Happy Canada Day, the national day of Canada! Greek-letter organizations (GLOs) have been a part of Canadian higher education since 1879 when Zeta Psi chartered its chapter at the University of Toronto. The first National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) women’s organization in Canada was the University of Toronto chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta in 1887.
Many GLO conventions have been held in Canada. Locales include the Empress Hotel, Victoria, British Columbia; Lake Louise, Alberta; Jasper Park, Alberta, and Niagara Falls. My favorite Canadian location is the Bigwin Inn in Lake of Bays, Ontario.
When C.O. Shaw purchased Bigwin Island who would have guessed that his establishment, the Bigwin Inn, would live on in the annals of GLO history? He hired a designer in 1915 and the Bigwin Inn opened in June 1920. By Shaw’s death in 1942, many GLO conventions had taken place at the Inn. Through several ownership changes, and the advent of luxury hotels, the Inn finally closed in 1970.
Kappa Kappa Gamma met there in 1924, followed by Pi Beta Phi the next year. Phi Kappa Tau convened there in 1927. Zeta Tau Alpha, Alpha Xi Delta, and Delta Zeta held conventions at the Bigwin Inn in 1928, followed by Sigma Phi Epsilon in 1930. And there are others, too, but the info isn’t that easy to find on a rushed Sunday morning.
Of the 1925 Pi Beta Phi Convention, it was said:
To bring several hundred guests across the border into another country, to have baggage put through customs’ inspection; to transport passengers by train and boat; to satisfy the desires and whims of so many travellers from so many parts of the glob was a tremendous task….Canadian hospitality will long be a most vivid memory to the ‘sisters from the States.’ Trains were met in Toronto; special parties and forms of entertainment were devised for national officers passing through there; and every assistance was given in helping with transportation or other problems.
This snippet in the October 1924 Key led me to wonder if these moving pictures exist somewhere. What a fun event to look at 90 years later. Please Kappa friends, let me know if they are available somewhere.
The history of this convention is to be preserved in picture form, not only by snapshots, but in moving pictures taken by the Ontario Government. A series of events of educational and historical importance is being photographed and we qualify under both terms! The films of these pictures may be secured upon application to the Executive Secretary by chapters wishing to have them shown. They include various aspects of convention, as they were taken at intervals over a period of several days-and you may see your sisters in caps and gowns, or swimming suits, or arrayed for the masquerade!
The Pi Beta Phi Chapter at the University of Toronto helped coordinate the 1925 Convention. Dr.. Edith Gordon, the Convention Guide, is in the front.
Tade Hartsuff Kuhns, one of my favorite Kappa Grand Presidents, was present at the 1924 Convention
