FRIENDS OF RUCKLE HERITAGE SOCIETY
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We are a registered B.C non-profit society that serves the Ruckle family’s legacy. Our mandate is to inform, educate, and inspire all Salt Spring Island residents and visitors who benefit from their spirit of sharing and ongoing community-building gifts. We're on Instagram! Ruckle Friends Society. Thank you, Savannah, our new Instagram maistro. New members and volunteers welcome. See our SUPPORT page. PayPal and major credit cards accepted. |
LATEST NEWS
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NEW!
Video summarizing Ruckle women's work on the farm,
a presentation by Mara Dewar, age 10. Click here or on the image to play. 
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Meet the Ruckles: A Family, a Farm, and a Spirit of Sharing
by Brenda Guiled
Meet the Ruckles: A Family, a Farm, and a Spirit of Sharing
by Brenda Guiled
- 64-page, well-illustrated book about the four Ruckle generations who called the farm home, its operation, neighours and friends, its creation as a provincial park, and more, from 1872 to present day.
- Click here for a peek inside and to purchase.
- Also available at Salt Spring Books and the Salt Spring Island Library.
PAST PROJECTS
• mid-2023 to present, big changes
• 2018
- Renamed Friends of Ruckle Heritage Society; "Park" removed to indicate our broader mandate than site-bound work in the park.
- Read our brochure and two 2024 newsletters for more about this next chapter in our work showcasing the unending gifts of the Ruckle family to the community, separate from BC Parks' work in and around the Henry Ruckle 1870s farmhouse.
- BC Parks' Park Enhancement Fund (PEF) Volunteer Grant for $500, to buy a smart-TV & hard-drive to loop historic videos during open-house days; see p. 3 of our 2022 newsletter for more about it.
- Our summer 2022 questionnaire: click here to see it and the report.
- E-bike station and cycling interpretive sign installed by the parking lot up from the barn. See page 3 of our 2022 spring newsletter for more information.
- Ruckle Heritage Farm six new interpretive signs installed and launched, hosted by SSI Historical Society: Click here to read the signs as letter-size PDFs.
- Meet the Ruckles: A Family, a Farm, and a Spirit of Sharing, published. Click here for a peek inside and to purchase.
- $9,300 grant awarded by Heritage Legacy Fund of B.C: our second HLF grant, to help complete restoring the Henry Ruckle house, preparing it to open as an interpretive centre.
- BC Parks Park Enhancement Fund (PEF) Volunteer Grant for $900, to buy plants and related materials to restore the flower beds by the Henry Ruckle house, all work -- over 300-hours total -- by FRPH volunteer gardeners.
- Heritageworks Inc. won the top-honour 2020 Planning award from Heritage BC for its "Ruckle Park Heritage Conservation Plan". See below; click here to read more. about this award.
- "Ruckle Park Heritage Conservation Plan" published: funded by a $10,000 grant to FRPH from the Heritage Legacy Fund of BC; plan created by Heritageworks Inc's Gord Macdonald, Ben Gourley, and Denise Cooke.
• 2018
- Ruckle Family & Neighbours Arts & Crafts Show, exhibited in the SSI Library Program Room & foyer display case, to highlight Ruckle farm as a hidden, but vital island art centre for long decades. We will stage the show again in the Henry Ruckle house, when it's open as an interpretive centre, the first of various artistic and heritage-farm exhibits.
- 1876 Henry Ruckle House Restoration: Through our society, Heritage BC put over $30,000 into restoring this house, the oldest in the park. BC Parks has contributed another $10,000. Plans are to use it as an administrative and interpretive centre.
Ruckle Provincial Park, Beaver Point, Salt Spring Island
- Henry Ruckle started farming at Beaver Point on Salt Spring Island in 1872, making it one of the longest-running family farms in B.C. More than that, four generations of Ruckles built their community in numerous ways, which the FRHS works to showcase and keep going, separate from park and farm operations.
- For more on Ruckle Provincial Park, see bcparks.ca/ruckle-park/ or web-search its history, including Ruckle Heritage Farm.
FACEBOOK PAGES
Friends of Ruckle Park Heritage Facebook group - for Facebook members
Ruckle Park Friends Facebook public page - for everyone
Ruckle Park Friends Facebook public page - for everyone