The Gray Creek Hall has seen it all in the past 100 years.
It’s been the school, a place for religious services, anniversaries and homecomings, even for packing fruit. Hall fundraisers from the Nickel Swindle Club to giant rummage sales. Workbees, potlucks, nudie sunbathing on the beach and meetings, meetings, meetings. Hot community debates over logging. Brainstorming our future. A groundbreaking environmental conference in 1986. A tearful community reconciliation with two young vandals who had hit on the cemetery. Children’s day camps, men’s and women’s groups, go tournaments, and wondrous, wild performances.
The old log walls pulsate with life of the East Shore.
As John Oliver said the other day, “The hall is part of the family. The hall and the community are intermarried. You can’t have one without the other.”
As the community grows and evolves, so the Gray Creek Hall stands witness to a constantly changing scene. But through its 100 years, one thing remains constant: the small band of volunteers who ensure the best care possible for the hall and grounds, steer it through changes, and chart its course for the future.
The old log hall on the lake at Gray Creek turns 100 this year, and the Gray Creek Historical Society would like to create a permanent memory bank for this iconic public place. To everyone who has ever experienced the Gray Creek Hall, the Society is seeking stories, pictures, posters, news clippings and other mementoes of the hall for a feature display during Museum Days, from July 27-30.
For more information, email Frances Roback at gchistory@theeastshore.net, phone 250-227-9282 or write to Box 93, Gray Creek, BC, V0B 1S0.
— GRAY CREEK HISTORICAL SOCIET