Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School (SJCBS) was founded in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada in the early 1960s by Ted Byfield and Frank Wiens, who believed that boys were not challenged by the education system or by society in general. The two started an Anglican lay order called the Company of the Cross, claimed to be based on a reading of some of C.S. Lewis's writings. The Company of the Cross was under the authority of the resident bishop in Winnipeg, officially called the Diocese of Rupert's Land. The teachers were paid $1.00 per day and provided room and board. Two other schools, Saint John's School of Alberta and Saint John's School of Ontario were founded on the same ideas in later years. Arduous row-boat trips (called "cutters"), later replaced by canoes, and snowshoeing and dog-sledding were part of the outdoor education program. The school's founders believed that boys should be pushed to what they might believe is their breaking points, and this would "build character". The school was seen by many as a way to help troubled boys, usually from 11 to 14 years of age.[1] Its primary focus was challenging boys from every social stratum to work together in order to grow morally, physically, intellectually and spiritually in the tradition of Victorian "muscular Christianity".
Ted Byfield wrote in 1996 that rules were enforced with a "flat stick across the seat of the pants" in the early years of the school.[2] In the article, Byfield defended this practice as acceptable at the time.
The students ran the physical plant of the school, doing all the janitorial work, cooking and serving food, cleaning kennels, making and selling processed meat products door-to-door for fundraising, and raising sled dogs.[3] A boy died in the 1970s while on one of the school's lengthy snowshoe hikes.[4]
The school closed in the early 1990s, struggling for funds and credibility after a canoeing disaster on Lake Timiskaming where 13 people died of hypothermia.[1] In 1973, the National Film Board of Canada produced The New Boys, a documentary about a school canoe trip, as part of its West series for CBC-TV.[5]
In 2000, former teacher Kenneth Mealey pled guilty to sexually assaulting 5 students in 1982 and 1983. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article on his sentencing said that "St. John's school administrators knew about the assault allegations but chose to fire Mealey instead of calling the authorities".[6]