Tonya Wilkinson recalls fondly as a teenager scrambling up the different walls at Of Rock and Chalk, the club owned by her father and uncle club.
Now her own daughter tackles the various faces as the second generation has taken to frequent the Newmarket facility, with Wilkinson now at its helm.
At 32 years, Of Rock and Chalk has been a staple in the community. There are 50 different climbing options, along with three different bouldering areas. There is top rope climbing, chimney climbing, crack climbing along with bouldering and simulated rock faces – all meant to accommodate everyone from beginner to expert with a recommended minimum age of four.
Climbing walls and gyms, once considered a good indoor training option for climbers, have become their own activity believed to well eclipse the number of people who climb outdoors and is now often a catalyst for outdoor climbing.
Of Rock and Chalk is a significant part of that history, having been launched on the heels of Canada’s first indoor climbing facility, Joe Rockhead’s in Toronto.
Tonya remembers her dad, Bruce Wilkinson, being totally consumed with climbing when her uncle, Peter Niemeyer, took him climbing for the first time years ago. He was a photographer with his own studio, but decided that Newmarket should have a climbing gym. He and Niemeyer were soon business partners and Wilkinson left the photography business behind.
It was 1992 and Tonya was not quite a teenager yet. But Of Rock and Chalk soon became her second home. She recalls hopping in a van chauffeured by her dad with other climbers to compete across Ontario while also spending her weekends working there.
But after graduating school, she pursued her own passion to study fashion in Toronto. When she returned from school her dad was operating the facility on his own. Niemeyer had left to do missionary work. Tonya had a look at the books and didn’t like what she saw so she took on the task herself and became more and more involved.
“I was in there pretty much full time but I also opened up a personal shopping business… I was still fulfilling my goal of being in the fashion industry but still able to help my family,” she recalls. “My dad slowly stepped away, after a few years.”
Like just about every business, both of hers were severely impacted by the pandemic. The fashion industry shut down. She could no longer go to people's houses and there were no photo shoots. The club had to shut down.
Suddenly with time on her hands, the younger Wilkinson worked to get her mortgage licence. When things started to open up, working from home became the norm, so that worked perfectly as she reopened the climbing club.
“I can now balance both,” she happily declares.
But during that period the building was sold and the new owner reclaimed some of the space that had been occupied by the gym, so it’s in a much smaller space. But Tonya says she’s happy with the way the business has sprung back.
Of Rock and Chalk employs a regular staff of 14 for the business that operates seven days a week.
In addition to drop-in, the gym hosts a variety of activities. There’s the York Region Athletic Association competition for all the schools in the region that have a climbing team and there are youth lessons for those four to 17.
During the school year, the gym hosts school groups of up to 50. There’s also an after-school program, and day camps in the summer.
Now Tonya’s daughter is nearly as old as she was when the gym first opened and is now navigating the various walls herself.
As for the senior Wilkinson, he’s not so hands-on anymore, but he can often be seen at the gym when repairs are required.
