Vancouver's oldest school hit by fire

Kindergarten classes have been cancelled after the oldest school in Vancouver was badly damaged by a fire Sunday morning.

Firefighters had to knock several holes in the roof of Sir Guy Carleton Elementary School at the corner of Kingsway and Joyce Avenue to put out the flames in the two-room wooden building.

The cause of the fire is not known.

School officials are asking parents of kindergarten students to keep them at home on Monday and bring them to school on Tuesday when classes will resume in one of the newer buildings on the school grounds.

The old schoolhouse was first opened in 1896 as one of the first pieces of civic infrastructure in the Collingwood area, which was mainly an agricultural region in the late 1800s.

Jackie McHugh knows the history of the old schoolhouse well — four generations of her family attended classes there.
 
"My dad went there and I went there, and then my two sons went there, and my sister went and then my four grandchildren went there. That's part of our growing up," McHugh said.

After seeing the damage, McHugh was thankful most of the structure is intact and is hopeful repairs will be made so classes can continue.

The schoolhouse is a rare case of a Class A registered heritage building that is still serving its original purpose, according to Vancouver historian John Atkins.

"Here we actually have the oldest school in Vancouver and it's still actually used as a school, and I think for buildings like that [it] is so important because we have over a hundred years of continuous use," Atkins told CBC reporter Wilson Wong.

"It really talks about, in many ways, the pioneers of the whole area and the pioneering spirit of coming out to a new place and making a home and a living," said Atkins.