A disposal bin outside Extension School is collecting items from the historic school before it's torn down (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

old school

Crews to demolish historic 104-year-old Extension School south of Nanaimo

Jan 7, 2020 | 11:04 AM

NANAIMO — Construction fences and crews removing items from a rural Nanaimo school is bringing up nearly a century’s worth of vivid memories in past students.

Extension School on Ryder Rd. off Extension Rd., which served primary students between 1916 and 2001, is currently being dismantled.

Aimee Greenaway, curator of the Nanaimo Museum, attended the small school from 1984 to 1988. She said the school’s removal signals the end of an era.

“The school is definitely one of the more identifiable landmarks when you go into the community of Extension.”

Her family came to the area while her great-grandfather worked at a local coal mine in 1900.

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“As soon as you have a community of coal miners, you’ve got their families living there. You need a place for children to go to school, that’s why the community was in that area,” she told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Greenaway said the school was a key part of the once-thriving mining community, which was home to upwards of 2,000 people at one time.

It was originally located on nearby Scannel Rd. before it was hoisted onto a flatbed truck and moved to the heart of Extension in the mid-1950’s.

Greenaway said the school “added a sense of permanence” to Extension, building on the cultural facilities, hotels, churches and pool hall alongside it.

As a student, she recalled the strong sense of community within the school and surrounding neighbourhood.

Fellow former student Joe Langdon wondered what he was getting into when he moved from Edmonton to Cinnabar Valley in 1989 and attended first grade at the ominous looking two-room, wood-framed building.

“Going out to that tiny little school house it was kind of horrifying, to be honest with you,” Langdon told NanaimoNewsNOW. “I was a little bit frightened at first. Over time it became a special place to me.”

Langdon said while the school lacked modern resources, teachers made sure students still experienced the same extracurricular events like Christmas concerts and outdoor fun days.

He said students would occasionally travel down the road to Chase River Elementary to use that school’s library and gymnasium.

They also had a large road hockey game every second day.

“All the kids would play hockey with the teachers at lunch break,” Langdon recalled. “For the days in between it was basketball day and not a single kid was playing basketball.”

Langdon said he clearly remembers meeting classmates at the top of Ranchiew Dr. weekday mornings for the bus ride to Extension School.

“We had Dale the bus driver back then who would sing songs with us the whole way to and from school for those couple years at Extension. It’s really special.”

The closure of Extension School at the conclusion of the 2000-2001 school year coincided with the opening of Cinnabar Valley Elementary in Sept. 2001.

ian@nanaimonewsnow.com
On Twitter: @reporterholmes