Gallery • 6 Photos

Christopher Ma

Running for the glory!

It’s that time of the year again. Just on the first weekend of school, the boarding community got kicked out from the warm, comfy wraps of Harker Hall, right into the cold, dripping weather for their annual trip to the outskirts of Vancouver, Anvil Island. The boys didn’t mind though, what better way to start school than immediately dropping all your books and have some fun?

Anvil Island is surrounded entirely by nature, with no Wi-Fi or data nearby. This gave the boarders a chance to look up from their screens and interact with new people. Many people spent their time on games like basketball, volleyball, and Frisbee, but a simple yet fun game called gaga ball, attracted many new boarders to join in. But things got real at night, as the solemn, yet exciting ceremony of house sorting (New boarders are sorted to either Maitland, Sweeny, Robison, and Hunter)began, as by then, all the new students had a house to fight for, marking the start of the Great War of the Intramurals 2018.

Many activities were held after that night, most notably on the second day, where the boys had the pleasure of hunting down Harker Hall’s faculty, dressed in animal pajamas, hiding in the midst of Anvil Island and its facilities. Houses had to catch them by making a human circle around them and lead them back to the “zoo.” A lot of running in exchange for some revenge over teachers who didn’t ace their every assignment was enjoyed remarkably by most of the boys. Mr. Hesketh nearly lost his glasses from the mad scramble to get him and his bright pink unicorn butt.

And of course, the grand finale, the Anvil Island Race. The race started with five brave souls from each house jumping into the freezing sea to save their beloved house captain “trapped,” back to the shore. Then on came along some fun challenges from slam dunking to directing someone blindfolded through a cup minefield to get a rubber chicken, to having the whole house go through a hula hoop as quickly as possible. You could see the competitive spirit raging within every single person’s face. In the end, Sweeny ended up winning the race, taking the lead in house points, for now.

It has been the 8th year since the tradition of going to Anvil Island at the start of the year began, and Mr. Hesketh has been to every single one of them. If asked if he ever gets bored of coming here, he would smile and say,

“We change the activities every year, besides, what’s not to love about interacting with nature and meeting new people?”

Every year, Anvil Island has left many delightful memories into the boarders’ minds, giving them a fresh and wonderous start to the year, and will become a tradition to the Harker Hall community for many years to come.