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What's in the name?
Theresa Seraphim
for Spotlight
One way to memorialize someone who has held an official position, or been a community leader, is to name a school after that person. This is particularly true if the person has been actively involved in education.
Our geographical area reflects this in the names of several of its schools:
Georges P. Vanier (Donnelly)
This one of two schools named after a former Governor-General.
Vanier was born April 23, 1888 in Montreal to a French father and Irish mother.
Vanier took a lead role in the Royal 22nd Regiment (known familiarly as the Van Doos) in World War I. In 1931, he was posted to the Canadian High Commission in London, where he stayed until 1938.
In 1939, he was named the minister at the Canadian Embassy in Paris.
In 1959, when Vanier was 71, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker named him Governor-General. Vanier was the first Quebecker to hold the post.
Throughout his career and his life, Vanier emphasized unity between French and English.
He died March 4, 1967 in Ottawa.
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This autographed picture of Roland Michener sits in the Library of the school bearing his name.
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Roland Michener (Slave Lake)
This school is the other one in the area that bears the name of a former representative of the Queen – and an Albertan, no less.
Daniel Roland Michener was born April 19, 1900 in Lacombe.
He became Governor-General on April 17, 1967. Before that, Michener had been an Ontario MLA, Speaker of the House of Commons, and High Commissioner for Canada in India, among other roles.
He also signed the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis of October, 1970.
Michener promoted health and fitness, which is reflected in the fact that in 1990, he lent his name to the Michener Institute of Applied Health Sciences.
He died on August 6, 1991 in Toronto.
E.G. Wahlstrom (Slave Lake)
Although Erik Gunnar Wahlstrom wasn’t a teacher, he did promote education by serving on the school board for 23 years – 19 of those as chair.
“In addition to his service as a trustee on the board of High Prairie School Division, Wahlstrom spent 13 years as a member of the executive of the Alberta School Trustees Association and, for three years, was the sole Alberta representative on the Canadian School Trustees Association,” notes a feature article by Jean M. Holt published in the book Pioneers of the Lakeland.
The article quotes Wahlstrom as saying that those involvements gave him an opportunity to compare the quality of education in other places with that offered here.
“I venture to say that Slave Lake has had it so good, both in school facilities and staff, that the people are a bit spoiled.”
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E.W. Pratt
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E.W. Pratt (High Prairie)
Edward W. Pratt taught school for 44 years in High Prairie, and was also a principal.
Pratt’s grandson Rick Pratt said E.W. came from Saskatchewan to Alberta to homestead.
“He was heading for Peace River, got off the train at Enilda, looked around and said, ‘This looks good,’” said Pratt.
The homesteading didn’t work out, but when a teaching position came open in Enilda, Pratt took it – and his life took a different turn.
Rick said E.W. would stay in High Prairie for the week and come home to the farm on weekends.
“It was all by horseback,” he said.
“He was very dedicated to education and pretty dedicated to the community,” said current E.W. Pratt principal Dan Sloan, who had Pratt as a math teacher for one year.
When the school opened in 1969, Pratt, who had been set to retire, decided to teach for one more year, with the school being named after him.
Students are still benefiting from Pratt’s love of education.
For years, the Anna and Edward Pratt Award has been given to a student exhibiting citizenship and special talents.
An unsubstantiated legend holds that during his teaching career, Pratt never took a sick day.
“That’s possible – he was that type of person,” said Rick Pratt.
Ecole Routhier (Falher) and Joussard School (Joussard)
Both these names come from Roman Catholic prelates. In 1909, Celestin-Henri Joussard (born October 2, 1851) became assistant bishop of what would become the Grouard-McLennan Archdiocese, retiring in 1929.
He died September 30, 1932.
Henri Routhier became an assistant bishop of the same area in 1945 and became bishop on September 18, 1953, continuing in that role until November 21, 1972. He died September 18, 1989.
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C.J. Schurter School principal Robyn Ord-Boisvert (right) and vice-principal Nancy MacDonald Stand beneath a photo of the man after whom the school is named.
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C.J. Schurter (Slave Lake)
Known as “Mister Slave Lake”, Charles Schurter fulfilled his early-years determination to become an electrician by installing electrical plants across the Peace Country.
But once those plants and telegraph lines were installed, people were needed to operate them and, because of his knowledge of Morse code, Schurter was asked to take on that role at Grouard, Athabasca or Sawridge.
Recalling a day he had spent on the beach of Lesser Slave Lake, and hearing the chief surveyor predict Sawridge would become an important place in a few decades, Schurter chose what would become Slave Lake.
“It was always to be his favourite place in all the world,” says an article by Jean M. Holt in the book Pioneers of the Lakeland.
Schurter was very involved in the community, having the first auto dealership in Slave Lake and pushing for the Sawridge Board of Trade (which became the Slave Lake and District Chamber of Commerce) and serving on school boards.
St. Andrews(High Prairie)
St. Andrews is named after the Biblical fisherman who left his nets (with his brother Simon Peter) to follow when Jesus called.
He also was the one who, when people became hungry while listening to Jesus pointed out the boy with the loaves and the fishes, which were subsequently multiplied.
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