Outside the grand dual entrances to Queen Mary elementary, children's footsteps clatter down the massive stone steps, past a set of new planters.
Their shouts carry through the ornate pillars, elegant archway and beyond, to where workers hold up measuring tapes, readying the grounds for a final concrete pour and turf.
The kids are back, racing through double wooden doors at the front of the school that children have burst through for the past century.
Queen Mary is back too - after years of planning, debate about the school's future and a lengthy restoration - to its central role in both the community's past and its future.
With just over a month of classes at the rebuilt school under their belts, Queen Mary and its occupants are still getting used to each other.
Library books have now been unpacked - all 4,000 of them. The upstairs hallways still have that "new" smell to them.
A few finishing touches remain. A blue mesh construction fence still surrounds one of the gravel fields outside and basketball hoops in the courtyard are about to be installed. The totem pole in the entrance - a gift from a Haida carver in the 1950s - has yet to be set into place.
"It's like moving into any building," said principal Bill Reid. "At some point you just have to go in."
For the past two and a half years, Queen Mary has undergone a transformation, with the sounds of children replaced by construction workers, machinery and power tools.
The school was essentially rebuilt inside - while retaining the heritage facade - at a total cost of $19.2 million.
Today its imposing brick face still stands sentry from its hill, looking out over the North Shore as it has for the past 100 years. Its ornamental windows, delicate stone moldings, pillars and crowning cupola are preserved.
Originally designed by William Gillam, an English-born architect who also designed Ridgeway school nearby, Queen Mary speaks of permanence and order.
Built in 1914 in an affluent neighbourhood that had both a streetcar line and electric lights, the design of the school made a statement about its civilized community.
In contrast, at the time, "There were no schools in West Vancouver," said Peter Miller, president of the North Shore Heritage Preservation Society. West Vancouver was the sticks.
And unlike temporary school structures that had been built previously, close to the waterfront mill sites, Queen Mary was here to stay.
When the school first opened to students in August of 1915, the First World War pre-empted any formal ceremony. Kids were simply marched up the hill from their old school to new quarters.
Change has flowed around the school and its community over the past century.
Today, the school is a multicultural mosaic, in a way its founders couldn't have imagined.
Throughout those changes, Queen Mary has continued to ground the community it serves. It's managed to beat the odds.
As one of the oldest schools in North Vancouver, Queen Mary had been slated for replacement for more than a decade.
Prior to the rebuild, the list of problems was extensive.
It didn't meet building codes. The old building had water seepage, trapped moisture and a lack of ventilation causing air quality concerns.
There was an ancient electrical system, inefficient floor plans, plus asbestos and lead-painted features throughout the building.
Before the renovation, "We were in a 98-year-old school that was getting very tired," said Reid.
"There was no thought to an environmental footprint or green space for kids. There wasn't anything like that," he added. Back when Queen Mary was built, "You were in a classroom and that's where you spent all day."
More significantly, by 2004, a review of seismic risk by the province indicated Queen Mary was among the schools with the highest risk of collapsing during an earthquake.
Initially, the province approved a plan to knock the old building down and replace it with a new one at a cost of roughly $16 million.
But community members and heritage advocates launched a campaign aimed at saving both Ridgeway and Queen Mary.
They were successful, with the school district funding the extra $3 million for Queen Mary's heritage rebuild through the sale of land and density at both Chesterfield Avenue and Upper Lonsdale to developers.
The restoration process has been extensive.
Essentially, the interior of the school was gutted and rebuilt behind its heritage facade. Layers of walls and flooring were peeled back and the old bones of the building - support pillars made of concrete and rebar - were tested for strength. Some were banded and clad with extra steel to meet today's seismic standards. Others were pulled out and replaced. A new skeleton of steel columns and beams was erected inside the old brick walls before concrete was added behind it.
New mechanical and electrical systems were installed. A secondary sized gymnasium was added.
Then behind the walls, a new school took shape inside.
From the outside, "The exterior is exactly the same as it was in 1914," said Reid.
New doors at the front of the school were built from the specifications of the original doors. The trim around the windows has been painted an original shade of pale yellow. Windows have been put back in their original positions - although the panes in them are now safety glass.
There have been necessary concessions to safety - like the discreet metal handrails for the entrance steps. Windows above the ground floor only open six inches now - as required by current safety standards. "Even two and a half years ago, they opened up all the way," said Reid.
Inside, however, the school has taken on a whole new aura.
Areas that were once dim and low-ceilinged have been replaced with open spaces and natural light, starting with a 40-foot atrium inside the entrance that spans the height of the school's three floors, beneath its elegant domed ceiling.
Two totem poles - including one being carved by Squamish artist and Queen Mary First Nations support worker Maurice Nahanee, will also eventually stand here.
On one huge wall, a relief mural depicting scenes of Queen Mary, Upper Lonsdale and the North Vancouver waterfront will be created using tiles created by students, under the leadership of artist and teacher Todd Clark, funded by a $5,000 grant from the North Vancouver Community Arts Council.
To create more space, the first floor of the school was excavated and dropped to add ceiling height.
Views from the upper intermediate classrooms are stunning, taking in a vista of North Vancouver City, Burrard Inlet and downtown towers rising from a morning mist.
"These are the highdemand classrooms in the front," said Reid, laughing. "All the teachers wanted them for the view."
The school is built to a LEED gold standard of energy efficiency. Lights and heat automatically dim or turn off when a room isn't occupied or when ambient light is stronger.
The school runs off power from the Lonsdale Energy Corp., there are low-flush toilets and the roof is made from recycled rubber tires. An electronic dashboard in the school's entrance monitors energy and water consumption throughout the day.
A short distance away, the excited shouts of one of the school's three kindergarten classes echo up to the arched roof of Queen Mary's gymnasium. The sound bounces around, from the shining sprung wood floor and up to a massive window - reminiscent of stained glass in the church next door - where light pours in from outside.
"You'll never see anything like this in an elementary school," said Reid. The gym here is 60 per cent larger than an average elementary school gym, and was built that way because "we wanted as much community use as possible," said Reid. "We wanted to appeal to groups that wanted a full-sized facility."
Ironically, perhaps, plans for the original 1914 school included building a large gym "but they ran out of money and they didn't," said Reid.
A later addition was decidedly utilitarian.
This time, the gym has been built to blend in with the heritage exterior and rooflines of the school.
Most people are "awestruck when they walk in," said Reid. "We wanted it to be the heart of the community."
Another part of that equation was proper space for daycare, preschool and after-school programs run by the non-profit Queen Mary Community Association. Though the programs existed at Queen Mary before the rebuild, having a dedicated space away has made a world of difference. In one of the rooms, there's a ping-pong table for older kids, while a Lego table and Waldo book greet younger children. Karen Feaver, who runs the child care programs with her husband Doug, says there's no comparison between this bright airy space and their previous facilities tucked into a lowceilinged corner of the old school. "Here, the light is amazing."
The two-and-a-half year renovation hasn't been without pain.
The school lost significant enrolment during the lengthy construction when students were bused to school at the district's Cloverley site, 3.5 kilometres away. "The hit was to our (kindergarten) enrolment," said Reid. "It's a tough sell to tell parents when they're registering their kids you've got to put your four-year-old on a bus."
Enrolment is currently 265, while the school's capacity is 410 - reflected in three spare classrooms that are currently empty.
As part of an attempt to bring students in, Queen Mary was recently chosen as an International Baccalaureate school - which emphasizes problem solving and global citizenship.
Some people initially questioned that choice for an "inner city" school with complex demographics. Roughly 40 per cent of the school's population is learning English as a
second or third language. Persian, Filipino and First Nations students all make up large cultural groups within the school. The Queen Mary catchment area also has the lowest per capita income of any North Vancouver school.
Reid doesn't see any of that as an impediment to an IB program.
There is a wide range of supports in the school, including autism and First Nations support workers in addition to 13 education assistants. Half the students take part in the school's hot lunch program.
IB is "not an elite program. It's a program designed to foster teamwork and collaboration and investigation," said Reid.
Like most renovation projects, work on Queen Mary - originally scheduled for two years - ran into complications.
About a year ago, some of the core samples from the old concrete pillars came back with dubious results. "They realized after the fact they needed to do more work," said Reid.
Surprisingly, much of the structure of Queen Mary was in better shape than, for instance, Ridgeway had been during a similar renovation project.
"Most of what they found was pretty strong," said Reid. "That's why we kept most of our floor joists. They were still totally sound, 100 years later."
Taking apart the old school was a bit of an archeological excavation.
It wasn't unusual to find five or six layers of flooring - one placed on top of another.
A long-rumoured swimming pool under the floor turned out to be an urban legend. That floor, rather, had once been a military drill hall.
"Like any old building you're renovating, they would find surprises," said Reid.
"Underneath panelling there'd be a layer of drywall and underneath that would be a great big archway window they had boarded over from the '20s or '30s."
Boarded over radiators and fireplaces were uncovered.
When they were packing up the school to go to Cloverley, Reid said staff came across some old report cards from the '20s, '30s and '40s.
Some spoke poignantly of social issues of the day. During the Depression, for instance, a teacher wrote of one Grade 9 boy, "Doubtful about going to Grade 10. Is doing fairly well but a large family that can't afford it. Maybe get a job in camp."
Others wouldn't pass muster in today's political climate. One girl was described by her teacher as "boy crazy" while another boy was written up as "an incipient anarchist."
Alyssa Tanada, in Grade 7 at Queen Mary, and Danesh Irani, in Grade 6, have both been at the school since they were primary students.
It feels very different being back here after the rebuild, they said. And they gym, they agreed, is "amazing."
Miller, who was among the heritage advocates who lobbied for the old school to be saved, along with Ridgeway, said his group is thrilled that the form of the building has been preserved.
Schools have emotional weight in a community, he said.
Those who built Queen Mary and Ridgeway understood that.
"They're palaces," he said. "It's very indicative of the importance that was placed on education."
Queen Mary will open its doors to the public at an open house on Feb. 25. The event will include a photo presentation and tour starting at 2:15 p.m. in the gym. The address is 230 Keith Rd. West, North Vancouver.
