Dunbar Residents Association News and Events

Hi This is a a Old Slack Family Christmas Story, its kind of sad , but a part of early life in Canada for the Slack Family ! It was a cold and wet winter in 1951 and 4 float houses were anchored or tied next to old abandoned lumber scows under the cliffs of Point Grey, at a place know by the log boom tug boats, as the C. M. E. booming grounds ! Grand dad Frank Slack , Jack and family and Alf and Family moved their float houses from Iona Island to this place under the cliffs, in July 1950 ! A slippery trail followed beside a roaring creek and up to” civilization a , road” , as mom put it ! It was a long walk east along the S. W. Marine Drive road to P. O. Box 13 and a little shopping center at Dunbar and 41st Avenue., it was at last our first introduction to the real Vancouver and had no river to cross to get there !

It was about 2 weeks before the Christmas of 1950, when the rain storms started and they never stopped , the snow melted and the big tides and southeast winds rocked our float house ,. Jack and Alf managed to get more ropes to tie the houses and shore catwalks to trees on the shore line under the cliff ! We had a good supply of cut firewood for our stoves, they made it warm and cosy and it was kind of nice listening to the wind and rain, as we were sleeping next to the warm stove ! We opened our Christmas presents from England a week early and I was really happy to get a Tiddly Winks game and a Boys Own book ! Valerie opened her present to find a Snakes and Ladders game , boy that was great we all enjoyed tossing the dice and moving up the ladder and passing by the snakes ! Just a few days to go to Christmas and the rains came down harder and harder and dad and mom could hear trees cracking on the top of the Cliff ! The tap water from the cliff springs got muddier and muddier and then it clogged up the hose pipe , dad said he would fix it in the morning and we all went to bed, with rain water coming off the roof in sheets,it was like sleeping under a waterfall !

The crashing of trees continued long into the night and then there was a roaring noise , it was the steep bank of mud and shrubs crashing down on top of our float house , the trees missed Franks and Jacks float house and scored a direct hit on the roof of ours !

One large fir tree caved in the roof of our house , just missing us in bed and dad yelled get out , but the deep mud was all around the float house and dad got mired in up to his waist in it ! Jack and Frank came to lend a hand in the pitch black dark and helped us get to a safer place, away from the falling trees ! It was morning and the tide was coming up and flooded out the float house, for it was stuck in the land slide mud and trees and mom just looked and cried and cried ! We had lost every thing that was so precious to us , all our “Christmas Presents” , clothing and food was covered in mud ! It took Dad , Frank and Jack all day to dig the float house free of the mud and thank goodness it floated on the next high tide ! We all pitched in and cleaned up the float house , fixed the roof and got the wood stove going again all in time for Christmas ! Val and I glued up the coloured paper chains to decorate the inside of the repaired roof and I cut off the top of a Hemlock tree that missed our house, it made a lovely well earned Christmas tree ! About 5 days later we celebrated Christmas, next to our old but warm stove and we all played the Tiddly Winks Game long into the night ! This was a never to forget Christmas at the Booming Grounds . I still go down the cliff trail today to see the slide that nearly killed us all and remember that Christmas of 1951 !

Terry