Each year, locals mark their calendars for the annual Squamish Days Loggers Sports Festival.
It’s a nod to the community’s logging history, mixed with a stunning display of athleticism, skill and some thrill-seeking heights. All-in-all, it’s a uniquely ‘Squamish’ tradition.
But for some, the real draw isn’t the competition itself, but a similarly unique, time-honoured tradition that only takes place during the festival once each year: the Rotary Club of Squamish’s annual beef barbecue.
Since 1966 — the same year the local Rotary club was founded — the barbecue’s legendary melt-in-your-mouth roast beef sandwiches have been drawing long lines and giving thousands of locals another reason to look forward to August.
“It’s very popular. As a new arrival to Squamish back in 2011, my first taste of a Rotary barbecue beef bun was just heaven,” said Mark Goodwin, president of the Rotary Club of Squamish, who’s currently serving as barbecue chair for the second consecutive year.
“The beef melts in your mouth. It’s worth waiting a year to have that one bun.”
But the buns are more than a tasty lunchtime treat. They’re the result of a time- and labour-intensive undertaking that isn’t just a community effort, but a way to give back to it.
“It’s a great tradition, it’s a great means of bringing club members together to work on a project. It’s a social event for the club as well as a fundraiser,” explained Rotarian and former barbecue chair Barry Wetter.
Each year, over the course of one weekend, a team of volunteers works together to get the roasts seasoned— “we insert a lot of garlic cloves,” said Wetter — onto the rotisseries and over the flames, fuelled by wood chopped by loggers during the previous years’ festivities. Roasts are basted every hour with a top-secret barbecue sauce (more on that later) before being sliced, mixed with gravy, piled onto buns and placed into the hands of hungry customers.
It all kicks off around 5:30 a.m. on the Saturday morning of the festival, at the Rotary Shack on the Loggers Sports grounds. That’s when the fire needs to be lit in order for the burning coals to be ready for the roasts around 7 a.m., Wetter explained.
After slow-roasting over the open flame for a few hours, the roasts are usually ready to be served around 11 a.m.
“When the buns are ready, there’s an announcement … and people will rush to the hut,” said Wetter.
Lineups “can snake right down the hill,” added longtime Rotarian Liz Scott, who served as barbecue chair for five years. “There can be 100 people in line … They’ll take [the sandwiches] home for their family, for dinner [that day], for dinner the next day. But they are best fresh.”
Then, the process begins all over again for a second batch — usually ready around 2:30 p.m.— before the volunteer clean-up crew can get to work preparing the site for a repeat performance the following day.
While Squamish’s population may have boomed in recent years, the barbecue has long since tapped out at maximum capacity.
Last year, that meant the barbecue saw over 725 kilograms (or 1,600 lbs.) of AAA Canadian beef divided among around 2,900 brioche buns — all provided by Save On for a hefty discount — not to mention the 113 kgs (or 250 lbs.) of fried onions and 18 litres of horseradish used to top the sandwiches.
The gravy is provided by Howe Sound Inn & Brewing Company — “Without the gravy, it wouldn’t be what it is,” said Goodwin—and kept warm with equipment provided by Rental Networks.
Upwards of 50 volunteers, comprised of Rotarians, friends and family members, work in three-to-four-hour shifts to make it all happen. “Everybody just pulls together, and it works like clockwork,” said Scott.
Despite the “mammoth” organizational effort, the barbecue requires, “everything seems to come together and it’s great fun working with a great team of people,” each year, Goodwin agreed.
“There’s a sense of community that we have with our sponsors and the people who support it — Howe Sound Brewing, Save On; it’s all a team effort. It’s such a privilege to make people happy by supporting Loggers Sports and supporting good causes in the community. It’s a little bit of Canadian history as well; local history.”
One of those community members, Squamish’s Norma Kindree, is a dedicated Rotarian who’s contributed to that team effort for over 50 years. Her late husband, Dr. Laverne Kindree, was known to show up every August to operate the meat slicer, always while wearing his tie. Norma, now in her 90s, still donates her time to help with the barbecue each year.
Despite its longevity, the Rotary barbecue has managed to undergo only a handful of changes over the course of its 53-year lifespan.
One of those changes came following the inaugural year, where Rotarians served up chicken, before realizing beef was a safer and more consistent choice. “You got half a chicken, fries and a drink for a dollar,” explained Wetter.
These days, the sandwiches go for $7 each. All profits go into a pool, along with the proceeds from other local organizations who participate at Loggers Sports, before being evenly split amongst those organizations to support community initiatives. In the past, funds from the Rotary barbecue have gone on to support the Sea to Sky Hospice, cross-country ski facilities, and local school breakfast programs, to name just a few.
Another change occurred shortly after Wetter, a retired rocket scientist, came on board as barbecue chair. As Scott explained, Wetter was concerned about consistency: while the longstanding practice of measuring out beef by the gloved handful may have proved beneficial for the lucky few who were served by the volunteer with the largest handful of the day, it also meant there were frequently extra unfilled buns leftover once the rotisseries had been emptied.
Now, volunteers use an eight-oz. measuring cup to make sure the sandwiches are a more uniform weight, Scott said.
A similar rationing technique is used when it comes to the freshly-fried onions, another new addition to the condiment table in recent years. “We have to have someone doling them out, because otherwise, they might go too quickly,” she added.
One thing that hasn’t changed? The secret barbecue sauce created by the late forestry pioneer John Drenka, a founding member of the local Rotary Club.
It’s a closely-guarded secret recipe that is never divulged to anyone not intimately involved in the making of the sauce — aside from the time Scott “made a crucial error” and posted the recipe on the barbecue hut’s wall during her first year as chair.
“It quickly came down,” she said with a laugh.
Try the beef on a bun, and the secret barbecue sauce, for yourself on Saturday, Aug. 3 and Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019 at the Squamish Days Loggers Sports Festival.
