Off To School

at pender harbor british columbia it looks like a fine day for a cruise and a picnic the weather's good the water's smooth and everybody's mother has packed a hearty lunch so it's down to the landing and the boats right on time the only trouble is it's not a picnic at all no skipper wilkinson's boat has a much more serious errand and for his young passengers this is one trip that really is necessary waiting patiently farther up the coast are still more children and when the boat comes around the bend you'd think it was the pied piper seven in all to be picked up here at a place with the strange name of whiskey slough and more later on at other ports of call as the romani chell makes her daily rounds for it's time to go to school and this is canada's most unusual school bus when the sea going school bus first made its appearance in 1947 it was quite a novelty but now it's just routine still there are some peculiarities for instance on a landlocked school bus you don't have to wear life jackets but on the romani no chances are taken mrs wilkinson the skipper's wife looks after this chore a picturesque coastline hereabouts but aboard this ship there's less interest in scenery than in comic books and sometimes a sandwich stolen from the lunchbox even though breakfast was only a half hour ago in this school district transportation has always been the big problem with 120 pupils scattered thinly over 1400 square miles of jagged coast and little islands most are fishermen's children and the waters that provide their father's livelihood also add to the difficulties of getting an education without the romani and four other sea buses it would be harder still some of the older students get to classes in their own boats but most use the transportation provided by an ingenious school board between them the five boats cover more than 400 miles a day in fair weather and fowl and the squalls off canada's west coast can be mighty rough but despite it all the teachers say that hardly anybody plays hooky in this part of rugged british columbia where the school bus is a boat some trains carry people some carry freight but this one of all things carries book learning it has only two permanent passengers the teacher and his wife and it's their home all through the school season for this is the little red schoolhouse on wheels in the back snug living quarters in the front a classroom for children of canada's northland at nicholson in northern ontario youngsters across miles of snow-covered fields to attend the mobile classroom they're the sons and daughters of railroaders woodsmen trappers men whose work takes them to places where there just aren't any regular schools so school comes to the children in the form of a specially converted railroad car it's one of several school cars operated by the ontario department of education this one will be at nicholson for a week and then it'll move off to another stop and stay a week with the children there then three weeks later back to nicholson and so on all through the year school master william wright has been doing this for more than a quarter of a century and he loves the work besides teaching he and his wife have raised a family of three in this unusual home away from home and so school's out but first some homework enough to last for a whole month for in a few hours the school will be hitched onto a passing freight train and on its way down the line to another isolated community next month the rolling stock academy will be back in nicholson and mr wright hopes to find all homework well done at the southern tip of james bay about 500 miles north of toronto a schoolyard full of activity on a crisp winter day it's the settlement of moose factory and the children are indians students at the canadian government school there are more than 200 and they're a lively bunch especially when it comes to canada's national game there's tremendous competition among the boys to get onto the school team and once on it there's a great will to win who knows maybe there's a future big league hockey star among them on valentine's day there's a chance to dress up a bit and to use that flair for decoration that many of the indian students seem to have individual talents get special encouragement from teachers at the school pupils with names like jimmy otter norman icebound and abel trapper soon learn that getting an education doesn't have to be sheer drudgery the school at moose factory reflects the canadian government's aim of trying to make the countries one hundred and fifty thousand indians increasingly independent and self-supporting education is the keystone of this policy and workshop training on such jobs as repairing motors has many practical applications in canada's expanding north in the girls dormitory time out for recreation this is a residential school one of sixty nine in key locations from the american border to above the arctic circle more than ten thousand children attend these schools children who for various reasons can't go to regular day schools in indian communities they may be orphans they may come from broken homes or they may be isolated in remote settlements so they come to moose factory in september and stay till june and seem to enjoy it thoroughly about 98 of canada's indians belong to christian denominations and this school is staffed for the government by the church of england spiritual as well as educational needs are catered to at this flourishing modern school for canada's young indians you