The Builders

On May 1st the Marine Link barge arrived with 25 loads of materials and 12 passengers to watch the show.  The road Paul built to the top held on and all but the giant glulam beams were hauled up the hill.  It took about 5 hours and one yard of navi jack (sand and rock mix for concrete) to bolster the ramp to unload the boat.  Costs including the charge for handling on Campbell River terminal was about $12,000 CAD or about $8,500 USD.  

With plenty of materials on site, and the second barge scheduled to arrive May 14th, serious construction got underway.  Led by Ben Frieitag, Tyler 1, Tyler 2 and me set to work on foundation posts, it took six or seven, 10 - 12 hour days of work over two separate trips and we're almost there on the longhouse.  Thanks to a huge effort by Paul, Anna and Vicki, the bedrock was exposed and dirt cleared away. The house will be super solid and well connected to mother earth.

Stiven the structural engineer made a site visit to inspect the forms, rebar and rock and pronounced it all good to go.  Seeing the size of the longhouse footings and the solid rock beneath, Stiven agreed to make the cabin footings a bit smaller and save us some time and money pouring concrete.

In the evenings, we took turns providing dinners, for breakfast and lunch we handled our own.  The food was excellent and there was plenty of it.  I feel we're off to a great start with an excellent team.  More to come in the weeks and months ahead. 

The Aurora Explorer 

The Aurora Explorer arrives at low tide and just fits in the channel.  "There's only 3 feet of water under our stern!"

Unloading

10 1/2" by 24" by 36' glulam withing inches of kitch and cabin

L to R, Tyler (T2) Ben and Tyler (T1)

Covered work area and rainwater collection. Two massive posts set by excavator and team effort.

Longhouse forms almost done

One of 18 forms for pads of longhouse foundation

Stiven Kransniqi from Enkra Structural Design conferring with Ben