High School Hi-Lites
MEMORIES FROM OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
Fans, Ecole Algonquin, 1980
North Bay’s first high school was on the top floor of Queen Victoria primary school in 1902, and the first graduating class numbered 9, seven women and two men. The first purposely-built high school was the North Bay Collegiate Institute (NBCI for short) which opened in 1930 with a population of 707 students.
Scollard Hall Boys’ College quickly followed in 1931, offering a Catholic education to boarders and day students. It was founded by the Fathers of the Resurrection and built on a former race track.
Front door of Algonquin Composite, c.1960
Dance Decoration, Scollard Hall, c.1974
Cheerleaders, North Bay Collegiate Institute and Vocational School, c.1956
St. Mary’s Academy for girls followed in 1939, located in the Sisters of St. Joseph’s Motherhouse on the lakeshore. In 1985, these two high schools joined forces at the rebuilt building on High Street and O’Brien.
To deal with the post-war population boom, three more secondary schools were added: Chippewa in 1958, Widdifield in 1965 and West Ferris in 1971. Chippewa was named for the Algonquin first nations tribe, Widdifield and West Ferris inherited the names of the two townships that had joined the city.
Air Band, West Ferris, 1984
Sears Drama Festival, West Ferris, 1985
Cancer Walk, Widdifield
Ecole Secondaire Catholique Algonquin joined the group in 1968, moving into the Algonquin Composite building when those students and teachers moved to West Ferris. This was one of the first French language high schools in Ontario. This was joined by the public board French language high school, Ecole Publique Odyssee, in 2005.
But high school days meant a lot more than classes, marks and preparing for the future, as this display will show.
Ski Team, Chippewa, 1985
Hockey Game, West Ferris/Ecole Algonquin, 1984
Lettermen, St. Joseph Scollard Hall, 1995
Did You Know…
The East/West Hockey celebration has been held since the 1960’s. Any school team in the district can play in one period, trying to score points. But most of the points are awarded for school spirit and cheer routines.
In the finals of the 1985 Sears Drama Festival, three of the nine finalists were from North Bay (Widdifield, West Ferris & Chippawa). These schools had already won their district and regional competitions. The adjudicators (judges) from that year were never invited back.
Graduation photos are the hardest to find. This is because yearbooks are published in May, and “grad” is always in June.
East/West Game, Chippewa
Scan Log Cutting Contest, Winter Carnival, Chippewa, 1974
Band Practice, West Ferris, 1989
Remember When…
“Although I left North Bay after high school in pursuit of environmental science, it is in the lakes of Northern Ontario that I found a tiny creature called Daphnia (a waterflea) that seemed capable of raising the alarm about serious environmental health problems.
“It required learning from an exceptional science teacher at Ecole Secondaire Algonquin (Jean-Marc Filion), then doctoral training at the University of Guelph and eleven years of research to finally give Daphnia its power to predict the effects of pollution, by obtaining knowledge of its genome (31,000 genes)!”
John Colbourne
Professor of Environmental Genomics, Birmingham University, England
Student Coach, Chippewa, 1988
Graduation, Chippewa, 1996
Track Meet, Scollard Hall, c.1962