“There is good news for those who plan to attend Union College’s Field Nature School in the Rockies this summer,” announced the Union College Clocktower on June 17, 1948.
Biology professors Frank Marsh and Walter Page had just returned from scouting locations for Union College’s first Rocky Mountain field biology school. They discovered the perfect camp site on the eastern slope of the Medicine Bow Range three miles from Clark Peak and Cameron Peak—both with subalpine vegetation, two miles south of Cameron Lake, and seventy miles up Poudre Canyon Road (Colorado State Road 14) from Fort Collins. The site’s remote location in Roosevelt National Forest guaranteed that it would not be crowded with tourists for the August wildflower season, but also allowed opportunities for students to study the region’s flora and fauna from the mountain lakeside to the mountain tundra.
Marsh made arrangements with the United States Forest Service to use the primitive camp site, which included three cabins, but Union College faculty and students were not the first Seventh-day Adventists associated with the location. It is possible that Marsh and Page had received a tip about this site through Adventist contacts.
This map shows the approximate location of Spaulding Sawmill Camp.
This particular location was also known as the Spaulding Sawmill Camp according to student reporter Bruce Baker (“College Credit the Hard Way,” Clocktower, September 15, 1949), although readers will be hard pressed to find any reference to a camp by this name. The Spauldings were a Seventh-day Adventists family who moved to Larimer County, Colorado, in 1910. Francis Milo “Frank” and Ada May (Wood) Spaulding farmed in Hewlett’s Gulch along the eastern end of Poudre Canyon Road not far from Bellvue, Colorado. Frank was also interested in logging and set up a sawmill in the gulch. In 1923 Frank and his son, Cyril Orestes Spaulding, entered into a contract with the North Poudre Irrigation Company for 50,000 board feet of lumber. The location where the Spauldings were to deliver the lumber, and where the irrigation company would pick it up, very closely matches the description of where the Union College field biology camp was held. Today Cameron Lake Campground is nearby, but this is not precisely the same location. The sawmill camp was closer to Poudre Canyon Road than is the present campground.
Camp Life
Held at the peak of the mountain wildflower season, the first camp was scheduled for August 8-26, 1948. The college provided transportation. Prospective campers were warned about cool nights, even in August, at an elevation above 9,000 feet. Housing cost $5, unless one brought their own hammock or tent in which to sleep outside. Other fees included the regular tuition for a three-credit college course plus a $5 lab fee. Meals cooked by Alice Marsh, Dr. Marsh’s wife, were available for an additional fee, although students could bring their own food to cook over the communal campfire.
Students registered for 3 credits of either lower or upper division credit, the primary content of which was field identification of plants and animals. The daily schedule included morning worship, breakfast, a work period, a lecture period, and lunch. This was followed by an afternoon of specimen collection, supper, and evening campfire. Walter Page led worship around the campfire each evening at 9 p.m.
The camp at the Spaulding Sawmill site was held each August for five consecutive years. The courses offered, as well as the camp staff, changed from year to year. In 1949 the courses included Rocky Mountain Wildlife, Ecology of Rocky Mountain Wild Life, and Fresh Water Biology (Clocktower). In 1950 Donald M. Brown replaced Frank Marsh as camp director.
In August 1953, the Union College Rocky Mountain Field Biology Camp (also called the Rocky Mountain Biological Station) moved to Glacier View Camp (now known as Glacier View Ranch) in Ward, Colorado. The Colorado Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists had acquired this property for a youth summer camp and retreat center in 1949. Now in 1953, it hosted students from Union College as well as church school teachers and youth leaders who were also invited to register for the classes. Neil Rowland replaced Donald M. Brown, but Walter Page continued to be a regular faculty member. Their wives, Marie Rowland and Janette Page, served as camp cooks.
From 1953 to 1961, the Biological Station was held each year at Glacier View with Neil Rowland serving as camp director. Alfred E. Perry assisted with biology courses, Rene Evard, professor of chemistry, taught mineralogy. At Glacier View, the featured expedition was a hike up Sawtooth Mountain. In 1959, five courses were offered: Nature Education, Field Nature, Ecology of Rocky Mountain Plants, Beginning Mineralogy, and Petrology. In 1961 courses included Nature Education, Field Nature, Beginning Minerology, Mammalogy, and Ecology of Rocky Mountain Plants. By diversifying the camp’s courses beyond biology, faculty hoped more students would be interested in participating (Clocktower). Adventist elementary and high school teachers were also invited to register for these classes (Journal of True Education).
Student Shenanigans
Record of students’ experiences during the Rocky Mountain Biology Camps is limited. Bruce Baker, who registered for the camp in 1949, found the program strenuous. With some incredulity, he reported of a fellow student:
Hubert Morgan created quite a stir in camp with his mountain climbing ability. On the last day of the camp, he made a second trip to Clark’s Peak, this time in only four and a half hours. Although he had been the last to leave camp and the first to arrive at the peak on the previous hike, he had forgotten to sign the register.
By the early 1960s, the junior camp program at Glacier View had grown so that it required use of the facilities into August. Union College administration did not find it feasible to maintain another facility in the Rocky Mountains for use only two or three weeks out of the year, and the field biology program was abandoned (Everett Dick, Union: College of the Golden Cords, pg. 318). The era of the Union College Rocky Mountain Biological Station was not well covered by student editors of the Clocktower newspaper and Golden Cords yearbook in the 1950s. Now it is a forgotten chapter of Union Adventist University’s history.
