For Rent: Craigflower, the oldest school in British Columbia

The province, having given up on Craigflower School, ca 1854, as a pay-its-own-way museum, has stripped it of its historical furniture and artifacts and is making it available for lease as an office building or the like.

A request for proposals has gone out to find an organization interested in utilizing the two-storey ‘Georgian Revival’ structure built beside the Gorge waterway by the Hudson’s Bay Company for the children of their employees at nearby Craigflower Farm:

“Successful proponents will offer a strong business case for a long-term use that provides community benefits, with a focus on financial independence from government,” according to a government statement.

“The candidate with the strongest proposal will be invited to make a formal application for tenure.

This proposed arrangement doesn’t include the spacious grounds surrounding what was originally known as the Maple Point School which included living quarters for the teacher and his family and student boarders during its active service, 1954-1911.

Craigflower School as it appeared in the 1960s.

The school was previously run for almost a decade by The Land Conservancy who claimed it cost $150,000 a year to run and handed it back to the province. Saanich Municipality looked at assuming operation of the schoolhouse, which is within View Royal boundaries, but also found it to be too expensive to operate.

Esquimalt-Royal Roads MLA Mauine Karagianis, whose riding encompasses the site, expressed her disappointment at the government’s approach to the “second-oldest heritage site in the province”. “It would be sad to think the government sees these things [historic sites] as a bottom line,” she told the Times-Colonist in July 2013.

So much for Craigflower School’s status as a National Historic Site!

I could hardly have failed to write about Craigflower School over the years, so I dug into my files and came up with this treasure that I originally wrote for The Daily Colonist then regurgitated for the Cowichan Valley Citizen in 1999:

Readers stump me all the time. I’m brought to this public confession by the frequent question, Do I know any good Cowichan Valley ghost stories?

Well, I don’t, unless you count the restless Crofton spirit that opens and closes doors with a bang in a home on the historic smelter land. Or the headless lady-in-white who walks Mount Sicker Road at night before disappearing into the ether. Or the invisible tenant of Dr. Dykes’ 100-year-old barn in downtown Duncan.

But I do know some Victoria doozies. Here’s a real ghost story that I uncovered during my years of researching and writing in Victoria before moving to the Cowichan Valley.

In April 2013 the discovery of human remains confirmed the presence of a First Nations midden on the Saanich side of the Gorge waterway, compelling the bridge replacement budget for archaeological services to be increased threefold, to $400,000.

This ghost is filed under the ‘Ps’

I wasn’t at all surprised by the news as that’s the same north shore on which is situated the ca 1854 Craigflower School. Because it’s B.C.’s first and oldest school there’s a thick file of newspaper clippings in the Provincial Archives. But there’s one reference to the historic school that wasn’t to be found in this file, instead being buried in the P’s under Palliser. This is the story of Craigflower’s visit by a ghost.

The Palliser referred to is Hugh Palliser, caretaker of the second Craigflower School which was built across the street in 1911. From Yorkshire, he and his family moved into the original schoolhouse beside the Gorge. It’s to the foresight of Hugh Palliser, by the way, that we’re indebted for the school’s ultimately becoming a museum as it was he who salvaged many of the original desks and furniture from the bush where they’d been thrown to rot.

Palliser’s unearthly encounter occurred some time later during repairs to the neighbouring Craigflower bridge when a worker unearthed bones and a human skull in the schoolyard. (Showing, once again, how history repeats itself!) Palliser placed the remains in a box and stored them in his woodshed, a lean-to attached to the kitchen, that he could show them to his children before re-interring them on the school grounds.

After the supper dishes had been cleared, the family gathered about the glowing stove as was their custom, the senior Pallisers to read, the children to do their homework. The evening passed quietly, until the latch of the door to the lean-to clicked loudly. As the startled family watched, the door slowly swung wide and a chill draft invaded the warm kitchen. But no one entered.

Thinking he’d left the outside door open, Palliser strode through the darkened shed. Upon finding it locked, he examined the kitchen door. It was sturdily constructed of boards nailed edgewise with three crossbars and its iron hinges and thumb-latch were in order. When he pushed it shut, the latch snapped into place.

As the Pallisers watched in amazement, the door again swung wide

The family resumed its routine. But not for long. As they prepared to retire, Palliser again heard the distinctive click of the latch being raised. As he stared in amazement, the door again swung open, allowing a cold draft to penetrate the kitchen.

Snatching up a lantern, he charged into the woodshed and flashed light into every shadow. Nothing. Again he checked the outer door. Locked. As he slowly retreated, he paused to circle the lean-to once more with the light, almost dropping the lantern when its glow fell on the skull. It lay in the box where he’d placed it that afternoon, its empty eye sockets seeming to stare at him, its jawbone curled back in a toothless grin. The macabre effect lasted but a moment when he shook himself, smiled at letting his imagination get the better of him, and went to bed.

That night the old school creaked and groaned with every gust of wind but this was nothing new to the Pallisers who’d come to know its mutterings as boards expanded and contracted in the dead of night, or when neighbouring water rats paid a visit.

But the noises that kept the Pallisers awake this night were not of the same order.

The next evening, he bundled his family to bed early. Then, lantern within easy reach, he waited by the stove for something he couldn’t explain. That something was about to happen, he was sure.

Then he heard it.

As he watched, the latch slowly lifted and he leapt to the door, jerked it wide, to be met by that deathly cold wind. His lantern stabbed the darkness, sweeping the shelves of preserves, tools, the neatly stacked firewood. No one was there, nothing moved but the shadows from his flickering light. He rattled the outside door. It was locked.

Then he saw that hideous, gloating skull. Its evil grin seemed to be almost alive.

Palliser knew what he had to do. Grabbing a shovel and the box, he stumbled out into the night. Somewhere beneath the ancient, gnarled maples of the schoolyard, he returned the accused skull and bones to the earth.

Where Palliser buried them he never told. But he did say his kitchen door never again rattled and opened to the invisible hand of a ghostly visitor.

That said, if you want to see some really great photos of Craigflower School as it is today, check out Toad Hollow Photography.