John Colwell served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War 2 and was a prisoner of war in a German prison camp. While a POW he used his creative talents to make utensils from tin cans for the use of his fellow prisoners.

He was one of he prisoners involved in the “Great Escape”. He sewed shorts and sandbags out of parachute cloth so the POWs could quietly dispose of the sand they dug from their escape tunnel into the earth of the exercise yard.

He returned to Extension after the war and operated a dairy farm on White Rapids Road. He became a “rockhounder”.

In 1973, John and his fellow rock-hounders decided to build a clubhouse on land he and his wife Fern donated.