The Camper School District was established in the late 1800s, named in commemoration of Roman Catholic Father Camper who came to the St. Laurent area in 1866. A one-room schoolhouse operated at NE2-20-6W in the Minnewakan area in the Rural Municipality of Coldwell. The school was relocated when most of the French population of the area moved away. A designated school section at 11-20-6W was deemed to be too low and wet so local resident John Johnson donated two acres of his homestead at the southwest corner of SW13-20-6W. A new schoolhouse was built there around 1910. After the school closed permanently in 1967, its area became part of the Lakeshore School Division. The former school building was turned into a workshop at NE24-20-6W (about N50.73541, W98.16144).
Among the teachers who worked at Camper School through the years were Miss Goules, Miss Sissy Lee, Ed Miskelly, Annie Connelly, Mr. Small, Hilda Jonina Johnson (Fall 1912 & June 1916 - June 1955), J. R. Reid (April-December 1913), Douglas R. McColl (May-November 1914), A. Gregory (April-December 1915), Hilda Huldina Hintz (1955-1956), Mary Rak (1956-1957), Ethel Warwyck (?-?), Lorne Foster (?-?), Janet Semenchuk (?-?), Adeline Wilke (?-?), Ronald Terrence Sawiak (1961-1962), John Julius Erickson (1962-1963), Judy Paulette Danielson (1964-1965), Barbara Anne Bull (1965-1966), Carol Einarson (Fall 1966), Lillian Frances “Lilly” Kell (1966-1967), and Kathleen Funk (?-?).
Camper School (no date) by M. Hall-Jones
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 113.
The former Camper School building (circa 1990)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 249.
The former Camper School building (August 2012)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N50.71334, W98.18017
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: New Hirsch School No. 1589 (Camper, RM of Grahamdale)
One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.
Wagons to Wings: History of Lundar and Districts, 1872-1980 compiled by Lundar and District Historical Society, 1980.
Manitoba School Records Collection, Camper School District No. 1414 - Daily Registers, GR11220 , Archives of Manitoba.
A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 27 September 2022
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