Hugo Spilker
1968

Ryan Qu on September 18th, 2023:
Originally built as Casavant Op. 293, the organ was one of the first Casavant organs on Vancouver Island, BC. Chandos Dix attempted to converted the organ into electro-pneumatic action in 1940's, using a car battery as power, but failed and made the organ unplayable. The instrument was then subsequently reverted into its original Tubular-Pneumatic action by Stan Huddon of Vancouver. The instrument was also sliced in half and re-installed into two chambers to reveal the rose window at the gallery. In 1966-68, Hugo Spilker removed several ranks, added some pipes and 3 new ranks, split up a Mixture stop and installed a rebuilt Casavant 3 manual console. In 1989, Grant A. Smalley of Victoria built a new console with multi level combination action (8 levels with 8 General pistons, 6x4 Divisional pistons and tutti) and restored some of the organ. The Pedal Trombone #1-12 was originally the #13-24 from the first rank of 32' Contra Bombarde in Victoria, owned by Stuart Kolbinson, and sources for some other pipes are unknown. Currently the organ is fully functional, and is primarily used for the Sunday 11am Mass, and high feast seasons. In the left chamber, several ranks of unknown source pipes were abandoned from a rebuild (one appears to be the abandoned 16' Bourdon in fairly good condition, and some pipes are possibly the missing Dulciana from the Great), and the fate of the pipes removed from Spilker's rebuild is unknown. An inventory count of those pipes will be conducted by the Cathedral organist in the near future. The planned Positive division has its pipes from the original Kolbinson Residence organ (another massive rebuild of a Casavant organ in Saskatoon) currently stored in the basement, but the project was never approved by the diocese since the original proposal of 1989. The organ's case is extremely limited by the space and ceiling height as it's located on a 2nd balcony, expansion in main chamber is unlikely to be done without difficulty with the current space, despite a number of stops being prepared on the console.