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| Jerome Boyce is cutting his teeth on log home construction |
PHOTO CREDIT Mack McColl
Jerome Boyce has launched a new business on Canim Lake Indian Reserve near 100 Mile House, B.C., building log homes in the region of the province known as the log building capital of Canada. This part of the central B.C. Interior has been busy in log home construction for over two decades.
Jerome works brother Gerry and they are putting together an impressive log home on West Canim Lake I.R.. It looks like about 1,200 sq.ft., "It takes about six weeks," he said. The pictures with this story show the construction at 2 1/2 weeks. They strip and trim the logs and add the chinks on the outsides.
"The logs are spruce and pine, which depends on the owner." He notes the area around Canim Lake has a few people building these structures, usually as homes, but sometimes for community halls or businesses. It is basic contracting to build something that is ready to deliver on relatively short order. The homes go packaged everywhere in the world, and many of them are built for delivery in the province, and in fact these B.C. log constructions are popular in Alberta too.
"They drop off the logs and I build it. I could do the logging myself. I used to have Perchons and Clydesdales to do horse logging." He said he lost my shirt in horse logging, "and I still had to feed the horses. They are retired now."
Jerome's nick name is Stompy because one night he played a set with Stompin' Tom Connors in 100 Mile House, where he's known to be a stompin' musician in his own right. In fact he has a recording studio in his home in the west subdivision of Canim Lake I.R., and his friends and family like to gather to hear them play. And every New Years Stompy lights a gigantic bonfire to celebrate with song and the company of family and friends. By giant, picture on of those log homes going up in flames.
The log building business is a welcome addition to the local economy of the Indian Band. "I employ two men and sometimes hire extra help. We are going to build year-round," which is do-able of course, although the snow flies and the temperature drop around 100 Mile House usually brings on the snow by the end of November.
The Canim Lake folks once lived beside the Fraser River but they were moved up to a plateau which lies centre in the province at a substantial altitude. From this point on the Fraser begins to pick up speed as it heads toward Hells Gate Canyon. In fact, you can feel the downhill slope all the way to Hope, B.C. when you are driving down the Fraser Canyon to the south.
Jerome has two yard cranes to move the logs into place. His workplace is habituated by eagles and deer and other wildlife. Of course Jerome is totally familiar with the area. "I was the carpenter for the band for years," constructing band housing and doing repairs.
The log building constructions leave Stompy's place pretty raw, "These buildings are delivered unfinished. The owner does the staining and interior finishing. We deliver a shell. We build it on site in Canim Lake and take it apart then we load it on the truck to put it on site," and he added, "The project creates a lot of employment from logger to finishers."
Jerome is using a temporary site beside his house until the band assigns him a place, which will enable him to expand the operation. "There is a market for the log constructions. The trick is to keep it simple and keep it affordable. Also be flexible."
That means it isn't always log construction. "We can use post and beam to solidify the building, but the method on this project is saddle-notched log construction."
The temporary site overlooks a shallow marshy valley that is bisected by Bridge River. Sadly the river is unusable for swimming or any other practical use since the town of 100 Mile House installed a water treatment facility near the entrance to the reserve. "They say it's safe, but I wouldn't drink it. There's no more fish in it."
