Sechelt’s first park, known as the Sechelt Picnic Grounds, was run by the Union Steamship Company’s offshoot Union Estates from the mid-1920s until the early 1950s. The park was bound by Wharf Avenue, Cowrie Street, Inlet Avenue and today’s Dolphin Street, which was woodland until the 1950s.
For over 30 years large companies such as the Hudson Bay Company, Woodward’s and B.C. Electric sent their employees from Vancouver for an annual outing to Sechelt’s first park, to Selma Park or to Bowen Island on the Union Company’s steamships. Other individuals and families were also transported by the steamships to enjoy the park’s amenities for a day or longer during the summer
months.
The trip to Sechelt took two hours and an onboard band entertained the passengers. Once ashore the picnickers were provided with hot water for their tea or coffee and the children were given free ice cream and fruit. Baseball games, a tug of war and foot races as well as swimming and fishing were enjoyed by the visitors until they boarded the Vancouver bound steamship at 7 p.m.
In March of 1952 Sechelt’s first park was surveyed, divided into lots and placed on the market. The Union Estates manager, Ernie Parr Pearson, requested the Company donate land in Sechelt to replace the park. It deeded five acres for an area to be known as Hackett Park in honour of Ernie’s predecessor Robert (Bob) S. Hackett.
Bob Hackett was born in Ireland in 1884 or 1885 and emigrated to Canada in
1912. He worked in Kamloops and 150 Mile House as a bookkeeper/store manager and postmaster for the Cariboo Trading Company until 1914. He joined the Canadian forces and served in France where he received the D.C.M. for bravery at Passchendaele. He returned to 150 Mile House in 1920 with his wife Marjorie and infant son Robert and continued as postmaster until 1924.
With a glowing recommendation from his Cariboo Trading Company employer he moved to Sechelt (Marjorie did not like the Cariboo’s cold winters). Here he worked for Herbert Whitaker, the Whitaker Estate after Herbert’s death, and from 1926 the Union Steamship Company and its offshoot Union Estates until retiring in 1948 due to poor health.
His work involved overall management of the store, dance pavilion, hotel, bath house, cottage and boat rentals, the tennis and badminton courts, the picnic grounds in Sechelt and Selma Park as well as running the Sechelt Post Office and keeping daily meteorological records!
He continued as postmaster for two more years, retiring completely except for keeping the daily meteorological records until the day he died in 1951. It is fitting that Hackett Park be named after him as he was so well liked and respected by the whole community. He was a gentle, quiet man, efficient and loyal to his employers and a faithful friend to many Sechelt residents.
The Union Steamship Company deeded the five-acre block in 1952 to the Sechelt Board of Trade, which was to run the park until Sechelt became an incorporated village four years later. The board set up a parks committee and volunteers cleared the land, prepared a ball field, and opened up adjoining roads. Dolphin and Medusa streets, Ocean and Trail avenues had been names only on Bert Whitaker’s 1909 map of Sechelt.
In 1958 the Kinsmen Club prepared a children’s playground, fencing of the park was begun and in 1960, when Hackett Park was officially opened, a backstop and flagpole were installed. Later bleachers, a stage, and power poles were erected and a concession stand and changing rooms were built.
Hackett Park has seen many activities held in its grounds: baseball and soccer are two favourite sports held on the playing field and tennis and pickleball are very popular on the courts. A friendly rivalry between Sechelt and Gibsons baseball teams led to many tense matches over the years. May Days and Timber Days were well-attended annual events in the past as are Canada Days and various festivals and arts and crafts fairs today.
The donations of numerous local businesses and efforts of organizations such as the Kinsmen and Lions Clubs, the various Sechelt mayors and councillors and municipal staff and countless volunteers have all contributed to making Hackett Park Sechelt’s own Central Park.
2020 has seen very few organized events in our park but it is hoped it will become a popular venue again once the pandemic has passed and the new stage is built.
– Ann Watson, Contributing Writer
