Ted Byfield

Parents pay $1700 a year tuition.

In order to open their second school—Saint John's School of Alberta—the Byfields moved to Edmonton.

The new school property, which was thirty kilometres west of Edmonton, at Stony Plain, Alberta had "110 hectares of bush, park and farmland".

At first, their schools operated under the auspices of an Anglican bishop.

The school practiced Corporal Punishment, and was eventually sued by an ex-student, Jeffrey Richard Birkin, who alleged that he was "forcefully exposed to experiences on the trip that put his life, health and safety at risk."

Edward Bartlett Byfield (10 July 1928 – 23 December 2021) was a Canadian conservative journalist, publisher, and author.

He founded the Alberta Report, BC Report and Western Report newsmagazines.

Byfield was born into a Unitarian family in Toronto, Ontario, in 1928 as the son of Caroline ( Gillett) and Vernon "Vern" Byfield, a reporter for the Toronto Telegram and Toronto Star.

Byfield moved with his parents to Washington, D.C. at the age of 17.

He began his journalism career as a copy boy for the Washington Post.

He returned to Canada in 1948 and worked at the Ottawa Journal and Timmins Daily Press and married Virginia Byfield.

In 1952, the Byfields moved from Toronto with their two children under two, to Winnipeg where Ted Byfield began working at the Winnipeg Free Press.

Covering Winnipeg city hall news, he once "crawled into an air conditioning duct in order to eavesdrop on a secret city council meeting enabling him to get a scoop on a funding scandal".

In 1952, Ted Byfield underwent a profound religious conversion.

Inspired by the writings of Christian apologists, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, C.S. Lewis, and G. K. Chesterton, the couple committed to living their Christian faith fully.

Through the St. John's Cathedral choir, Ted Byfield became part of a cell or group of seventeen men, which included Frank Wiens, that shared similar beliefs.

They founded what they first called the Dynevor Society, and later the Company of the Cross, a lay Anglican order affiliated with the Anglican Church of Canada.

The boy's choir at St. John's Cathedral became a club, then a weekend residential school starting in 1957, and finally, in 1962, a full-time "traditionalist" Anglican private boarding school for boys.

The Company of the Cross had acquired the abandoned Dynevor Indian Hospital in Selkirk, north of Winnipeg where they held their weekend schools.

The cell officially changed their name from Dynevor to the Company of the Cross under the Manitoba Societies Act.

In 1962, Byfield and five other members of the Company opened the first in a series of St. John's full-time boarding schools for boys "dedicated to the reassertion of Christian educational principles"—Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School.

The school operated intentionally on "traditional" methods.

They used mathematics textbooks from pre-World War II advancing from "arithmetic to calculus" with constant testing.

Ginger Byfield taught French "developed from French-Canadian history."

They watched hockey on the French channel.

Byfield taught history which required that students read copiously from Thomas Costain to Francis Parkman.

On November 7, 1973, with another school opening, the Byfields and school staff began publishing weekly editions of St. John's Edmonton Report.

The 1974 National Film Board Film described the St. John's Cathedral Boys' School as the "most demanding outdoor school in North America."

Upon arrival at the school, the new boys, 13- to 15-years old, undertook a 2-week canoe on the Red River and Lake Winnipeg.

In the spring there is a second longer canoe trip covering 900 miles with 55 portages.

On March 18, 1977, they briefly began publishing St. John's Calgary Report.

These two were later merged to become Alberta Report.

Their third Company of the Cross school —Saint John's School of Ontario—was established at Claremont, Ontario in 1977 and closed in 1989.

It was from this school that one of Canada's greatest boating tragedies occurred.

Twelve boys and a staff member died of drowning and hypothermia on a canoe trip on 11 June 1978 on Lake Temiskaming.

In the early years, all employees of the Company of the Cross—which included teachers and staff at their school and writers at their magazines—earned a dollar per day, plus room and board.

By 2003, the school had about 130 students and 30 staff members.

It remained open until 2008.

In the school's early years, Ted Byfield taught history and Virginia (Ginger) Byfield taught "French, English grammar and literature."

They lived in a three-story walk-up communal apartment block on 149 Street and 91st Avenue in Edmonton, called "Waverly Place," where they "attended morning and evening chapel services."