All Work and No Play

The footings for the house went in well and although the photographs don't show me at work I can assure you that I pulled my full weight, not only in preparing them for the concrete but also in smoothing and settling the mix as it was poured.  The frames have been removed and will be used again for the footings for the garage and as a base for the frames for the foundation walls.

The footings ready for the cement.  8 -10 inches deep - note the reinforcing steel bars

The cement truck arrived an hour and a half late - no surprises there then - but when it eventually came it hooked up to the pump in double quick time and we were  pouring in less than 10 minutes

The pouring commences

The A Team:  Dennis (of jump leads fame) on the left in the red shirt is the ground work specialist.  He operates the digger and has a special award for laying over one million yards of cement, which on the day was poured by the pump driver.  Kevin, furthest away, is actually the wood expert but has several building qualifications and skills.  Owen - doing officer's work.  The pump driver, who didn't spill an ounce and the photographer just before he got stuck in - honest gov.

A neat self portrait (note the beard and pony tail - only kidding) and in the background all done and complete with steel rods to anchor and strengthen the foundation walls.

At the end of that day it left me with a real sense that things have started.  The next step is to prepare the garage footings and framing for the foundation walls and the next pouring should be sometime next week


Before they left, I put Angie and James to work because I know they really wanted to help!  Angie moved a few tons of dirt and James (with Angie's help) checked to see that everything was level and ready for the pouring - it was.

Angie at home in the diggger

James doing a quality control check

I have rediscovered the delights of the egg banjo.  They take me back to my old RTR days in Germany on Chieftains in the early 1970s and my ever resourceful tank drivers Higgy and Bugsy Morrell, whose banjos I will never equal.  Mine seem to lack a certain, je ne sais pas quoi, probably their thick black finger prints made from OMD 75 and Diesel (in equal measures) with a pinch of Saltau sand from the Luneburger Heide.  On the other hand, mine do occasionally have the odd mosquito or midge to add a bit of protein.

Talking of flies they have generally been noticeable by their absence.  There were none when I came over in June and only a few when I first arrived at the beginning of August after a period of heavy rain.  Nowadays, they are pretty rare and if you ask me, one is jolly lucky to have one in one's egg banjo.  The midges don't seem to bite and the very rare mosquito bites don't flame up and are not itchy - very odd, but very acceptable.

A few have asked how my old broken bones, artificial hip etc are all holding up to the manual work.  The answer is, not badly.  I'm never actually without pain so really it's a question of managing it.  I try to pace myself so I don't have to resort to taking anything either for the pain or for swelling.  Sometimes, I get it wrong and have to take something and I've got some quite strong stuff just in case.  The trouble with taking anything is, it always has to be payed back and sometimes that can take days.  I don't normally get it that wrong and know the signs when I should stop - ankles stiffen up, hip starts to squeak or clunk, fingers start to tingle or the hands go numb.  The acid test comes at night and whether or not I can sleep without pain killers.  Lately, I've been sleeping well without them.

I am scratching my head for a name for the cabin - suggestions please.  Winner gets a free week stay in the guest room (once it's built) - flights not included.  Competition open until the cabin is finished and the winner will be announced at the house warming party.  Someone is going to have to remind me I said this.

I'll post again at the end of next week after the next pouring.

No Rest for the Wicked

Got into a bit of trouble with some members of the family for describing myself as "The Damaged Man".  So now I am just 'The Bruised Man", literally, from all the logs I've been lifting.

Progress has been slow this week, delayed by waiting for the right clearances to proceed and by a request from me to alter the plans for the roof over the garage.  I had originally planned on a conventional dorma french window on the lakeside of the garage, leading out onto a deck.  The architect pointed out that the headroom in the room above the garage wasn't that great and suggested a shed dorma to make it larger.  As this would change the roof profile, I had to have it approved by the committee that oversees the architectural controls for the development and this took a few days to sort out.  Thanks go to the committee and particularly to Bart for getting this done so quickly.  Anyway, work has now recommenced on the foundations and we are hoping to pour the first concrete tomorrow, Tuesday.

Preparations for the footings.

In the meantime, I have been busy cutting up and stacking all the trees that were cleared mechanically from the building site but, my little chain saw finally started to protest against the abuse I was subjecting it to.  I nearly lost a finger or two when I pushed the brake bar forward to stop the chain from rotating so I could put the saw down in order to move some wood, only for it to break and my hand went forward and missed the chain by a hair's breadth.  On investigation, I discovered that not only had the brake bar broken but the brake itself had broken and so with much cursing I took it in to be fixed.  While it was being repaired I borrowed a bigger saw, one much more suited to the task and it made a significant difference to the rate at which I was able to attack the mountain of wood waiting to be sawn up and stacked.

Log pile has grown - but still lots more to add from deadwood still to be collected.  I have tried to keep the tree cutting down to the bare minimum in order to preserve the character and feel of the forest environment but sadly some good, old trees have had to come down and that has been sad.  When I am settled, I will do a bit of planting to compensate for the loss.

I have also been busy sorting out my firearms licencing and sat the mandatory examination today without mishap.  I am in the process of buying a British Lee Enfield .303 to augment my firearms inventory of a .22 rifle and shotgun.  This will give me better predator control/protection capability, something I am currently a bit light on, although I won't be able to take possession of the 303 until my licence comes through.  In the meantime, I'll have to make do with what I've got.  A couple of days ago I noticed some tracks in the dust I hadn't seen before and reckon they must be a bobcat or similar small feline predator.  I have also seen two varieties of grouse, a mountain sheep and a red fox to add to the list of wildlife about the area.

Not of the dog family because there are no claws - something feline I think.  Could be the large feral domestic cat that neighbours say roams the area and keeps the mice and rat populations under control.

The local village (Wardner) had its annual summer fete this weekend and I took the afternoon off and joined in just in time to watch the last mixed soft ball game of the afternoon - great fun being had by all.  Next year I am going to raise my own team and show these Canucks how it should be done - I wonder if they will let me use my cricket bat?  Mysteriously,  I was somehow drawn to the beer tent (don't know how that happened) and soon got into conversation with several of the local people and made a few acquaintances and contacts who might prove helpful when I get to doing the inside of the cabin (mansion as Matt calls it).  Just when I felt hungry they closed the food bar and so I departed for the now much appreciated Bull River Inn.  On arriving I discovered that it was empty except for one customer (Kurt), the barmaid (Mandy) and the owner and chef (Eddy).  Everyone apparently was at the Wardner fete.  Eddy rustled up a very tasty supper (shrimps - in England we would call them king prawns and onion rings) for me and told me all about his 15 years running pubs in the Bristol area in England.  Eddy, is Canadian but married an English girl, hence his time in the UK

Mixed softball at the village fete - can you spot the ball?

The Bull River Inn is the heart of a community that stretches back to gold, railroad and logging days of the late 19th Century.   Logging, farming, hunting and fishing are the main occupations and pastimes here now and this is all well reflected, and recorded, in the decoration and artifacts that adorn the pub.  The beer is cold (that's all I can say about it), the food is good and the pub is highly recommended to anyone passing through.  The clientele is a bit vernacular but you should be OK, just don't do anything stupid like ask for the vegetarian menu,  say anything derogatory about the Queen of Canada or say anything nice about the government of British Columbia or Calgarians.  If you do, you could find yourself in a very one sided, very western, bar brawl.  Also, be sure your horse knows the way home and whatever you do, don't walk home after dark.  Seriously, five or six weeks ago a women in this area was killed by a bear.

Eddy and Mandy behind the bar of the Bull River Inn.

I have also had my first visitors, who, apparently are a bit like busses.  You don't get any for weeks and then suddenly four, from different parts of the world all come along at the same time.  It was lovely to see Jeanette from Calgary, who very generously put me up when I first arrived in Canada and John from the Caribou, which is real wilderness country.  Likewise, it was great to see Angie from Salisbury and James from Shropshire who both agreed to be referees for my firearms licence application - thanks guys.

My very first visitors - John and Jeanette from the Caribou and Calgary (Chestermere) respectively.  Pity about the thumb over the lens on the left of the picture.

Special thanks this week have to go Diana, my main contractor's wife, who drove all the way out to the Ranch on Saturday from Galloway (more than 20 km away) with a set of Dennis's jump leads for me (thank you Dennis).  Stupidly, I had left the cooler connected to the car battery when I got back from town and it drained the battery over night.  Thank you again Diana, for just dropping what you were doing, packing the kids and leads up into the car and coming to the aid of a silly man, you're a real star.

As I sign off for this posting I can hear a low rumbling sound in the distance.  This is coming from across the lake and is a train pulling more than 200 freight trucks full of coal along the railroad that serves the mines at Sparwood, about 70 kms away.  Having its occasional mechanical growl in the distance is curiously reassuring in an otherwise silent wilderness.

And on the Second Week

Well, I have been overwhelmed by the response that I have received to my first blog post and I thank all those who have offered words of encouragement, support and frankly who just showed an interest. It has all helped enormously to boost my morale and encourage me.  Thank you.

I should start by answering a few questions.  Several people have asked me to show a map of exactly where I am and so please see below:

Bear Country

Sorry about the quality of the picture but it was the only map I could find that would allow me to save it as a jpeg, add an arrow showing where I am and import it into this blog.  Anyway, I am at the bottom of the arrow in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.  You can see a much better picture of the area in Google Maps or Google Earth.  For those who want to get a more accurate idea of exactly where I am, the precise Lat and Long of my property (from Google Maps) is 49.403001, -115.419606.  Google maps should show it as a green arrow a couple of miles south of the village of Wardner, not in the village itself.

Some people have asked how to post a comment.  First, you have to have a Google account.  It's free and has no spam or other drawbacks attached it and it can be quite useful for creating photo albums etc.  Just create an account on one of the Google search engine pages, sign in and you should be able to post a comment.

One or two have asked about fishing in the lake and if there are many fish in it.  I am (probably unreliably) told that there are more than 20m fish in Koocanusa lake.  Actually, it isn't a lake but a reservoir, about 100 miles long, created by the Libby Dam in Montana.  It was part of a three dam flood control scheme for the Columbia River basin devised by the USA and Canada in the 70s.  It gets its name from the KOOtenay river, CANada and USA hence KOO CAN USA.  There are several varieties of fish.  This whole area is very big on hunting and fishing with an abundance of game and fish of all sorts.  We have even got wild turkey and I have been watching an Osprey hunting fish on the lake for the past few days.  It was sitting in a tree outside my caravan a couple of days ago but moved off before I could get a close up photograph of it.  The lake is also good for all water sports but I haven't witnessed any really strong winds for windsurfing yet, maybe in the autumn.

Not a particularly good example of water sports but this gives you some idea of the scale of things and my property in relation to the lake.

The weather has been holding with only a couple of thunder storms interrupting play.  A good test for the caravan, which came through with only a couple of minor leaks.  I can't help feeling that all this good weather is the quiet before the Canadian winter storm and therefore I am not wasting any time trying to get things done.  My aim is to try to have the cabin up to weather proof by the end of October and then move in for the winter, essentially camping in the shell while I do the interior.  I have been researching wood burning stoves to keep me warm.  I shall also be able to get my stuff out of storage and thereby save a few pennies on that expense.

Hale Storm.

One of the biggest constraints on work is taking care of my own personal admin, which is not difficult but is time consuming.  It's a 30 minute drive into Cranbrook for shopping, laundry, bank, post office, chain oil for the saw etc. I am eating mostly cold food at the moment, salad, fruit, tinned tuna, cold meats etc and that means I don't have to cook. Fortunately, the caravan's fridge is quite large and works well and therefore I can store plenty of fresh food.  Occasionally, I miss the hot water window in the evening and wind up having a cold shower, but am I complaining  - no.  I just have to think of the millions around the world who don't even have enough water to drink and that puts things into perspective.

Another constraint is the hot weather.  It isn't as hot as some places around the globe but the temperature is in the high 20s to mid 30s C and, with the intense manual work in the sun, dehydration is a bit of a problem.  I have found that lemon ice tea is about the best answer to that little problem although cold water melon hits about the right spot as well.

Injury is also a constant concern.  I am by myself out here most of the time and quite isolated from the nearest help.  The phone system is unreliable, even in different parts of the caravan it can vary from three bars max to no service.  The axe and the chain saw are probably the biggest threats at the moment although, I did disturb a bees' nest a couple of days ago and didn't realise what I had done until I was stung six times.  My right hand has swollen up like a boxing glove, much to the amusement of the ground work team.

The cleared building site - note the rock climbing wall in the background.

Talking of which, the building site has been cleared of trees, which have been carefully dumped near my wood pile ready for me to cut up and stack.  A couple of weeks work there me thinks.  The basement and foundation holes have been dug and I am hoping to pour concrete next week.   I was lucky to be able to take advantage of the availability of the digging equipment, otherwise there could have been a delay while it was doing something else.  In the meantime the log package is being prepared and once the foundations are in it should not take that long to erect the logs.

The hole for the basement.

I thought I would try to show you what the finished article is going to look like.  The nearest I have been able to find is the photo below but, there are a few significant differences.  My basement will not be a walk out one as shown here but rather more like a cellar and the dorma arrangement above the garage (on the right of the picture) will be different.  The decking will also be very different.  There will be a wrap around, covered deck on the sides and the front of the house with open decking in front of the great room gable.  There will be small balconies to each bedroom either side of the main gable and for the room above the garage, which will be a guest room.

The finished cabin should look a little bit like this.

I have managed to locate a couple of watering holes, one on the main highway, which is a bit on the pricey side and another off the beaten track, which looks much more suitable for me.  I have promised myself one visit a week to at least get one decent meal every now and again.

One other tip about the blog site.  If you click on the photos they will open, enlarged, and you can get a much better look at the detail in them.  Just press the 'back' button to return to the blog.

In The Beginning

One of life's sad realities is that funerals (like weddings before them) provide us with an unparalleled opportunity to catch up with old friends with whom one should have kept in touch but hasn't. So it was at Michael Scot-Hopkins' funeral, (God rest his soul), a few weeks ago. On hearing of my plans to emigrate to Canada and to build a log cabin beside a lake in the Rockies, Mike O'Donoghue (and one or two others) suggested that I follow Matthew Sample's example and create a blog charting my progress, so that people could follow the saga. I thought it sounded like a good idea until that is, I saw Matt's masterpiece. If you haven't seen it, visit it at http://www.matthewsample.blogspot.com/ - you will be endlessly amused and charmed by his sardonic wit and wonderful, frank and occasionally distinctly non PC descriptions (often accompanied by photographs –sometimes also not so PC) of the places he is visiting and the people he has met on his unusual world trip.


Despite the daunting prospect of comparisons with Matt's, I have nevertheless bowed to pressure and summoned up the courage at last to put pen to blog. But be warned, if you are expecting anything half as entertaining here you might as well resign yourself now to accepting that all you will get on my blog is a periodic SITREP on how I am getting on building my little cabin in the forests of British Columbia. On the other hand, it will help us to keep in touch in an open forum kind of way and hey, who knows what might come of it. So feel free to post comments, criticisms, tips, advice or ask questions – just don’t expect an answer if you are rude.


Many of you will know the background to all of this, but as I write I can hear some distant voices with whom I have not kept in good contact crying ‘What the f… is happening here, why, when and how. All I’ll say is, what does a man do when his wife walks out on him the day he demobs from the Army leaving him with three teenage kids after being married for 25 years? Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a rant against Sarah, whom I love dearly, women or life. The answer is, if you haven’t already guessed, he follows a well-established tradition, long trodden by men broken by love and war. He packs up his belongings into a suitcase (a container in my case), crosses the Atlantic to the New World where he hopes to re-invent himself and start over. Well, something like that. It’s the truth, if not the whole truth.


I have liked this part of the world since I was 14 years old (1967) and attended a Boy Scout Jamboree just over the border in Idaho. Two years serving with BATUS in the 90’s relit the fire but Sarah was reluctant to leave Blighty permanently and so that seemed to be the end of that. When our marriage started to break down, I thought of ways that I could turn the crisis into an opportunity and came up with immigrating over here. That’s the short version – trust me - you don’t want to hear the long one.

View over the lake in Winter

Anyway, here I am, on my todd, out in the wilderness with the deer, bears and cougars, a few pennies in the bank, getting started on Phase 1 – Build a Log Cabin.  Actually, before that, one needs a piece of land (bought this 1.5 acres lot on Lake Koocanusa in SE BC in February) .....

Almost the same view in Summer

...... and one needs a car – Jeep Wrangler – camouflage green, just in case (really, I didn’t have a choice of colours with the money I had but I have already grown quite attached to it). It goes almost anywhere, which is just as well because there was no road onto my property until yesterday – more later – and I have had to negotiate a steep slope to get in and out.

The Beast

Next up was to sort out temporary accommodation to live in while I build the log cabin. After four nights sleeping in the Jeep, I needed little incentivisation to get on with that and with three realistic options to choose from I went for a 17 year old caravan (trailer). Hence, I have now transformed myself from respectable middle class man about town (actually I was never that) to wilderness trailer trash. So you can see. I have already reinvented myself, only I hope this is a new beginning not a new end.

Some may recognise the black overalls - over 30 years old

The trailer is quite large – could sleep seven at a push – so there is plenty of room for willing helpers (unpaid of course but free board and lodging).  Most things work on it but not all at the same time. The lights work, so does the plumbing and the fridge/freezer and that is about all I really need at the moment. The air con/heater, microwave and hotwater heater would work, I think, if there was enough power, which there isn’t. I have hooked it up to running water with 100 feet of black piping, which by the end of the day is warm enough for a hot shower – not bad hey.

I share the property - apparently you don't need a rifle, just a club - sorry girls.

I do have the internet though, for two months at least while I have unlimited internet access on my new Canadian cell phone contract. I am connecting through my iPhone, which is using the G3 network and I can connect it to my computer and/or iPad. This really has made a difference because I now have communications with the world from the trailer, which I need for comms with family, architects, builders etc. Otherwise it is an half an hour drive into the nearest town (Cranbrook) and a visit to MacDonalds to use their WiFi. While I was living in the Jeep I camped in the MacDonald’s car park for the same reason. Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it!

The slope onto the property before .........

....the driveway was put in.

I’ve been on the property for just over a week now and have started clearing trees and preparing the land for the groundwork. I have tested my little chain saw to the limit and I am not sure how much longer the chain or the motor will last. I have cleared about 200 trees already, mostly small deadwood already on the ground. I’ve started cutting the live stuff but it is hard work clearing it single handed by hand and I have to cut them into small logs that I can carry away.  Between shifts I have been running a competition for letting various contracts including work for the log frame. I have decided on a company for the latter and have settled on a D shaped log that will be flat on the inside. This will make it easier for fittings and any dry walling I want to put into the kitchen and bathrooms etc. I will be a full member of the team putting it all together.  I have had the driveway put in, which will need extending once the house and garage are built. At least it gives easy access now to the property for me and the other contractors.

All my own work

I think that is about enough for the first blog. I’ll post again soon with some more news. I’m on Skype if anyone wants to chat, just search for me using my email address. Feel free to comment.

PS.  If you are looking for new posts and can't find them, go to the top of this page and on the right hand side under BLOG ARCHIVE you will see the chronological list of postings so far, listed by month published, just click on each in turn to view.  There are four in August and one in September.