Wallace J. McLean

Yale School, a fixture on The Portage in North West River for exactly fifty years, will soon be nothing more than a pile of rubble, and a lifetime of memories for the hundreds of Labradorians who passed through her doors. It is a sad end for the landmark building, and in the bitterest of ironies, her demolition comes just as North West River is preparing to open a museum in the saved and restored Hudson's Bay Company store just a stone's throw away.  She was named Yale out of respect for her predecessor, the original 1920s boarding school that she replaced. The original Yale was built thanks to the efforts of volunteer WOPs from Yale University who had summered with the I.G.A. mission in North West River. Nearly 20 years later, in 1948, the second, larger Yale School was built for the growing village. Some of the material, now being dismantled, came from an abandoned World War II station out on the coast. After Confederation, around which time the Moravians gave up control over education in northern Labrador, local schoolchildren were joined by students from coastal communities, both north and south.

I ignored the "NO TRESPASSING" signs for an hour or so, and went back in for a final look around the old school, now lacking a roof or windows. It was a tricky operation, and with nails and rubble all around I had to tread carefully. My first stop was what used to be the office, where, at the age of four, I proved that I could indeed read. Worried that I had merely memorized the texts of the books that my mother had in hand, they handed me a teacher's edition. I read enough to show the teacher up, and probably could have plowed through to the end.  Next stop was the old library, where I could swear it had a hint of its same old smell of paper and bindings, even though the books had been removed almost twenty years ago. Here was the very room that started me on my bookish ways, even though I probably now own as many books as the Yale School Library once did.

I dropped in on one of my old home rooms, where for two years running I changed into an elf costume for the Christmas concert. I hated being an elf. I hated the stupid tights and the stupid crepe-paper hats. I must have put up quite a protest, because in my third and final appearance in a Yale School Christmas pageant, I got to play Frosty the Snowman. These concerts were put on in the then-new gymnasium, which never got much use as a gym. During the 1960s, new dorms were built in North West River to house the coastal students, and in 1971, Lake Melville High School opened up on the hill, on what was then the edge of town. Yale School became Yale Elementary. After Grade 6, students graduated to the higher institute of learning up on the hill. But new schools were being built on the coast as well, and the dorm student population declined.

By the late 1970s, two schools in a small town like North West River were redundant. The dorms, and Yale Elementary School, with its new gym, were closed after the 1978-79 school year.  I only attended Grades K to 2 at Yale, and still feel a bit cheated that, unlike so many other Labradorians, I can't claim to be a Yale graduate. But many of the Yale teachers also made the trek up the hill to Lake Melville, now an all-grade school. Some of the best teachers in Labrador taught at Yale and Lake Melville. Teachers like June (Russell) Baikie influenced more people in Labrador than they probably will ever realize.

Yale was hardly the oldest building in Labrador, but it certainly had historic value. It was sad to see it crumbling over the past two decades, and shocking to see the place torn apart in such an undignified and cruel way. We often say that Labrador has a rich history to go along with its abundant geography, but does anyone actually care about it? The tourism folks in St. John's claim that "preserved Moravian mission sites still hold out against the elements" at Hebron, Hopedale and Nain. But Hebron is far out of sight and out of mind, and is in danger of falling into oblivion. Indeed, that is exactly what happened to the Moravian Church in North West River this past winter; it was crushed under the weight of the snow, and is no more.