It’s no coincidence that the Squamish Days Loggers Sports Festivaland the Squamish Lions Club both turn 60 this year – the first service club in Squamish was also the major organizing force for the festival.
According to former Lions president Nelson Winterburn, the club was “a way of life” during the early days of the chapter.
The Squamish group was founded on April 13, 1957.
Few original members remain.
Peter Alder, a founding member who now lives in Whistler, recalls Squamish being a very different place when the club first began.
“It was so long ago,” he said. “It was the 50s when I was down there, before there was a railroad and a road into Squamish. It was full of loggers and railroaders.”
Alder said many members of the Lions owned businesses and went on to build the town and the surrounding area.
As the needs of the community have changed over the past 60 years, so has the role of the Lions, explained Winterburn.
The Lions Club International has a long history of chapters throughout the world, with the original group dating back to 1917 in Chicago. Local chapters would fulfill different needs in their own communities.
When the local Squamish group was founded – almost 20 years before the British Columbia Ambulance Service was founded – it was the Lions who would receive calls about those injured on the highway or injured in the bush.
“Whichever Lion who was on duty at the time would make the phone call and grab a couple of guys. That’s how it was done - we’ve obviously come a long way,” said Winterburn.
That original ambulance service lasted until 1974 and included the purchase of three community ambulances and a garage to house the vehicles.
The Squamish Lions were the first service club in the community – it would be nine years later that the Rotary Club of Squamishwas founded. Membership in the tight-knit Lions organization was often a family affair.
The wives of Lions members at one point began their own group, helping to organize events and presenting their own projects.
The Lions didn’t just launch the local loggers sports festival, they also started the Lions Journey for Sight and Camp Squamish cleanup days.
The group also hosted young women from Northern Ireland for several years during the violent conflict in that country.
The group’s contributions to Squamish aren’t just history – it’s 23 members continue to fundraise and help, from contributing bursaries at Howe Sound Secondary School to assisting community members in need afford things like hearing aids and vehicle repairs.
The group’s two mottos, “We serve” and “Where there’s a need, there’s a Lion” describe what they do, said Winterburn.
