After the Canadian National Institute for the Blind sold its Bowen property in 2010, CNIB alumni Alex Jurgensen made a promise to his cohorts and campers.
“I stood on the porch of the CNIB,” Alex says, “and assured my fellow campers that I would not allow this camp to fail. I still look back on that many years later.”
Camp Bowen is unique to Western Canada and receives visitors as far east as Saskatchewan. Each of their weekly programs is fully booked from June until September, with an average waiting list of 30 applicants per session. Many who come for the first time will come again, building their confidence and “making friendships that will last a lifetime.”
“In one week they will come in completely shy, and come out with the confidence to take on the world – I can only imagine what two or three weeks could do,” Alex says
The CNIB Lodge was purchased from the Union Steamship Company in 1963, operating for almost 50 years before budget cuts led CNIB to sell the property. It is solely due to volunteers and alumni like Alex that these programs continue to operate, under the management of an independent non-profit organization known as the Camp Bowen Society for the Visually Impaired.
Camp Bowen has recently announced a fundraising goal of $1.2 million. These funds will accumulate sufficient interest to indefinitely cover operational costs, and hence provide “stability funding” for Camp Bowen programs. These funds will also allow the Camp to look ahead to future long term projects, including a fall and spring break retreat.
I first met Alex during a visit to the Archives, where he and his sister Kimberly came to scan the contents of our CNIB file for Camp Bowen reference.
“It’s important to understand the history and culture of a program and where other people have failed,” Alex says.
The collections from the past are a way for longstanding organizations on Bowen to reflect back and prepare them for the challenges of the future. Much more than that, the articles in the CNIB file tell a story: a story of a long and deep connection between the members of the Bowen Island community and the annual campers at CNIB.
“Having people connected through storytelling,” Alex says, in both a local and global context, “really helps to foster understanding — an understanding of who we are, what we do, what the visually impaired community itself is all about.”
As Alex describes, the Camp has three roles. First, it enables campers to build independent living skills through engaging and fun activities. Secondly, it builds a supportive and integrated network among its guests, as well as among the parents and family who are working to support them. Thirdly, and most uniquely, Camp Bowen encourages campers to make connections with other people in the community. The confidence built through these connections, Alex suggests, transfers over to their home communities as well.
“There has been a longstanding relationship between blind people and the Bowen community as a whole,” Alex tells me. The people on Bowen Island are familiar with the program, and “islanders here treat people with a dignity that’s rarely seen in larger city centres.” This is why Camp Bowen must remain on Bowen: here, campers are heard and accepted for who they are, and “blindness is not taken into account.”
As the community coordinator for Bowen, Alex has become a voice for the visually impaired community. An entrepreneur as well as a software engineer, he has also pioneered an accessibility program called Conversations, which enables visually impaired individuals to “view” messages through audio feedback. The Canadian Council for the Blind and other organizations subscribe to this program. Accessibility Hound, Alex’s software company, redirects subscription payments directly to the camp.
“All of the decisions that I myself make personally,” Alex shares, “revolve around what benefits the society.”
A promise is a promise, but it has become much more than that. For Alex Jurgensen, it is about creating a secure and lasting legacy for subsequent generations of blind and visually impaired Canadians.
Five years of “ground work” and $5,00 towards their funding goal, parents, siblings, relatives and friends return as volunteers or visitors to the place that brought their loved ones the confidence, social network, and support that they needed to succeed and grow.
“If it wasn’t for the community, we wouldn’t have the program we do now,” Alex shares. “Up till now about ninety per cent of our funding came from donations from individuals on island.”
It is not just fundraising – cooperation with the municipality and community, in the form of hosted visits or volunteering at Camp Bowen, are other ways that the public can and has contributed to the Camp Bowen vision.
This year at Bowfest, the Bowen Island Museum and Archives will be hosting a “Mystery Box” activity, wherein participants will have to identify artifacts solely through touch. All donations will go towards the Camp Bowen Society fund. The camp will also be hosting an open house in early September, and everyone is welcome to attend.
“During the five years that I’ve worked on Bowen,” Alex writes, “there have been many questions from Bowen Island residents that I have seen come up time and time again. Our upcoming press release, titled ‘Camp Bowen, What Islanders Need to Know,’ seeks to explain the transition of Camp Bowen away from CNIB, what our current operations look like and address many other issues of import to the local community. Residents are also welcome to call me at 778-908-0521 with any questions or concerns they may have about Camp Bowen and/or the society.”
Kathryn Ney is an archival assistant at the Bowen Island Museum & Archives.
