“A couple of hundred former students and myself would be eternally grateful if it were recovered and put on display”
In the late-1980s, principal Sam Reid of Gibsons Elementary School organized the assembly of a time capsule containing videotape recordings, student work, and multiple artifacts of the era, and then sealed and buried it below an enclosed staircase leading to the school gym, marked for recovery in 2020.
I was a teacher’s aide at the time and assisted Mr. Reid (who was well known for his time-capsule projects) in collecting and packing its contents in a large, heavy-duty plastic wine cask, sealing the blue container with a perspex lid, and setting it in place for a three-decade journey.
Over time, I moved from the Sunshine Coast, but recently I returned for a weekend visit and was surprised to find that the old school had been demolished and replaced in 2014. We never saw that coming!
I have since been in contact with school board personnel who were present at the demolition site but they observed nothing resembling the conspicuously large blue barrel we buried back then. Could it have possibly been removed from under the stairs beforehand?
I wonder if any of The Coast Clarion readers might know what happened to the time capsule between 1988 and 2014. A couple of hundred former students (who would be in their early fourties by now) and myself would be eternally grateful if it were recovered and its contents put on display in 2020 as intended.
Thank you for any assistance you can provide.
Yours very truly,
Brian J. Low, B.Ed., PhD., UBC