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The Great Depression of the 1930s saw large tracts of the continent locked in drought and devastated by dust bowl conditions. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the Civilian Conservation Corps to create jobs and nurture the environment.

When he arrived from Alberta in 1936 to become Queen’s principal, geologist Robert Wallace was determined that the university would become a partner in applying science to the challenge of conservation. He found an immediate ally in Rollo Earl, head of the Biology Department, which had always seen fieldwork as an integral part of its mandate. In the 1860s, for instance, one of Queen’s early biologists, George Lawson, created an arboretum on the grounds around Summerhill.

Principal Wallace believed that if the university could find a tract of wilderness in Kingston’s hinterland, it could serve as “a stimulus to productive, practical scientific work.” Professor Earl saw it as an opportunity to teach students in a natural setting and foster research by his faculty.

In 1942, with the aid of a grant from the Ontario government, the two men found what they wanted: a 65-acre tract of land jutting out into Lake Opinicon, about 70 kilometres north of campus.

By 1947, Queen’s Point had become home to the Queen’s University Biological Station, a cluster of laboratories and bunkhouses that came alive every summer as students and professors investigated nature and observed humanity’s impact upon the flora and fauna.

Initially directed by Professor Wes Curran, whose interest lay in freshwater fish habitats, the station flourished. Annual aquatic surveys and programs investigating phenomena ranging from forest/soil health to entomology became fixtures of the station. Over the years, it developed a convivial culture as each summer’s researchers lived and explored together. Most came to affectionately call QUBS, “cubes.”

Further acquisitions of land enabled the station to expand to 7,000 acres, land situated in the Frontenac Arch, an area designated by UNESCO as a biosphere. Partnerships with organizations such as the Nature Conservancy of Canada and other Ontario universities have dramatically broadened the station’s constituency.

Alumni generosity, such as that of Andy Chisholm, Com’81, and Laurie Thompson, Artsci’84, have given the station access to a new reserve at nearby Elbow Lake, enabling research on endangered species such as the Blanding’s turtle and the whip-poor-will. A new biodiversity educational centre has been opened.