After going for a spin out to Trout River and back, the day was running out and I only had about an hour left of light as I passed Deer Lake.

This would give me enough time to stop at the church camp.

A recent news article alerted me to the existence of this place, while also delivering the promise that demolition work would be completed as soon as possible.

Located just outside Pasadena, the buildings here belong to the Silver Birches Church Camp. The Salvation Army would house children here for week-long adventure trips, as well as music camp, Brownies, Scouts, etc..

Church camps like this have fallen out of favour though, with parents choosing to enroll their kids into camps closer to home and for shorter periods than an entire week. With the decline in use of Silver Birches, the Salvation Army decided to close the camp.

One other factor was that the two other Salvation Army camps in Newfoundland are newer as Camp Starrigan in Musgravetown was built in 1979 and Twin Ponds near Glenwood was built in 1988. I'm not sure when Silver Birches was constructed, but Facebook has people reminiscing about spending time here in the 60s.

These buildings hold a place in local hearts, but they also possess history that is interesting to those outside the Humber Valley.

During 9/11, when so many international flights were immediately stranded when the airspace over North America closed, there were 6500 people who famously landed in Gander, Newfoundland - but there were also 8 planes that landed in Stephenville Newfoundland, stranding 1113 passengers on the west coast for up to 6 days.

One of these passengers stranded in Stephenville was Ukranian-born scientist Lyuda Sidorenko, who was heading back to America from a conference in England. She and 150 other passengers were bussed from Stephenville up to the Silver Birches camp. Here they encountered their first television since landing, showing the first video any of them saw of the 9/11 attacks. A picture showing her reaction to the video ran as the headline image of the September 13, 2001 Western Star.

Sidorenko went on to say that Silver Birches was an ideal place to be stranded. To go from the stress of terror, missing flights and work meetings, to landing in a place many of the passengers probably never thought about in their lives, Sidorenko suddenly found herself at the relaxing camp on a summer's day. "I didn't know what to expect. The place was beautiful and was so nice that all our worries just melted away," Lyuda recalled to The Western Star ten years later.

While Gander gets the international acclaim for its welcoming nature, love and helpfulness during 9/11, the people of Western Newfoundland did much of the same. Many of the stranded passengers at Silver Birches were blown away by volunteers donating food, clothes, bedding and time. A local musical group even came by to entertain the stranded and do what they could to occupy the passengers' minds for a few hours.

As for exploring Silver Birches, it was interesting enough because it was 13 empty buildings; but 7 mundane bunkhouses are included in that number (which aren't that exciting after you explore 1 or 2). Also the kitchen was empty, the main cabin a graffitied mess, the showers were decimated, the gazebo was a roof laying on the ground, and the boathouse was empty.

The hall/chapel was somewhat exciting because there was a funky stack of about 30 twisted elementary school chairs, but other than that, the most excitement came from crossing this bridge via a folding table; an ingenious solution to a problem brought on by MENSA candidates building a fire on the bridge that led over to the main house/office.

Time ran out on us that day, as we finished up with the boathouse and the sun already over the western hills. I walked away happy that I stopped here before it was demolished, while also figuring there would be no reason for me to ever come back.

It seems like every abandoned building I check out nowadays goes through an evaluation of whether I can use the space as a winter escape to ride my bike. From crummy shacks by the sea to low ceiling storage spaces right in the city, I'm usually always taking a minute to evaluate if it would be a great place to hang out in mid-February.

I can't imagine the church camp was any different. I strapped on my snowshoes and returned prior to leaving for Christmas, with thoughts of possibly riding in the old dining hall.

The dining hall had its problems, with a slippery floor and a huge hole caused by some next level vandals. The floor also didn't feel particularly strong in other places.

This would work though, so I started thinking about cleanup with the broom I brought along, as well as where I would throw all of these ceiling tiles.

Soon after, I had a revelation to head over to the chapel/music hall instead.

The inside was dark and it was much more of a mess, but the floor was cement and the kid-sized stage would provide a nice drop to ride my bike off. Instead of riding flat ground and trying to build something in the kitchen hall, this seemed like a much better idea.

Especially with the addition of some items from the other buildings.

I spent my first visit sweeping the dust, papers and broken chairs into the back half of the building, then disassembling a shelving unit that was made of convenient pieces of angle iron. Now that the stage had a metal edge, there was a proper ledge and a drop to ride. Plus, there was an extra door that someone ripped off the chapel's washroom, in addition to another one I grabbed from a bunkhouse. I thought I would need to build a base to keep these doors from sliding, but screwing the attached door hinges into the walls, the slanted surface seemed to hold up as I booted it a few times.

Returning on snowshoe while carrying my bike a few days later, I had a big enough space that I wasn't always putting my foot in the tire to stop, plus enough objects to keep my interest for a couple of hours in the subfreezing temps. Sure I slipped on the snowy/wet cement a few times, but this was working out better than I could have ever imagined.

It can be hard to have the drive to continually build up speed in the cold, something that's especially true at a place like the Corner Brook skatepark with so many dead ends in its subpar state. The angled doors helped shoot me forward, propelling me towards the stage and keeping me moving.

Back in Corner Brook, we were having a strange winter with big storms, but then instead of the customary dogshit of day-after-day grey accumulative flurries, there was actually some dry and/or sunny days.

This meant I was keeping up with snow shovelling at the skatepark and didn't have much to do at times. Spending each lunch hour or post-work 1/2-hour of daylight shovelling, the skatepark was being cleared of its new stormy and meagre accumulations in no time.

Initially I was a bit conflicted because I knew I couldn't go out to the church camp everyday & skatepark shovelling really helps with the day-to-day, endless drag of winter hopelessness. If it snowed like a regular Corner Brook winter, I would never be able to keep up, as well as go out to the church camp.

Then again, there's been plenty of times where I've been shovelling and know it's not going to get me anywhere (such as snowstorms in late January). I guess the worthwhileness never occurred to me, since this winter wasn't all that bad & I was keeping up.

The lack of snow helped in ways at the church camp as well.

One of the problems with thoughts of winter riding in abandoned buildings is a question of parking. If there's an abandoned building in a town there's plenty of parking, but with such small towns in Western Newfoundland, a lot of abandoned buildings are along the highway or off in the woods - forcing you to park along the highway. Throughout contemplating riding here, I was worried about coming out on snowy days, where my car would be parked on the busy Trans-Canada Highway and I'd have to hope drivers and especially plowmen would see it before it was too late. With all of these dry days though, the plow wasn't out, or it was only the machine that drives slow and spits the bank back to widen the road. It was perfectly fine for my car to be parked there.

The low snowfall amounts also helped with snowshoeing into the church camp.

It was already sweat-induing enough to carry my bike for twenty minutes on snowshoes, without also having to break through a bunch of fresh "pow". I still struggled, especially as I also carried tools, coffee, water and cameras; but it would have been much harder if I wasn't on a hard-packed, crusty ski-doo footprint.

Between riding in Ontario, Quebec, outdoors in Corner Brook and at the church camp, I had 13 little bikes drawn on my calendar for March.

I'd say that's pretty good for living where I do.

There was no winning in late January or for all of February, but by early March there were periods without snowfall, the odd sunny day, and the eventual break of the skatepark ice sheet.

As things moved into April, I was pretty much able to keep my head above (frozen) water and ride outside with regularity. The winter was hard in terms of major storms (I'm thankful I missed a bunch while away), but it was going out like a lingering lamb - bits of snowfall every few days, but no great beatdown.

The last time I went out to the church camp was the last day of March & I was riding the Corner Brook park with regularity the next week. The only problem was the renovated post office was stacking their snow uphill of the quarterpipe, but to my advantage, someone brought towels to dry things up. I used them as pseudo sandbags instead, channeling the water towards the quarterpipe and into the northern exit towards the street/sewer.

I returned to the church camp in July 2017 and was surprised to see it still standing. About the only thing that happened in the meantime was additional smashing and graffiti.

It would seem someone also drew a satanic pentagram on the floor of my indoor.

I strangely felt like I should clean things up, but why would I do that before November? Let the kiddies get bored with their vandalism before it gets too cold & keeps them away...

...oh wait. The pile of chairs that I mashed into the far corner was now in that same corner but without any of the surrounding structure.

This was late October, where I drove to Deer Lake to check out something & figured demolition had to be going down by now, or was delayed another year. It had been about 1.5 years since that initial demolition statement & I hoped this was one of those cases where the owner just says they'll demolish the "eyesore" to placate everyone - only to never do anything, and the whole thing gets forgotten because the internet comment warriors never actually go anywhere but the same 3 places they shop, eat and drink.

Alas, that wasn't the case.

As I rolled up, there were a couple of dudes dismantling one of the buildings & the entire church camp was in various states of disappearing.

I was thankful to have it for one winter, although there will always be part of me that wishes I found this place earlier. Then again, there's also the fact that if I built anymore ramps it would be obvious what I was doing with the hall; then word would get out and other people would've probably destroyed what I had.

I should appreciate the fact that I had this great spot for at least one winter.

RIP Church Camp.