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Each fall, thousands of alumni make the annual migration to campus for Homecoming. The trip can be long and arduous for those furthest away – 14 to 16 hours by plane and another two-and-a-half by train. That, you might think, is the ultimate expression of Queen’s dedication.

That is, until you hear the story of Allan Charles “Dibb” Dibblee’s first trek – or should we say odyssey? – to campus in June of 1947, a trip that changed his life. Mr. Dibblee, Arts’53, IR’54, wasn’t coming from another country, or even another province. But in 1947, a trip from the backwoods of northern Ontario wasn’t an excursion; it was a commitment.

Mr. Dibblee, then a forestry worker with aspirations of higher education, recalls it was a fine day when he set out, having enrolled in a summer semester at Queen’s. 

“The journey began 40 miles upriver from civilization by boat, down to the dock at the depot camp, and then 15 miles by miniature railroad to avoid the rapids … to the northern dock for the final boat trip to the town dock,” he remembers.

From there he caught a Canadian National Railway train to the railway hub of Cochrane – but still some 730 kilometres north of Toronto.

So, he switched to Ontario Northland Railway heading south from Moosonee. The train took him overnight to Toronto, arriving “exactly 24 hours after the start of (my) journey.” 

And still hours away from Kingston.

On a late afternoon train ride to Kingston, Mr. Dibblee met 30 teachers headed to summer school at Queen’s.  

“I was an object of curiosity when I told them I was a forestry worker seeking an education,” he says.

Once in Kingston, he found a room at Berry House, one of the co-ops founded by engineering students just a few years before, and began a summer of learning and socializing, including “dances at Ban Righ … trips to Wolfe Island and Gananoque, and off-campus summer theatre at The Princess Hotel.”

It was a time he says he will always remember – and a story familiar to his family members who also became alumni: son Tom Dibblee, Ed’87; daughter-in-law Sharon (Kehoe) Dibblee, Artsci/PHE’83, Ed’84; and four grandchildren as well.

It’s a connection that all goes back to a sunny Saturday in 1947, when Allan Dibblee set foot on the boat that put him on course to Kingston, and a tricolour destiny that’s a source of pride for his entire family.

“The campus was busy all summer and with exams in August, it was all over,” Mr. Dibblee says. “But the Queen’s bug had bitten, and I became a true Queen’s man and as a result of the summer school experience, those days are forever in my memory.

“That trip … was one to remember.”