Ron Schafer says a voice guided him to the hiding spot in the loft of an old barn in South Langley, B.C.
Behind a thin layer of wallpaper, in the space between studs, Schafer pulled out a sterling silver trophy partially wrapped in paper that disintegrated when he touched it.
He took it home, cleaned it up and set it on a shelf with the intention of researching it.
That was 30 years ago. Schafer made some progress, but life kept getting in the way.
Now Schafer‘s on a mission to get it back to its rightful owners and he believes they’re in Manitoba.
“That’s my whole kind of purpose, to find some descendant of Lachlan Collie and give the cup to them, because it’s their possession, not mine,” he said.
Collie was a bagpiper extraordinaire in Winnipeg’s early days, winning competitions and playing for future kings, according to an obituary that made the front page of the Winnipeg Evening Tribune on June 27, 1929.
He died earlier that same day at age 70. He had a heart attack while stepping onto a streetcar on his way to work at the CNR Transcona shops.
He’s buried in Winnipeg’s Elmwood cemetery.
Schafer tried to find relatives but hasn’t had any luck.
“He was kind of the guy when it came to bagpipe playing. I mean, when you research his name, wow, there’s a lot of history behind this individual,” Schafer said. “I would really like to see it go back to the family.
“That would be nice sitting on their mantelplace, in their home, so they can look at it, thinking this was my grandfather’s or great-grandfather’s.”
For help in narrowing his search, Schafer turned to CBC News to spread the word.
But maybe it was Collie who helped Schafer find it in the first place.
Schafer, who lives in Kelowna, worked in the B.C. Lower Mainland for a natural gas company when his crew was sent to a demolition project one afternoon in the early 1990s.
Developers bought an acreage and wanted to knock down the house and barn. Schafer‘s crew needed to disconnect the lines.
He hoped to look through the house, just for fun, but as he was finishing some work, Schafer saw the excavator already tearing into it.
He decided to quickly poke around in the barn, which had old straw and the lingering smell of animals on the ground level. The loft, though, was wallpapered, like it had been a living space.
“All of a sudden, I heard a voice and it came over my left shoulder and it said ‘punch the wall,’” said Schafer, who looked over his shoulder, thinking the foreman had crept up behind him.
“There was absolutely no one. I just got goosebumps. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there … and then I just thought, well, I’ll go and punch the wall.”
His hand passed effortlessly through the paper.
“There was no backing. There was no lath and plaster, no drywall,” Schafer said.
He walked along the wall, punching more holes. On the third one his hand hit something. He peeled back the wallpaper and pulled out the cup, wrapped in tattered paper.
Schafer kept walking and punching while holding the trophy when things started to shake.
“The excavator [operator] didn’t know I was in the barn and … I see his bucket coming in through the roof.”
Schafer dashed out as lumber crashed, “and I just kept running to our service truck.”
The trophy, engraved as the Athole Challenge Cup, with names and dates of winners, was cleaned but sat for years in Schafer‘s home until his wife, Corinne, suggested he was guided by a ghost and needed to honour that.
“At first I just kind of brushed it off. This is the last thing I want to be telling any of our friends,” he said.
“But over time, yes, now I truly do believe it. I definitely heard this voice.”
With a young family at the time, Schafer had little chance for research, but one Christmas, he unwrapped the trophy.
Corinne had taken it to the Museum of Vancouver and a curator determined it was made in England in 1911 and shipped to Winnipeg.
Schafer learned it was a bagpiping trophy and contacted associations in Winnipeg, but the COVID-19 pandemic halted the headway.
“I did find out that there was a particular clause in this championship that said if a winner won the cup three times … they took ownership of the cup.”
Collie won in 1911, 1912 and 1920. The latter is the final engraving. The 1911 one is the first.
Born in Scotland in 1858, Collie began piping at age 17 and moved to Manitoba in 1882.
He played for many high-ranking officials, including the Duke of York (later King George V), was pipe major for the Cameron Highlanders in the First World War, and “won all the gold medals in open competition in Winnipeg,” his obituary said.
Collie’s name also appears three times on another trophy at the regimental museum for the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, inside the Minto Armoury in Winnipeg.
The Athole Cup would be a welcome addition to the collection, said Dwight MacAulay, president of the St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg, which is dedicated to Scottish culture, heritage and traditions.
“We’re trying to scout for any living family members. However, if none can be found, perhaps the trophy could be donated … and if a family member shows up, it could be passed on,” he said.
Collie was also a member of the Winnipeg Police Pipe Band, he said.
Schafer intends to get in touch with MacAulay. He wants to do right for Collie, but also to honour Corinne, who died in February this year.
More about Collie and the Cameron Highlanders — redesignated in 1923 as the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada — can be read here.
