Continued from page 1
The common space includes a large drying room and a games room and bar on
first floor and a kitchen, dining hall and sitting area on second floor. A flat ceiling spans kitchen to create a mezzanine sitting area overlooking dining hall. The large attic space over guest bedrooms provides massage and staff rooms with entry from mezzanine. An open cathedral ceiling spans entire second floor dining and sitting area.
The walls would require seven logs per floor. There would be seven long log walls. This meant at least 100 logs to peel by hand. Backbreaking work! Well over twice that number of logs would be needed for milling interior lumber.
The construction crew included four owners, two of their “significant others”, and old school friends from nearby Golden. The women worked along side men operating chain saws, falling trees and running sawmill. Milling went on continuously, day after day. Posts and beams, 2x6’s, floor joists, and decking materials were all needed in large quantities.
Although none of crew was yet 30, their skill with equipment and their construction knowledge was remarkable. They had developed their log-building skills prior summer on a small bathhouse and a staff bunkhouse and now they were facing an immensely larger challenge with tight time constraints.
The "Mountain Lodge Construction" photo journal contains a detailed description of construction process at http://mountain-lodge.blogspot.com.
The work advanced through summer and became a race against weather. Could roof be completed before first snow? It was a close finish, but nature won and first snow came just days before roof was completed. Valuable days were lost shoveling snow and chipping ice from floor of dining hall.
Late September, and roof was on at last. Finishing interior became next race against time. There were 14 bathrooms and a kitchen to plumb, electrical systems to install and entire septic system had to be built. Rooms had to be framed and wallboard installed. Windows had to be put in and ceilings insulated. The building had to be equipped and made livable and endless details awaited attention. The first clients were to arrive on December 27, in just three short months. Nearly everything had to be done by same small crew of about 12 workers.
For first year or so, wallboard would remain unfinished and only plastic vapour barrier would cover insulation. Wood paneling for ceilings and roof gables would have to wait.
Except for kitchen range, there would be no open fire within building. Also, no chimneys were to pierce roof. Heating would be provided by a freestanding, wood-burning outdoor furnace. Heat is transferred to building by a 200ft underground glycol loop. Heat exchangers create hot water for bathing, cooking and hot tub and hot air for convection heating. A 1,000 gallon hot water tank buried in crawl space acts as a heat sink. This maintains an even building temperature as furnace burns high or low. Small electric heaters in bedrooms, along with opening casement windows allow guests good control over bedroom temperature.
The finishing phase brought new diversions. Large quantities of materials now had to be brought from Golden. Limited local supply meant many trips to Calgary in search of furnishings and special materials. Four valuable hours lost each way! The tight budget required tireless shopping for bargains.
Everything had to be brought to site by road. Helicopters were far too expensive. Using a four-wheel drive farm tractor and a 22ft highway trailer, Dale spent many autumn weeks bringing materials to site. Rising very early each frosty morning in Golden, Dale would tow loaded trailer 100 km. north to base of Chatter Creek road, hook trailer to tractor and crawl last 17 km to site. Arrival by noon was critical. The uphill trip could only be made with road still frozen and hard. If he got stuck, excavator would have to stop work and crawl off down road to provide a tow. Hours of work would be lost. As Dale hove into sight, all hands would appear to unload trailer and Dale would head off, down road and back to Golden to assemble next day’s delivery. Almost 30 loads were delivered in this weather dependent operation.
In end, impossible was done. On December 27, 2002 last sawdust was swept up, dishes were washed, last bed was assembled and made, bathrooms were stocked and bar was made ready. The first guest helicopter arrived at Vertebrae lodge at 3:30pm. By 4:30pm, 24 admiring guests were roaming lodge in awe.
Chatter Creek President, Dale McKnight, was heard to comment, “Thank goodness we never really understood at start just how big and how difficult this project was going to be. We probably would never have started. But we did, and now it’s done!” Others in team had thoughts of their own. Jevan recalled time he sunk D4 bulldozer in mud while working on road. “Right up to seat. It took excavator hours to dig it out.” Lori and Isabelle remembered bugs. “There were ‘mossies’ around building and bugs and beetles around sawmill. We went through boxes of ‘Croc-bloc’, but we were still being bitten.”
Vertebrae Lodge stands as a testimony to hard work, perseverance and ability of Chatter Creek partners and their crew. It’s a magnificent structure that was built under difficult conditions and in a very short time. It represents not only a feat of construction, but also a feat of coaxing some very tired equipment into steady operation. The excavator, in particular, was in constant use feeding logs to sawmill, leveling ground, digging pits and trenches, burying tanks and piping, clearing septic field, moving heavy loads, towing stuck vehicles up access road and building winter roads for snowcats. Both excavator and crane had had their cranky moments but, under Dan’s tender care, both these mechanical relics stood course and, with sawmill, continue to be used to this day.
Footnote: In summer of 2002, partners built a 9500 sq. ft. bedroom annex to Vertebrae Lodge. Solitude Lodge provides 6 more double-occupancy guest bedrooms, staff accommodation and a large new drying room. The added space has allowed bar and games room in Vertebrae Lodge to be doubled in size.
Lockie Brown organizes cat skiing trips for friends to Chatter Creek Mountain Lodges, near Golden, in the Canadian Rockies. For info, refer to: www.chattercreekcatskiing.com. Also, the Chatter News photo journal at http://powder-skiing.blogspot.com/ has many terrain and ski photos.
