Skip to content

Donald Cameron legacy lives on in Valley

The spot where Donald Cameron Hall once stood is now a flat construction zone, but it’s not all that remains of The Banff Centre’s original administration building.

The spot where Donald Cameron Hall once stood is now a flat construction zone, but it’s not all that remains of The Banff Centre’s original administration building.

Like the man whose name the building honoured, the legacy of Donald Cameron Hall can be seen throughout the Bow Valley and beyond.

The legacy starts with the name. Donald Cameron was instrumental in creating The Banff Centre in 1936; it was then a University of Alberta extension program known as the Banff School of Fine Arts.

Cameron served as its director from 1936 to 1969. Known for his tireless and demanding personality, Cameron was also appointed to the senate in 1955 and kept both positions by flying back to Banff on weekends to run the budding centre. The son of an Alberta farmer and MLA, with only a degree in agricultural science and no experience in the arts, he is credited with single-handedly turning a summer arts program into a centre for art and business.

“What tremendous leadership,” said Jim Olver, director of customer services for The Banff Centre. “He gave his life to The Banff Centre and it’s only because of his tenacity that it exists as it is today.

“It was his dream that is now being realized at The Banff Centre.”

The main section of Donald Cameron Hall was built in 1953, with five different additions expanding the space and uses of the then administration building. It was renamed for the school’s director in the early ‘60s, while he was still putting new employees through their paces by permitting them to work for free for two weeks while he checked them out.

In addition to a dining room and kitchen, the building housed dance studios, office space and accommodations. There were actually three floors of guest rooms and although it wasn’t the only accommodation on campus, many guests stayed there. In the last few years, only staff members were allowed to stay, and in the past year, it housed construction workers working on the campus revitalization project.

“It was the central hub of the campus,” said Olver. Dance and music recitals were performed in the concert hall, which was then converted to the campus dining room. The solarium, a lounge where students of the School of Advanced Management would discuss their classes, remained an important meeting spot until the mid-1990s. The offices of the registrar, human resources, finance and various conference rooms were also located in the hall.

The dining room in Donald Cameron Hall was truly the focal point for both guests and staff, where Cameron himself was known to serve potatoes during evening dinners. Even without the ability to rub elbows with other guests, artists and administrators, the dining room itself was an attraction.

“People enjoyed the architectural splendour of the room and those windows that faced the Bourgeau Range were just spectacular,” said Olver. “I sense it was one of the first places on campus that was really designed to bring the mountains right into the place where artists, participants and guests ate.”

The hall stayed very busy until four years ago, when the new dining room was added to the Sally Borden building. “That was the start of the ebb of Donald Cameron Hall,” he said.

The revitalization of The Banff Centre began almost a decade ago with a provincial government assessment that concluded the campus had the most need for building replacement.

With the Campus Master Plan approved by the Centre’s board of governors in 2005, the writing was on the wall for Donald Cameron Hall. “It was an aging facility that was in need of more repair than we could possibly do,” said Deb Hornsby, Director of Communications for The Banff Centre.

Due to the multiple additions over decades of use, the hall had become confusing to navigate and an engineering test to keep all of the mechanical systems working properly.

“Operationally, it was very challenging,” said Olver. “Each of the three wings were on different levels, so you couldn’t roll a cart or wheelchair from one wing to another.” Demolition and replacement was the only choice, but Donald Cameron’s name would live on in another building.

In March 2009, renovations began on Smith Hall, one of the centre’s original chalets, which was renamed Donald Cameron Centre. This building, opened in June 2010, now houses participant services and administrative offices, plus a prominent plaque in the lobby commemorating Donald Cameron Hall and the former director himself.

“The memory of Donald Cameron is retained on campus in Donald Cameron Centre,” said Hornsby.

Although the demolition of Donald Cameron Hall was the end result, the process is more accurately described as de-construction, considering the number of steps taken to remove all vestiges of the former campus hub safely and efficiently.

The deconstruction of Donald Cameron Hall began in earnest in September 2010, when it was disconnected from the other buildings on campus and water, gas and electrical systems were shut down.

The next stage was to take things out of the building that were going to be reused by the Centre. Furniture, office equipment and some of the lighting fixtures and controls from the old dining room were used in other buildings on campus. Any other pieces of furniture or equipment were donated to local community organizations such as Banff Hockey Academy, Town of Banff, Calgary Drop-In Centre, Canmore Veterinary Hospital, Stoney Tribal Administration and Banff YWCA.

The kitchen equipment was packed up and shipped to a community school in Tactic, Guatemala. The exterior rundlestone was also removed and will be used by Parks Canada to repair any existing exteriors on their buildings, by the Town of Banff for its community greenhouse and by The Banff Centre for use in the new Shaw Amphitheatre, located on the footprint of Donald Cameron Hall.

Removing all of those reusable materials took most of September and October, said Bruce Chapman of Target Project Management, which is managing the revitalization project.

The abatement and cleanup of contaminated materials started in November and took about three weeks longer than expected, said Chapman. “Yes, there’s challenges because with a building that age that had been renovated and expanded many times over the course of 50 plus years, it’s inevitable that you’ll find things that you really can’t see until you get deep into it.”

Asbestos, vinyl asbestos tile (an older version of vinyl composite tile), lead paint and vermiculite (an insulation that contains asbestos) were all found in Donald Cameron Hall; all were common materials for buildings constructed in the decades prior to the 1980s, said Chapman.

Once those materials were removed, a unique opportunity presented itself when Chapman offered the building to the RCMP and Banff Fire Department for training. For three days in early December, RCMP tactical teams with dogs and large pieces of equipment used the facility. “The RCMP was quite anxious to get in and use that building for both nighttime and daytime training courses,” said Chapman.

“It was a great time for them to use the building. They didn’t have to care about what they did. They could smash walls in and train in that regard and not worry about putting things back.”

The contractor then got back to work gutting the inside of Donald Cameron Hall, taking out everything that could be recycled, including steel screws, copper piping and wiring. The majority of the materials, including wood, drywall, bricks, porcelain and tile will be recycled, along with the concrete and steel superstructure.

The steel was taken to Calgary for re-use, where it will be melted down and used in other ways. The concrete was broken into smaller pieces and transported to Francis Cooke Landfill, where it will be ground down and used in landfill operations.

The last step is to clear up the rest of the rubble and remove the floor slabs, footings and foundations. “Everything that was man-made is removed,” said Chapman. “The purpose there really is to ensure that any work that goes in after the fact, you don’t have to worry about running into an old footing or old foundation wall.”

In April, construction on the Shaw Amphitheatre, an open performance space reminiscent of the older amphitheatre, will begin. The amphitheatre, when opened this July, will be the largest outdoor amphitheatre in southern Alberta, seating 1,600.


Rocky Mountain Outlook

About the Author: Rocky Mountain Outlook

The Rocky Mountain Outlook is Bow Valley's No. 1 source for local news and events.
Read more



Comments

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks