescued from a farmer’s field in Aldergrove and restored to parade standard, the first such restoration carried out by a fire department in the Lower Mainland.
Old 32, the 1949 International truck, is on display in its original condition at Fire Station #2 at Gleneagles.
Tom Bell and colleagues Gordy Shields, Rick Titcomb and Howard Moody founded the WVFSSMA in 1986. They had a purpose, they had a project, they needed a home. A mere 18 years later, a site was found behind Fire Station #4 in the British Properties. With seed money from the district, help from local service clubs, personal gifts and 100 per cent volunteer labour, WVFSSMA built themselves a home.
Membership, open to everyone, attracts people for many reasons: an interest in community history helps, or in firefighting culture or the beauty of the trucks. Some members bring special skills, others are retired fire service people, both professional and volunteer.
There is also the fun factor. Who doesn’t love a fire truck, shiny red and gleaming brass, an icon of community protection. The Willys Jeep and Old 98 spend the summer being admired at parades and displays across the North Shore.
There’s the restoration process. It’s all about effort, problem solving and the thrill of the search. “We have our means and ways of finding parts,” says Karl. He tells of changing the tires on the La France, Old 32, to find the wheels were rusted out. “We found a shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee with the capacity to turn out new wheels. Then we had to find the tires.”
Karl brought his special skills to the aid of the Lions Bay fire station. “I was known as the scrounger,” he says. “I was always in the West Vancouver station on fire service business. I learned to look for equipment that was being retired and still serviceable. I would spot something we needed in Lions Bay - where we were all volunteers, with no budget for fire safety or life saving equipment - and talk them into passing on to us.”
In 2010, when Karl lost Helga, his wife and companion of almost 60 years, the fire fighters invited him to join them at the museum. Every Monday, he’s in the workshop, at the end piled high with tools and metal, the scrap metal fund raising department. Bottle recycling is another financing method to support projects: truck restoration to parade standard, fitting up display areas, upgrading the antiquated computer system.
“We understand,” says Howard Moody. “A fire museum and archives isn’t going to save a life, though it may change one or two, so we’re not a priority on the community giving radar.
“We do feel that the records and memorabilia are important to preserve. They document the work of the fire fighters, called out at all hours in all weather to horrific situations, from road accidents to brush fires. It’s the story of an integral part of our community.”
Browsing through the artifacts, scrapbooks and log books is like opening a time capsule full of thumbnail sketches that add another layer to the story of our community.
It’s a gift to historians and social scientists that would have been lost if not for the determination of a brotherhood of volunteers to preserve the story of their way of life.
Their home community agrees.
In November last year, the members of the West Vancouver Fire Services Society Museum & Archives received a community award for heritage from the district for their accomplishments in preserving the history of fire service in West Vancouver.
Congratulations and thank you, WVFSSMA, and Happy Birthday, Karl. Good things come to those who wait.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or e-mail her at [email protected].
