I went back to see St. Hubert in July 2012. All the street names were Francicized years ago. Pine Circle where we lived is now named Rue Lery. My PMQ, no 40 burned down years ago according to the neighbours. Only the driveway remains. And all the row houses we called "the brick buildings" have been torn down. A wave of condos and town houses is creeping it's way across the fields that were behind our PMQ and the endless woods that were there full of poison ivy has thinned out and there is lots of visible housing now as Longueuil has expanded towards the base. The schools still look the same. The swimming pool and ice rink are gone. The solid steel and wood playgrounds with the Kamikaze teetor-totters have been replaced by kid-friendly plastics.
I've also been to Cold Lake a couple of times. The PMQs look more or less the same, except a bit run down and many are empty. The commercial center that had the theatre, pool, snack bar, Tomboy grocery store and the BX is all gone and part of it is a skateboard park. Kind of sad.

Interesting to hear from others who were St Hubert Brats like me! I also lived on Pine Circle #6 actually. Lived there 1970-74. I remember looking out my bedroom window at night at the rink and seeing the older kids playing hockey. The FLQ crisis happened when we were newly moved in and the older kids used to tell me that Pierre Laporte was buried under our back porch! what a nightmare at 6 years old!
Remember the Gypsy store just off base? Mrs Andrusiak as my Kindergarten teacher and Mr Bankuti as the Gym teacher? Mr Poole as the evil Principal at St Michaels school. Sister Claire as the miserable Nun/teacher.
Happy times. When did you live there? Did you look at the PMQs on Street view? pretty cool.
I hope to hear from you.

Rick

Hi Rick,
You're not going to believe this but before we lived in 40 Pine Circle we lived in 6 Pine Circle. My family moved to St. Hubert in 1956 two months before my twin sister and I were born. So we lived in no 6 for about a year then moved around the circle to number 40 which had more room. Pretty funny coincidence. I actaully took a lot of pictures of number 6 last summer. Like all the houses it's been done over with vinyl siding. I sure remember the Gypsy store, and sometimes having to climb over the barbed wire fence if the back gate wasn't unlocked. We left St. Hubert in 1965 and moved to Cold Lake Alberta.
Cheers,
Bill

Bill,
That is absolutely crazy that we both lived in the same house! Highly probable we had the same bedroom too! lol
Remember the detached garage? I used to use it as a hang out with my friends. My dad kept an old black 1962 Chrysler Imperial in there. We moved to Camp Borden from St Hubert and then to Summerside PEI. Great memories. I'm now in Ottawa where i'm at the 30 year point of my own Military career. As much as i wanted to get away from the military when i was young I guess it was in my blood. Did you stray from the military path in life?

Regards

Rick Quesnel

Rick,
My dad retired in 1969 but the only one of us to follow in his footsteps was my brother Al who was a forces weatherman but has since retired. My family lived in Ottawa before I was born, in Rockcliffe, which being close to a big city I guess the land is too valuable to let the PMQs stay.
Cheers,
Bill

I made this short webpage comparing two trips my wife and I made in 2004 and 2012 to St. Hubert. Previously I hadn't seen the base since 1965. The webpage was to show my siblings how things have changed but some of you may also be interested. There is no direct link in this forum so you'll have to cut and paste it into your browser. https://sites.google.com/site/rcafstationsainthubert/

Regards,
Bill Chalk

Very cool Bill! nice seeing pics of the old house from different perspectives. I have some St Hubert Pics i'll try to upload as well from @ 1970-72.
Remember the old outdoor rink? some of my best memories were on that thing. long gone now.
Thanks for posting this!

Rick

Rick, My older sister Penny reminded me that after we moved out of 6 Pine Circle in 1957 she became friends with a girl named Janet Hickey who lived in that house in the 1960's, so she spent a lot of time playing in that house.

Bill

Interesting reading all the posts. Mr. Bankuti was an instrumental force in shaping my life. I lived at 9 Pine Circle for many years. Lots of fond memories of my time there as a youngster from the early to mid 60s.

Robert Gadoua

Hi Fellow brats. Dad was in the Air Force and we were posted at Moncton, Churchill, Falconbridge, and Baldy Hughes. Had the same experience when I took me wife back to Falconbridge to show her base. Not only was it much smaller than I remembered but run down. Like all of you moving continually and not building life long friendships has its negatives and pluses. I would like to hear from anyone who was stationed in Falconbridge between 1960-64

Merl,
This forum doesn't seem to get much activity nowadays. Most people seem to have moved on to Facebook. Two Facebook sites for former AF brats are the Facebook site that goes with this CAFBA forum, and the C.F.B. Base Brats group https://www.facebook.com/groups/base.brats/
There are also some Facebook groups for specific bases like Cold Lake and Rockcliffe.
Cheers,
Bill

WOW! We lived at 42 - 1972-1980...my dad was André Hébert...he was known in the community as a hockey coach. There was a dirt road right behind our house. On the right side of it was a creek - I remember catching tadpoles and minnow. There was a field and then woods. The field froze over some years and it was a huge ice surface. We played in the woods after the field and sometimes crawled under the fence to go into "forbidden territory" beyond the base...but never too long! The pool was our summer hangout...they had a "summer school" program...theatre...gym...we would go to St. Jean each Friday night to play hockey...life was simple and fun...no internet or PS whatever they call it...reel-to-reel movies (my dad was a "qualified" operator of the movie projector at the theatre)...then there was TeenAires (the hangout when I entered the awkward teenaged years...Styx-Led Zep-Pink Floyd...It's all coming back now...I was in the military as a career...was posted in St. Jean...went back to St. Hubert one time to "reflect"...very strange feeling...could even remember a certain smell at the elementary school...smell was still there-unbelievable.

I remember you I think??!!! Did you ever sing at a Christmas event at the base church or something like that...I can't believe I remember this...I think we were in the same grade...Sister Claire...Mr. & Mrs. Poole...Mlle Caron (I think I had a crush on her!)...did you play hockey? We lived at 42 Pine Circle...last house....that whole unit is gone now, but the others are still there. I remember the "long walk" to the gypsy store - my older sister and her 'crew' would go there and take me along to go buy firecrackers. We were there 1972-1980...my dad was André Hébert...he was known in the community as a hockey coach. There was a dirt road right behind our house. On the right side of it was a creek - I remember catching tadpoles and minnow. There was a field and then woods. The field froze over some years and it was a huge ice surface. We played in the woods after the field and sometimes crawled under the fence to go into "forbidden territory" beyond the base...but never too long! The pool was our summer hangout...they had a "summer school" program...theatre...gym...we would go to St. Jean each Friday night to play hockey...life was simple and fun...no internet or PS whatever they call it...reel-to-reel movies (my dad was a "qualified" operator of the movie projector at the theatre)..I remember most of the Pine Circle gang - the Blais' - big family - Nolans - Nicholsons - MacKintosh' - Dubé's - Holme's - Doiron - Landaults - Robicheau - Bédard - Poirier - Anderson's - Guilbeault (I think the lady of the house was a sub-teacher) - Cassidy's...my dad had a couple of postings there, so I ended up finishing High School (they closed the school on the base so I had to go to a polyvalente for my last year - very daunting!)...Thanks for the memories man, especially when you mentioned the "Gypsy Store", that's what triggered my thinking.

Marc H.

Hello Marc! Your memory is very vivid! i also remember all those places. Especially the field behind the PMQs where we skated in the winter and explored in the summer. It's all houses and urban sprawl out there now. I was there from 1970 - 1974. I lived at 6 Pine circle. When i looked out my back door i saw the outdoor rink and the outdoor pool. I was born in 1965 so i was in Kindergarten to grade 3 at St Michaels school. I did sing in the choir and was an alter boy for a short time. Although I'm not religious now, i have nothing but happy memories about the church culture back then. I would like to share a few pictures with you that might confirm if we knew each other or not. Are you on Facebook? If so I'll send you a friend request so we can sort out these foggy memories!
I'm glad you reached out on this forum!

Marc Hebert, funny but we lived at 40 Pine Circle from 1957 to 1965. The Smiths lived in your half of the unit at 42. We also lived in 6 Pine Circle in 1956 where Rick Quesnel lived, but we moved to 40 after a year when my mum discovered she was having twins. There was a hay field behind 40/42 which caught fire one year. The light poles on the street had fire alarm boxes mounted on them so my brother ran out and pulled the alarm. The woods were full of poison ivy and there was rumoured to be a farmer who we called "farmer brown" who would shoot you with his shotgun full of rock salt if he caught you on his land. I'm sure this was just an urban legend as there was a similar story at Cold Lake. Don't remember a creek but there was an irrigation ditch on the east side of the PMQ area. Sadly, 40/42 burned down sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s and they demolished it, along with the brick buildings that each had about 5 townhouse-like units in them. The fields out back are full of new townhouses and the fencing that we sometimes had to climb over to get to the gypsy store is all gone.