Sitting up in the branches of a tree on the building site, I can see mounds of land off in the distance across the water. They would be Alaska. So that would be northish, making my main sun to my back. Day Two, on-island.
Yesterday, I’d arrived and just unpacked, slept, unpacked some more. I could almost hear the groan of relief from my car as I unloaded it. Rapid Richie and his wife Lisa, had been expecting me (Lisa had left an EtchASketch with ‘Welcome Masa’ and a flower scrolled out on it) and gave me a day to decompress before we got down to work. They’re letting me stay in the Queenpin, one of their rental cabins, while I’m building mine.
I’d first met them last summer when I was up here looking to secure a ‘Five Year Deal’. Since I couldn’t afford to buy land, I was looking to make a handshake deal, whereby I, as the prospective homesteader would be allowed to build a habitable structure and live in it. After an agreed amount of time, say five years, the builder would then walk away and it would be the landowners’ to use as they wish. Part of Rich and Lisa’s income comes from renting out their off-grid cabins to tourists in the summer. It was for us, as they say, a win-win situation.
Rich, in his 50’s, was the first person to build a place out here on North Beach, 30-plus years ago. Back then, it would have been a big deal for him just to see a single car come up the dirt road in any given week. He’s built dozens of cabins in the places that he’s lived in over the years. He’d actually only once ever lived in a home that he hadn’t built himself, when he was teaching up in Canada’s far north.
Him and his wife Lisa, some 15 years younger, migrate between a handful of places throughout the year, including their cabins in North Dakota and on Francois Lake in the BC interior. Having been a teacher, Rich was game to mentor me in chainsaw carpentry. He’d instructed Lisa on building her first cabin down on the beach a few years ago.
Rich had already flagged a spot out in the trees between his and Toni’s homes. There was a good fifty meters on either side of the flagged-out site and stands of hemlock to give privacy between us. I should get a water view from higher up but the back outlook into the trees is just as spectacular, if not more so.
Rich and Lisa were still working on their latest cabin, the Ravenshoe, a proud, two-story structure down on the beach. Rich had blown out both elbows hammering in the past so now he uses a nailgun and compressor. He also uses a chopsaw for precise cuts on his stick-frame house. I would try and keep it old school and use just a hammer and chainsaw, and build pole construction.
I was lucky, as I’d missed the late winter storms the week before when they’d had to change their clothes twice a day and still be miserable building. Standing water was still frozen and I’d wake up in the Queenpin to see my breath but at least it was dry out.
Before they got to their workday, Rich pulled the brushcutter out of his shed and gave me a primer on how to start up and run the thing. “The next best invention after the chainsaw,” he’d said. It’s essentially a weedwhacker with a spinning metal blade in place of the nylon line. It’ll take down inch-thick saplings.
Sure enough, I tried a small section of salal with the machete that I’d brought and it was no comparison to the sheer devastating power of the brushcutter. Between the brushcutter and the chainsaw, I had the cabin area mostly cleared by late afternoon, even taking a second pass at the stumps so that I wouldn’t be tripping over them while I built. The stack of cuttings at the bottom of the path grew to about the size of a backpacking tent.
Clearing away the cover is something like dusting off an archaeological artifact. I had a pleasant surprise; the land was relatively flat, which was unexpected as when I was wading through the chest-high salal, I’d occasionally stumble into what felt like a gully. But there it was, a nice blank canvas that would fit the 16’x20’ cabin that I had in mind.
The blank canvas and a brush(cutter).
From Rich’s experience, 16’ x 16’ is about the minimum size that you’d want to build a cabin for one. It’s the optimal dimensions for using full cuts of lumber and it doesn’t feel too claustrophobic. 16’ x 24’, going in multiples of 8’, is a generous-sized cabin for two. 16’ x 20’ is the step in between, which balances between space and cost. If I hunted for used pieces, primarily the glass, by Rich’s reckoning I should be able to build something for about $3000. I was budgeting $4000.
Although, by budgeting it would sound like I had it all broken out in Excel. Nope, I pretty well would ask Rich what he thought that I would need next, then buy it. When he said come up with 50lbs of 2 ½” Hot Dipped Galvanized Spiraled nails, 50lbs of HDG 3” spiral nails, 50lbs of HDG 4” spiral nails, and 500 roofing screws I just went out and bought the $500 worth of hardware. He’d used regular nails here but with the corrosive salt air he’d seen them rust all the way down from the head in a few years and the boards they were holding would fall onto the ground.
All I’m using for tools, are a hammer, a chainsaw, a measuring tape, two sizes of square, two sizes of level, and my old treeplanting shovels. I didn’t bring an ounce of building sense or experience with me.