Jeanette Machan

I know some of the older fellas, they would…if weather permitted would freeze over the tennis court. That was by the bowling club, and we would skate but it didn’t happen too often because we didn’t get it that cold that it would keep the ice that long.
I remember tobogganing, I think it was once or twice, we’d haul this great big toboggan which was made by some of the fellas. I think probably, maybe my brother’s ages really, made it. And we’d go way up to, what we called the Ranches, which is up Anmore now. And I was only on the big toboggan once and then my sleigh once and boy you really came down that hill, I’ll tell ya. You really came down it. It was scary.

Emily Hyde- nee Hanson

The tennis court became an ice rink and also Bert Robinson would light up the lake so that the kids could go out there and skate with some lights.
In December 1942, the inlet froze hard and long enough for people to skate on it. It had rained a lot and then suddenly the weather changed and the fresh water froze for quite a long time. The ice eventually broke up around New Years.

Some people were very good skaters. The boys had the best part of the ice for hockey. There was a big crack in the middle of the inlet and some people jumped over it.

Thelma Davies

Ioco was a make your own fun kind of place and one thing to do was to ride your sleigh down Sunnyside Road. Mom recalled pulling her sleigh up to the red school house in Anmore. Sometimes there was there was a bonfire at the school house. Then everyone rode their sleigh or toboggan down the hill sometimes right to the beach.

The Older boys would get metal pipes and attach 2 or three toboggans together. They called this “hob noggin.”

“The Imperial Oil used to block off the road at the foot of the hill going up to Imperial Oil so that us kids could bobsled all the way down 4th Avenue from the top right down and over the railway tracks along to the, you know, where the docks were. We used to love bobsledding from up at the Ranches, but that was only one sleigh ride a night, because by the time you walked all the way to the top of the Ranch hill and came down, well that took care of it. But you know, just ordinary fun things like that”.

Jeanette Machan

Then twice I know of, in winters, the Burrard Inlet even freze over that we walked over on the ice from the Ioco Pier to the Port Moody. The ice was not really smooth.

Marjory Kingsbury

Also, in the winter the boys would make a large toboggan and we would pull it up the hill (5 miles) to the Ranches (now called "Anmore”) and then we would ride down. It was fast — I didn't like it much but I went along. We would go up and down several times in an evening.

Behind the refinery was a lake called Deer Lake (now called "Sasamat”). At the lake was a pump house and a watchman named Albert Clark. The water was used for the cooling system of the refinery and was our drinking water — so no swimming there. I used to go home with the Clark girls sometimes after school and row around the lake. When it came time for me to go home, I had to be escorted to the refinery as there were many bears and cougars as it was a wooded area near the mountains. This lake also froze over and we skated there a lot. We were allowed to walk through the refinery. This lake has now become a beautiful recreation area called "White Pine Beach" and is too, too busy all summer long.