From what I’ve heard, British Columbia is a beautiful province, filled with a diverse range of unique and pristine ecosystems including (believe it or not) a rainforest. I have never been to BC personally. Actually, that’s not quite true. One time when I went skiing in Alberta, a pair of signs on the ski lift proudly announced when I entered and exited our most western province in the space of 15 metres. Despite having never set foot in the province that this nation built an entire railroad for in a courting gesture, I can say that the University of British Columbia (UBC)’s Engineering faculty has a massive amount of school spirit and tradition. Perhaps it is reflective of the expansive natural environment the students live in with much of it seeming to be centered about concrete slabs.
The centerpiece of UBC engineering is a sculpture known as “The Cairn.” The Cairn, which the UBC alumni magazine, Trek, helpfully informed me “is [actually] a truncated obelisk, as a true cairn is made up of a number of large blocks,” is a source of pride for all engineers and a constant target for defacement by other groups. In fact, the current Cairn, 8 feet tall, painted with a bright red “E,” made of rebar-reinforced concrete, and allegedly filled with propane canisters to hinder any attempt to jackhammer the sculpture, is just the latest in a series of cairns, each one larger than the last.
The first and second cairns were not very particularly durable. Small and light, they were dismantled by the admiration shortly after the engineering student, or “Gears” as they are called, erected them. The third Cairn was 5 feet high, and survived for 19 years simply by being too large to be dealt with. Finally the Gears’ major rivals, the Forestry faculty, rented a pneumatic drill-equipped backhoe and demolished the obelisk. This was in part, it would seem, in retaliation for the many Forestry mascot-cars—each named Omar—which the Gears had destroyed over the years. Despite the rumors that the remains of one of the multitude of Omars were buried under the cairn, none were found.
The fourth and current Cairn has proven its worth time and time again. It stands strong after an endless assault, which has apparently included: burning, tarring, ramming with a vehicle, and exploding. Undoubtedly someone will take it down eventually, but until then it stands as an iconic monument of UBC engineering tradition.
UBC differs from most other Canadian engineering schools in that the faculty color is red, the traditional purple being given to Arts. The Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) sells bright red leather jackets and other apparel. It should come as no surprise to any of the frequent readers of this column that EUS also sells a large variety of pins and patches to go with the jackets. Some are priced extremely steeply—$35 for a Lady Godiva/ERTW patch—but others cannot be bought at all, and must be earned. And of the latter patches, the most coveted of them all is the “Black E.” It is given only to students who participate in a “stunt” which “enhances [the faculty’s] already prestigious reputation on a global scale.”
“Stunt,” or STUdeNt projecT, is the name given to a prank pulled by UBC engineering students. They emphasize creativity and originality over vandalism and destruction, which has resulted in some spectacularly daring and impressive pranks. For instance, in 2001 a group of unidentified UBC engineers attached a nylon cord to the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge, and then came back to fasten an “E” and maple-leaf covered Volkswagen Beetle to it, leaving the car to dangle above the water. This same stunt was also done to a Vancouver Bridge, Lion’s Gate Bridge, several times both before and after the San Francisco Stunt. Most other famous pranks have also involved red-painted beetles; one of the more noteworthy ones involves placing a car on the top of the 121 foot Ladner Clock Tower on campus. So originality of the prank might be lacking, but I still give them full credit for their cultivation of the core idea.
Well friends, that is UBC. They may be obsessed with cars and over-engineered concrete pillars. But they have spirit and tradition, and they are proof, as we say, that Engineers Rule The World.
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