"Hollyburn Mountain means just about everything in my life," says Ivan Holmes.
"Our cabin has been an anchor for me and my family." The mountain that stands over West Vancouver has occupied a place in Ivan's heart since 1944 when he was 14 years old.
A city boy, Ivan came to mountain life by degrees, beginning with a simulated cabin in the YMCA on Burrard Street. From this basement meeting room, clad in half-logs, bark side out, with painted windows and real curtains sewn by someone's mother, Ivan and his pals in the YMCA Leaders' corps would sally forth to practise woodcraft in the urban forest under Burrard Bridge.
A hike up Hollyburn mountain brought the boys closer to the real wilderness and inspired six of them, including Ivan, to build a cabin of their own.
For the next several years, they would make this journey regularly. The boys would embark at the Granville Street ferry terminal, cross the inlet to the dock at 14th Street in West Vancouver, then it was by foot up the mountain to First Lake and Hollyburn Lodge. They did not travel empty handed.
Everything had to be saved for, paid for and then packed in on foot: the lumber, the rope and axes and two-handed saws needed to build the cabin, the furniture, lamps and a stove, and of course, skis and outdoor equipment.
At a weekly salary of $3.50 a week at Cunningham's Drugstore at Granville and Davie, it took some time for Ivan to earn his share of the $125 purchase price and the cost of materials, furnishings and supplies.
"It was all worth it," Ivan says, "for the skiing and the hiking and the beauty of being on the mountain. And there were dances every weekend, with girls."
Like so many young men who came of age after the Second World War, Ivan worked at many jobs, including pushing dirt at a Yukon gold mine. They paid his way through university and led to a career teaching industrial arts. With no income during the summer and three children to raise with his wife, Henriette Shipley, Ivan continued his seasonal work at the gold mine.
When the Holmes family returned to the mountain they discovered the cabin had been demolished. Family and friends, including Lloyd "Arnie" Arneson, one of the original seven cabin mates, pitched in to rebuild.
For Ivan's daughter Bev, the reconstructed cabin represents "our childhood, going up there from the time we were little. We learned respect for nature and for the environment and we passed that on to our children. We hold the cabin in trust for them and for future generations."
Bev and sister Patty are members of the Hollyburn Ridge Association, which welcomes those interested in the outdoors and in mountain life. The sisters came up with an innovative way to celebrate this unique mountain cabin community. Their idea, an exhibition of mountain life interpreted by Hollyburn artists, is an inspired blend of heritage and the creative spirit.
Hollyburn Ridge, Celebrating Mountain Art Culture, is showing now at the Ferry Building Gallery in West Vancouver. Fittingly, the gallery is on the site of the 14th Street ferry dock, the departure point for many an expedition into the coastal wild, including Hollyburn at our own back door.
The location and the exhibition remind us how close we are to our history here on the North Shore. The work of the Hollyburn Ridge artists affirms the connection to nature that the mountain represents and inspires us to look with fresh eyes on the treasures in our own backyard.
"Restorative" might be Ivan's choice to describe mountain life. A week in the classroom would stir his longing for the peace that nature brings and a weekend on the mountain would recharge his energy and enthusiasm for teaching. In his words, "the quietude of the cabin is music to the ear and to the soul."
Hollyburn Ridge, Celebrating Mountain Art Culture, is at the Ferry Building Gallery until Sept. 7. For gallery opening times, go to ferrybuildinggallery. com or phone 604.925.7290. Visitors will find an additional source of inspiration — the Ridgerunner, the Hollyburn Ridge Association's newsletter.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 [email protected]
