Old escapes

1974 December 19  The Citizen

      The institution appears to have been having some serious security issues at this time.

Rodney Allen Kirkpatrick   1949 - 9 February 1984 Victoria, B.C. ),  was killed 10 years later after being shot in the abdomen.   

Michael John Shilling

Searching through the old newspapers I found this:

1981 December 7 The Citizen ( A Prince George newspaper )

        It appears rather silly and harmless for the patient, and raises the eternal question of how did he escape?  That we may never know, he was only there a few months.  But I dug deeper and found a rather sad story, as most of my researches into Essondale, Colony Farm usually do.

1981 December 1 The Montreal Gazette, tells slightly more of the story.

Michael "Mike" John Shilling, used his bother George Charles Shilling’s passport to go to Australia; unknown where he got the money to do so.

Michael’s parents were Raymond "Ray" Charles Shilling, and Sylvia Mae Barlow
Ray Charles Shilling was born 8th of May 1930 Toronto, Ontario; his parents were: Grace Eleanor Shilling, and Lavern Shilling (b.1904, Ohio) they were married on the 15th of September 1928. In 1943 the family immigrated  to the U.S.A.    Raymond Charles Shilling apparently was married  to Mary ? on the 12th of December 1980 at Palm Beach, Florida; did not last very long, since a divorce was granted on the 1st of October 1981, at Palm Beach.


At least three brothers Gregory Charles Shilling mentioned above, also Mark Schilling and Derek Vern Shilling,( lives in Edmonton, Alberta ) and a sister Debbie Schilling.

Michael repeatedly stabbed his mother in the back at her home at 120-1870 McKenzie Avenue, Saanich, on her birthday.

 Sylvia Mae Barlow ( 23^rd of  June 1934 – 23 June 1980 )  was a teacher at Camosun College, near Victoria, B.C. And was divorced at the time and was using her maiden name of Barlow.  Sylvia's parents were William Barlow and Nina Barlow, both of England.

       Michael was initially charged with 1^st degree murder, and was later acquitted on the 10^th of October 1980, after being found to be insane, and sent to the Forensic Institute.
Michael was eventually brought back to the Forensic Institute at Colony Farm, from Australia, and a few years later committed suicide by hanging himself.

Michael John Shilling   ( Vancouver, B.C. 21 July 1958 – 30 December 1985 Coquitlam, B.C. )
Just another sad story

UPDATE: anonymous left some more information about the family.  Thanx

Missing patient, Shane Metcalfe

Get one back at "Riverview" and lose another at Colony Farm. 
Coquitlam RCMP search for missing Colony Farm patient

Coquitlam RCMP press release:  Missing Patient Wanted on a Canada Wide Warrant - Shane Metcalfe

Shane  Metcalfe ( undated photo )

UPDATE: Apparently this fellow has been found.

Jeffrey Edward Stuart, escaped from the Forensic unit

 After a nice lull in escapes from this institution.
The Province:   Man escapes from Coquitlam psychiatric hospital
Tri-City News:         Man missing from Colony Farm

The Coquitlam RCMP:  Unlawfully at Large - Jeffrey Edward Stuart

This fellow looks like he needs a wide berth, if the photo tells me anything.

UPDATE:  This fellow is back safely in custody.

Washroom now Open

Finally after a long wait, the new washroom is finally open for business. Located near the end of Colony Farm Road, near the Community Gardens, and public parking lot.

 It has a timed door lock on it, but no sign stating the hours of operation, are posted on the building yet.

   Separate entrances for the Rams and Ewes, Does and Bucks, etc.

   There is even a water fountian close to the ground for pets. Now if we could train them to use the facilites, Hmm..

Looks more like some tiny whistle-stop train station, in some far away place, choo, choo,,

Trans Mountain pipeline project

         Apparently the Trans Mountain Expansion Project,(AKA Kinder Morgan) want to use the fields of the forensic institute portion of Colony Farm, to store their vast quantities of pipe, and also use the area as a general staging area. And possibly even continue through the park, and along the Lougheed Highway on its way to LaFarge, then Burnaby (download the PDF).  Not an appropriate use for farmland, in my mind.

A cropped shot of a better quality image than is found in the public document.
Easier to visualize the huge impacts that the pipeline would have on Colony Farm Park from this picture.

Press Release:

        We value the feedback, questions, concerns and comments from communities through which our pipeline study corridor runs. It has, and will be, used in our planning as we continue to optimize our study corridor and then ultimately our pipeline route.

We invite you to join us to learn about and provide your input to the optimization of the proposed pipeline study corridor for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project in person or online:

IN PERSON

  Burnaby Open House
April 3, 2014
Drop in between 7:30pm and 9:30pm
Executive Plaza
405 North Road,
Coquitlam

ONLINE
Go to Trans Mountain Talk after the event to review material shared at the Open House and provide your feedback. 

Should you have any questions please don t hesitate to contact us at  info@transmountain.com  or 1.866.514.6700. More information about our proposed project is available at Trans Mountain 
Address: 2844 Bainbridge Avenue, PO Box 84028, Bainbridge, Burnaby, BC V5A 4T9
Twitter:   @TransMtn
 
Trans Mountain of course in theory must answer to the National Energy Board, (NEB) the public can view the regulatory documents that the various companies submit in their applications.

Not directly related to the Trans mountain application, but related to transportation in Burrard Inlet :  1973 Oil spill in English Bay   Trans Mountain of course will  create a large increase in shipping traffic through Burrard Inlet, much more than they do at the present time.

Personally I struggle with the fact that a company can apply to build something, yet they have no idea where it will be located.  Kind of like me going to the nearest city and saying, I want to build a gazillion square foot building, but I have no idea where yet, and expect an Okay from the local council; something wrong here.

On very short notice, some concerned citizens gathered at Colony Farm, the show their displeasure at Kinder Morgan, wanting to damage the park. A few more pictures of the event HERE

Few old pics

In the Victoria, B.C., newspaper,  The Daily Colonist, of  December 3, 1911 there is an article about the local Conservatives, having a look around Colony Farm, I shared another image in the past that must have been taken on the same day, in this POST

The arena barn, this building was Huge!  over 200 feet in length; sadly destroyed by an arson fire.

A different look at the bunkhouse, still standing today. Still waiting for the bureaucrats to make the right decision to properly conserve the building, tick-tock-tick-tock. 

Excuse the quality that is as good as it gets, from a lousy scan that UVIC did of these papers.

A few pictures from the Coquitlam 100 years, book

Recently the Coquitlam Library appears to have put up some of the pictures from the Coquitlam 100 years book, onto the web HERE

Clydesdale and handler.  LINK

               Colony Farm in the early years raised some high-class Clydesdales, some were imported from Scotland, but most were sourced in the U.S.A.

 Dairy at Colony Farm 1915   LINK

Bell tower in Colony Farm, 1921  photo: Jenny Lenihan    LINK

This is the oldest building still standing at Colony Farm, Riverview in its day it was known as the tank house, because the tower contained a large wooden water tank, all since long removed with the wooden protection, walls, and the porch clearly shown here is also long removed.

 Workers preparing land at Colony Farms 1913  LINK

Dike Breaking at Riverview Hospital 1931 (1921 more likely )  LINK

This appears to be on the Port Coquitlam side of the farm, commonly called the Wilson Farm,(which was really further north than here) the wooden building I believe was something to do with feeding the pigs, sheep, cattle at various times in its history.

Article in the GS

Article from the Georgia Strait:  Gear up for the slopes at Colony Farm park

Cheers

Sheep Paddocks trail, open house

Sheep Paddocks Trail Alignment Study

Where:   Poirier Library,  575 Poirier Street, Coquitlam
When:   4:00 PM to 8:00 PM    November 7, 2013
More Information

This has been a number of years in the brewing, as usual it will cost the taxpayer dearly to get this trail opened up again.

NA-39905  BC Archives.  Flooded CPR tracks 30 May 1948

Sheep Paddocks is the entirely flooded area in this picture above the CPR tracks, that run diagonal through this image. The present area under study is to the left of the five trees, sadly now long gone.

Washroom, about time !

After sixteen years of waiting Colony Farm park will finally have a decent public washroom. Unknown when the completion date is, but you can bet that the bureaucrats will burn through more of our money to have a party to celebrate the opening.

Separate Lambs and Ewes entrances too !
Baa

NO to Kwantlen experiments at Colony

The Natives are restless:  Coquitlam farm academy plan wilts
Not surprising that Metro not including the First Peoples in their scheming. Metro as usual did not do a good job of informing the public in general; classic fail, we know best attitude shown by the staff.  The Kwantlen preliminary concept plan that I saw, told me that they were doomed to fail anyway, failure to understand the soil conditons, past uses at Colony Farm and they wanted to grow fruit trees! "Stupido!!!"  typical desktop farmers!

 View of Essondale's Colony Farm during a flood; showing a small portion of the flooded area.

 8 June, 1948               BC Archives    I-68904

[ Note the windbreaks, all gone today, and Metro was adamant that they not be replaced ]

 Apparently there will be a meeting on November 7, at Poirier Library at 7pm, to look at options,input for the Sheep Paddock trail. Not public knowledge yet, typical!  See the Metro page that is "supposed" to keep the public informed about the Metro Parks schemes for exact tdates and times.


A large water pipeline is also in the planning stages that will have impacts on Colony Farm, read portions of this Article

And in the coming year you will notice large volumes of trucks going onto the Kwikwetlem reserve dumping their loads of spoil from the 10 Metre diameter, 2 km long Evergeen line tunnel, the truck traffic will apparently will be active up to 18 hours a day, and six trips per hour.  A lot of traffic.

Body found near the Sheep Paddocks

From the Vancouver Sun:  Homicide probed in Coquitlam's Colony Farm park
And from the Vancouver Province:
     Coquitlam cops suspect foul play after man’s body found on trail in Colony Farm area.

Coquitlam murder victim identified as Clifford Devitt
     (contains a picture of the deceased, and his bike; police are looking for information )

And the Tri-City News:  Homicide investigation at Colony Farm Regional Park.
     Update: Colony Farm Park homicide victim identified

The Coquitlam NOW:  Homicide investigation at Colony Farm Regional Park

Download a map of the park (PDF)

The Sheep Paddocks are generally the area located on the eastern side of the Coquitlam River, and northerly from the Mundy Creek slough.  (Sites A,B, and C in this image )

I hope that this is not the start of a trend. 

Park control

This Vancouver Sun article raises some good questions :
Metro Vancouver examines options to hand over control of some parks to municipalities
Some iron-clad rules would certainly be needed to be in place before a transfer of ownership, ( US to US ) could occurr.

Where are the Great Blue Herons?

Heron watchers concerned about birds' disappearance from Colony Farm
I know that I buried a young one near the Hoy Creek hatchery a few weeks ago, and a few days ago I saw another young one that has taken its place. (we usually only have one heron in the area of the hatchery)
The article talks about noise! Well I myself am thinking of moving because of all the damm noise around here.

An old image

This image is from New Westminster Archives, it is a quite early picture of the farm cottage with a large group of wannabe politicians standing in front.

Title: Conservative Convention visiting Colony Farm. - Nov 25, 1911

 New Westminster Archives ID 25053

Conservative Convention visiting Colony Farm, Mount [sic] Coquitlam. A large group of men, wearing hats and coats, in front of the Colony Farm building.
 Group contains Peter Peebles, grandfather of donor.

Interesting to me is the fact that Peter Peebles is in this photo, he was into real estate and actually owned a small portion of Colony Farm, before the government bought it from him.

Another missing patient

Man who broke out of Colony Farm back in care

But we cannot have a full house, so another patient goes missing:
Patient missing from PoCo psychiatric hospital
The Coquitlam RCMP websites information about this patient, Kurt Derksen, age 58. Note that he went missing in Richmond, on a visit with his family, and that he has a full beard, last time he was seen.
[Update: Kurt Derksen has been found in Ontario!]
   Missing Port Coquitlam psychiatric hospital patient found in Ontario

Missing patient

Charles Albert Hansen missing;
Have you seen this man? Colony farm escapee wanted by police
Coquitlam Mounties seek patient who left psychiatric hospital
The Coquitlam RCMP official site: Missing Person from Colony Farm Forensic Hospital

Student farmers

Agriculture lab planned for Colony Farm wins cautious nod

Also you may be interested in the heritage information gathering exercise that is called:
Riverview heritage values 2012
Which is primarily gathering information about Riverview, (but really one cannot talk about Riverview without talking about Colony Farm)

Violence at the Forensic

Ongoing saga of issues at the forensic institution.
Counsellor allegedly stabbed with kitchen knife at Colony Farm psych unit

If you are concerned about Riverview Hospital, have a look at my Riverview Blog. And have a peek at some of the comments generated by the Riverviewvalues historic values exercise that is still going forward, with another open house in the next few days.

Riverview Values 2012 Questionnaire results  ( 1.8 MB PDF )
Over 300 pages, but many interesting comments about what the public values about the site.