Climb Back in Through the Window The Life of Susan Archibald
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CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 3 This is a section from a project we did for Susan Archibald. Her family asked us to capture their mom’s best stories. They choose the Chronicle 2-interview format (and added an extra interview) and their project came out to 166 pages. We spoke to Susan about her summers in Muskoka, her first trip about the world, living in Indonesia, helping bring the Summer Olympics to Vancouver, and more. We especially loved the story how she helped with Indonesia’s first democratic election.
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CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 5
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CONTENTS 11 17 23 27 35 47 51 57 65 73 79 93 111 133 141 145 Born on Skis Summers in Muskoka The Diving Bug Running Wild on Laurie Island Troubled Teenager Working as a Whistler Liftie Sports Management and Administration An Excuse to Travel: New Zealand My First Jobs Working on the Rick Hansen Tour Meeting Dave Adventures in Africa Living in Indonesia Olympic Legacies Project Blue Sky and the Paralympic Movement Our Bucket List Adventures
9 Bob would often say, “If you get kicked out the door, you just climb back in the window.” I didn’t realize how important that philosophy would become in my own life.
THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 1 Born on Skis
1 2 CHPT 1: Born on Skis Joan Goad and Geri Robbins
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 13 I was raised in Toronto. I was one of four kids; I had two older brothers and a younger sister. We were a very active family. We would spend our summers in Muskoka and our winters in Collingwood. My mom was a ski racer—she was actually a pretty good ski racer. My dad used to joke that he would back the Station Wagon up at the ski races and just open up the trunk and throw in all the trophies. My parents were instrumental in starting a private ski club called Osler Bluff in Ontario. As a result, they got one of the better sites for building a cabin, which they built right on the side of the S Hill. It was a prime location. My mom used to say that she was a good racer because she wasn’t a very tidy skier. Women always skied with their feet together, but she always had her feet apart, so she had better balance. She had a really good friend named Geri Robbins whose cabin was across the way from us. Geri and my mom were also great rivals on the ski hill. My brothers were two and four years older than me. Once my mom got them out skiing, everything was great, but then she looked over her shoulder and said, “Oh, I’ve still got her.” So as she told the story, at two years old, she just put me on some old skis and pushed me out the door. In those days, it was what you did. When we were babies, we all skied on Mom’s back; she’d put us in a backpack, and eventually we would graduate to the little bunny hill that had a rope tow on it. At the bottom of the rope tow was a little warming shack. All the lifties in those days were farmers because in the winter, their farms were all covered in snow, so that’s what they did for employment in the winter. The farmer that looked after the rope tow was named Brett, and he would keep an eye on us and let us warm up in the shack at the bottom of the hill. At two years old, I would ski up and down the hill with all the other little kids, all of whom became lifelong friends. My dad used to refer to us in later years as the “rat pack” as we flew down the ski hills together. He even had t-shirts made up for us. The rat pack was made up of a bunch of young girls my age: Laurie Cole, Julie Sievwright, Gill Cameron and others. We went to the same school, skied together at Osler and always got into trouble. One day, we climbed the chairlift towers and dared each other to stand on the very top. On another night, we decided to leap from the tower to the chair as it had conveniently stopped directly across from the tower. Fortunately no one got hurt. There were many other adventures together—too many to describe here. I was born on skis. Those are my early memories of winters in Collingwood.
1 4 CHPT 1: Born on Skis The original family cabin at Osler Bluff
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 1 5 Once my mom got them out skiing, everything was great, but then she looked over her shoulder and said, “Oh, I’ve still got her.” So as she told the story, at two years old, she just put me on some old skis and pushed me out the door.
THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 2 Summers in Muskoka
1 8 CHPT 2: Summers in M uskoka Goad clan in Muskoka, 1966 Back row: Larry, Edward and Jimmy. Next row: Charles, Diana, Mary-Linn, Joan. Next row: John (now Jack), Robin, Grandad, Allison, Granny, Jamie. Next row: Laurie, Geoffrey. Next row: Heather, Mary, Susan, Jennifer, Martha.
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 1 9 In the summers, we would go to Muskoka. My maternal grandfather, Deeg, had a beautiful old cottage on Lake Joe. My paternal grandmother also had bought an island that she subdivided in to three lots, one for each of her boys—my dad and his two brothers. The island was called Laurie Island, but my dad never developed his piece of property because we would always go to Deeg’s cottage. We were all very athletic and outdoorsy; we all knew how to swim really well. The rule was that if you could swim to the flagpole that was drilled into a rock off our dock, then you didn’t have to wear a lifejacket anymore. It was about 30 feet off the end of the dock. We all became really good at swimming to the rock and back. I was just one of those kids that loved to swim and be in the water all the time. We had a couple of beautiful old seabird boats. One of our chores was to clean the boats every week with special lemon oil. But for us kids, we had use of a little tin boat with a six-horsepower motor on the back. I used to take the boat out when I was about eight years old all the way to the Muskoka Lakes Golf and Country Club, which was on Lake Rosseau. It was a long way to the club; you had to first go all the way to Port Sandfield cross under the bridge to Lake Rosseau and then up around a couple of more bays. I just knew the way, I guess because we’d gone there many times. As a little kid, it was pretty amazing that I was allowed to take the boat that far on my own. These are things that kids don’t do nowadays, but we did. It all goes back to being able to swim to the rock and back, so I got to go out in the little tin boat, and take myself to the club to take tennis lessons! It was great. We were all independent; we would just do our own thing. My mom, in particular, raised me to be fiercely independent. I think that relates back to the fact that she never had a working career out of the home. She often talked about how lucky our generation was to be able to study and have a career. Although she went to university, she never used her degree. I know that that was one of her regrets. Instead, my mom raised four children at home and was one of those volunteers with the Junior League, the National Ballet, and other charities. That sense of fierce independence is something she always instilled in me.
2 0 CHPT 2: Summers in M uskoka The rule was that if you could swim to the flagpole that was drilled into a rock off our dock, then you didn’t have to wear a lifejacket anymore. It was about 30 feet off the end of the dock. We all became really good at swimming to the rock and back.
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 2 1 Robin, Susan, Heather and Jamie at Deeg’s cottage in Muskoka, 1964ish Susan starting the tin boat at Deeg’s cottage, May 1968
THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 3 The Diving Bug
2 4 CHPT 3: T h e Diving Bug
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 2 5 The club in Muskoka hosted an annual summer regatta where there were canoe, swimming, and sailing races, and a diving competition. It was at the regatta where I was first introduced to diving. There was a girl there that would do all these fancy tricks from the diving board, and I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a diver. I asked her to teach me a few things that summer, and I entered my age group, under-ten or something, and ended up doing really well. At that point, I had been bitten by the diving bug. But soon after my parents got divorced, and I was living with my mom and my sister. My brothers lived with my Dad. I was only nine when they divorced, and it was pretty traumatic. I remember always bugging my mom to let me take diving lessons. Eventually, after what seemed like years to me, I convinced her, and she signed me up at the Leaside Pool. It was on Saturday mornings, and the fellow teaching there was named John Dickinson. He was one of the big time diving coaches in Ontario, and he trained a team out of Etobicoke. I guess I was talented, so he invited me to join the team. I was ten or 11 by then. It was a huge commitment for my mom to drive me all the way out to Etobicoke and wait two hours while I trained and then bring me home, three days a week. Eventually, I convinced her to allow me to take the bus and subway to Etobicoke, and then she would just pick me up. Later, she hired a student from U of T named Alex Lau, who was also on the diving team. Alex would bring me back on the subway at night and just drop me off at my stop, and then I would walk home. I don’t know exactly what I loved about diving, but it was so graceful and elegant; it involved water, and I loved swimming. I just remember seeing that girl on the diving board and knowing that that’s what I wanted to do. Also, it was fun going into the regatta and winning. I thought I was pretty good, but actually, I wasn’t really that great. I was a good diver, but not a great diver. I was never on the national team; I was more like on the B-team. I don’t know exactly what I loved about diving, but it was so graceful and elegant; it involved water, and I loved swimming. I just remember seeing that girl on the diving board and knowing that that’s what I wanted to do.
THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 4 Running Wild on Laurie Island
2 8 CHPT 4: Running Wild on Laurie Islan d The Cooking Pavillion Caesar
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 2 9 I was 11 or possibly 12 when I was left alone in Muskoka with my sister over the summer. Because my parents divorced, my mom sold her father’s cottage, the cottage that we knew and loved, which was very traumatic and very sad for all of us. It was our happy place. But because my dad had the property on Laurie Island, we just moved down the lake to it. My cousins were also on the island, so that was great, but there were no buildings on my Dad’s property, so for the first year, we slept in tents on tent platforms. My sister and I shared a big old Army and Navy tent, and my brothers and my dad each had their own tents on various parts of the island as well. Eventually, my dad and my brothers, with a little bit of help from me and my sister Heather, built tiny little cabins with plywood roofs. Essentially, they were the frames of cabins with plastic and screen around them. We also had what we called the ‘cooking pavilion,’ which was at the top of the hill. It too was a frame of a cabin with plastic and screen around it, and that’s where we did all the food prep and ate our meals. We had a table and chairs, a counter and sink, barbecue and fridge, but no running water. We would have to go down a steep hill to the lake and fill up 20-gallon plastic jugs with spigots that you can buy at Canadian Tire, and then we would lug these really heavy bags of water up the hill to the cooking pavilion. My dad wired the fridge from the electrical pole that was in the middle of the island. We also had a pit toilet hidden amongst the trees. My dad would go down to the city during the week because he had to work. My brothers who were two and four years older than me also weren’t around because they had to go to summer school that year. So there I was at 11 or 12, with my sister three-and-a-half years younger than me, on the island by ourselves. My cousins were about a half a kilometer down the path; sadly, my other cousins had sold their cottage, so they weren’t around. We had a dog named Caesar who was a big German shepherd, and he was the best dog in the world. Caesar would sleep outside our little cabin, and he would walk us to the cooking pavilion and back, stopping whenever we had to step over a root or stump or rock on the path. He was very protective of us. We were never scared because we had Caesar. When we needed food, we would jump in the tin boat and drive to the marina, where there was a little grocery store, and we would buy whatever we needed and charge it on my dad’s account and then drive back. Then, I would cook for my sister. I remember getting pretty good at cooking on a barbecue; I even learned how to make Yorkshire pudding. My dad had bought a little copper box that you put on the barbecue that was an oven with a temperature gauge on it. I would light the barbecue, put the copper box on it, close the lid, and it would heat up like an oven, and then I would cook Yorkshire pudding and all sorts of other dishes in the little copper box. That’s how my sister and I spent the summer. My dad would come back up on weekends. My dad and my brothers had built a little wooden speedboat that we called the Sea Flea. You could only sit one person in the cockpit. It had a little outboard engine on the back, and we would zip around the lake in it. It was so much fun. One day,
3 0 CHPT 4: Running Wild on Laurie Islan d I took it out and went a little bit too fast, turned too sharply, so the boat slowed; the stern dropped, and the waves swamped the boat. I was in the middle of the lake. I was probably about four- or 500-meters offshore; I didn’t have a lifejacket on because I was a good swimmer, and I was breaking all the rules. The boat was bobbing; luckily, it had an air pocket in the bow, but the engine and the rest of the boat was underwater. I had to abandon the boat and swim to shore. Well, it was a long way. I didn’t realize how far it was and what a tough swim it was going to be—after all, I was only little. As I was getting close to shore, another boat came by and saw the Sea Flea bow bobbing up and down, and they looked around but didn’t see anybody, so they just drove away. I remember thinking, “Hmm, that’s not very helpful.” When I got to shore, I took our much bigger Boston Whaler boat and drove it out to where the Sea Flea was bobbing up and down. I attached the stern rope from the Boston Whaler to the bow rope of the Sea Flea, and I dragged it back to shore. We had a little beach, so I dragged it up onto the beach as far as I could. But, of course, I couldn’t get the engine out of the water because it was too heavy and I was too little, but at least I got it to shore. There it sat until Friday night when my dad came up. When I picked him up at the marina, he asked how our week went, and I told him I had flipped the Sea Flea. He asked, “Where is it now?” and I said, “It’s on the beach.” He then asked, “Where’s the engine?” And I said, “Underwater.” To which he replied, “Oh, that’s not good.” I didn’t even get into trouble. I can’t remember what happened, but he and likely my oldest brother managed to rescue the engine from underwater and took it somewhere and had it fixed, and the Sea Flea was fine because it was a wooden boat. My dad was never worried about us; he knew that we could handle anything because we were raised to be independent—after all, we could swim to the rock and back! I don’t remember ever feeling nervous about being on my own. In fact, when it came time to do the laundry, I had to figure out what to do. There was a little town near the marina called MacTier, which was an old railroad town. Of course, I couldn’t drive because I was still little, so I remember collecting up the laundry and putting it in a garbage bag and then going out onto the road and starting to walk to the laundromat. That’s when I realized it was too far to walk, so I hitchhiked instead. Then, I did the laundry for We had a dog named Caesar who was a big German shepherd, and he was the best dog in the world. Caesar would sleep outside our little cabin, and he would walk us to the cooking pavilion and back, stopping whenever we had to step over a root or stump or rock on the path. He was very protective of us.
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 3 1 myself and my sister and hitchhiked back. When I think back about this, it’s kind of hard to believe. But that’s what I did. I remember my cousin Jennifer getting really upset with her mother because she wouldn’t let us wash our clothes at their cottage. We didn’t have any running water at our place, so we just made do with the lake, bathing and washing our hair in the lake, and hauling the water for cooking, and doing our laundry at the laundromat. It was really fun to be there. My brothers returned in subsequent summers, and as we got older, we would go out with them and our cousins on boats and go to parties and get into all kinds of trouble that normal teenagers get into. I was one of those kids that just lived on the island. My mom was busy off dating, so I don’t think she actually really knew what we were up to—or maybe she didn’t want to know. We had a little beach, so I dragged it up onto the beach as far as I could. But, of course, I couldn’t get the engine out of the water because it was too heavy and I was too little, but at least I got it to shore. There it sat until Friday night when my dad came up. When I picked him up at the marina, he asked how our week went, and I told him I had flipped the Sea Flea. He asked, “Where is it now?” and I said, “It’s on the beach.” He then asked, “Where’s the engine?” And I said, “Underwater.” To which he replied, “Oh, that’s not good.”
3 2 CHPT 4: Running Wild on Laurie Islan d Of course, I couldn’t drive because I was still little, so I remember collecting up the laundry and putting it in a garbage bag and then going out onto the road and starting to walk to the laundromat.
CLIMB BACK IN THROUGH THE WINDOW: THE LIFE OF SUSAN ARCHIBALD 3 3 That’s when I realized it was too far to walk, so I hitchhiked instead. Then, I did the laundry for myself and my sister and hitchhiked back. When I think back about this, it’s kind of hard to believe. ...that’s the end of this No Story Lost sample.