The Saugeen Times

Heritage Chantry Island Restoration Article 3

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Our makeshift one plank dock with Ron Seaman's Tilbury approaching with supplies. In the distance is the Peerless at wet anchor with a small barge borrowed from the Boat Club. Note the snow on the ground as we worked late into the year to meet our schedule. The cribs of the tiny dock have been moved by the power of a recent storm.

In the first two articles we gave you the background to the restoration project and the approvals necessary. Let me assure you, that not everyone in the community was enthusiastic nor did they approve of what we were going to do. I think they saw a horde of tourists storming the gates and carrying fast food containers. This would thus disturb the tranquility of the sleepy village that they treasured.

It's important to bring this out. It may help others on projects in the future. What carried us through? It was the firm conviction that we had a good plan and we also knew that our perseverance would make the difference. We had the know-how and the physical strength to do it. We knew we could figure out a way to win and winning the future by restoring the past is what we were aiming at from the beginning. 'We Were Here' and we were determined to make a difference. (For the song We Were Here, Click Here

There were many who told us straight out that we were wasting our time. Since they thought we would fail, most did not work actively to sour the project, but some were open about it and aggressive in the shadows. Who knows what they said to others, but we heard echos. The good part was that they were too lazy to do anything substantial to thwart us. But bad talk from people early on can kill a project. This is particularly true, if they are well spoken and invent things or conjure up false images..

It's gratifying to look back to that time and to see those people today. Every time I see them, I wonder if they remember as we remember. Some thought we were a group of bumpkins and that we needed professional help and that help would be too expensive of course. They were wrong and we were not to be deterred. We had the right mix of people and guess what? We had thought about it much longer and better than they had. Preparation always trumps off the cuff opinions from pseudo-experts. BS does not beat effort and it never has.

A lesson for the future volunteers is to do two types of marketing:

Normal marketing to the public.
Marketing to those close by that in a hidden way are not in tune with your project. They can cause a lot of harm, if you don't indentify them and neutralize their background campaign.

Materials and Work Begins

The first order of business was to see what materials we needed and the order in which we would move forward.

We looked carefully at the Lighthouse itself and decided that repairs on it could wait. The priority was the Keeper's Quarters and the very bad condition of the area around the broken house. Later we would deal with the Lighthouse, the double brick privy and the mystery building at the south end of the Island would be a late bonus.

The house itself was loaded with debris and contamination from old batteries that had been used to power the Light. More than 50 tons of debris was scattered in the basement alone. We speculate that the heavy batteries had to be lifted up the 106 steps to replace the old ones. What to do with the old ones? Rather than carry them down, they were thrown off the top and crashed down on the house roof and nearby area. Later a full scale environmental cleanup was required to purge the area of contamination.

Forlorn and forgotten the undergrowth had overtaken the Keeper's Quarters.

We launched an intense cleanup effort that involved everyone we could muster. We had to cut back the undergrowth and sort the broken stones. The basement was a terrible mess and that would have to be cleaned. At present it was way too dangerous to fiddle with because of the unstable walls. Later two teenage girls did much of the work on the basement when it had been made safe.

We could barely get close access to the site due to the undergrowth. We needed to clean up a little every day because of the magnitude and find out what materials were needed in detail. It was very clear that we needed wood and there was no way we could buy it because the type and size was not available and we did not have money to do it.

John Brown built this Keeper's House near the Burlington Lighthouse. Note the characteristic inset roof.

What in particular did we need? There was not much left of the house, so where to go? Since the original contractor and stone mason on the project was John Brown, we knew that most of the Keeper's Quarters that he built were done on the same plan. The same characteristic inset roof and stone construction existed in the Imperial Towers. Some differed because local materials were not the same. For example, the Keepers House at Burlington was much like ours, but it was built of brick and lighter construction on the inside.

Cove Island

Notice again the inset roof line. Also the stones used in both the Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarters are much smaller than Chantry due to the stone available

Cove Island was similar, but the stones were smaller. Point Clark was a good bet in terms of exact design and materials, so we asked Bill Neish, a retired architect to have a look. Bill did a survey of what we had and what Point Clark looked like and gave us a simple working diagram. With this we could do a bill of materials and this would lead us to obtain the material. Sadly, the government had covered up the inset roof feature of Point Clark, but Bill got good overall information by inspection.

Bill Neish measuring near the dangerous east wall that collapsed

We did not have any money as yet, so Bob Trelford suggested that we use some of the trees on his farm. They were hemlock that had not been logged because they were in an area hard to reach and sometimes swampy. One of our biggest needs was to have joists of 24'x11"x3". Some of these trees, we found out were as old as 220 years and real giants and could yield the big lumber that we needed.

(L) Bob McCarron, Bob Trelford, Bill Moulton, Opie and Mike Sterling after a day's work.

We launched a small team of would be lumberjacks to cut and mill the trees. The regular team consisted of the following:

Bob and John Trelford
Bill Moulton
Mike Goodwin
Bob McCarron a retired RCMP officer
Mike Sterling
Opie, Mike Sterling's Border Collie who enjoyed the woods

Every one of us loved this phase of the project. We were outside felling trees and then milling and drying the wood. Light snow would fall and it was crisp and fun.

Bob particularly enjoyed doing this and making the donation of the trees. He was wicked with a chain saw and did wonders with it. The trees were very hard to get out of the bush once they were cut. We used Bob's old tractor to do the job or Doug Welch would haul them out for us.

Bob Trelford in the foreground with his pet chainsaw as Mike Goodwin observes

There were only a couple of dangerous moments. Bob cut his kneecap badly one day. On another occasion we got a 'hanger', which can be a widow maker. A big tree fails to fall getting hung up on another. The base is either free or attached feebly to its root system. Sometimes these come down or skid sideways by themselves or when disturbed crash down killing or injuring someone nearby.

In this case the old tractor and a long chain did the job and the 'hanger' was freed.

Milled lumber begins to accumulate at Trelford's Farm Bill Moulton helps lift a log onto the mill

Cutting the trees is one thing, but milling them in the field is another. The Weichel boys and Ron Williamson helped a lot with their portable mill and later we got another young man with his mill to work in the field with us.

(L) Mike Sterling, Ron Williamson, Bill Moulton and Mike Goodwin at the portable mill.

For those who have not done this work, it is very tricky stuff. The cutter has to work with the bill of materials so that the log will yield as much good wood and as little scrap as possible. So you have to work with the length of the log, cut it into parts and then see what can be obtained from each log. Every log is different and it will give up reluctantly only its share of the bill of materials.

Experienced millers can make decisions on a log very quickly. They can determine with a look what the log will give them. But they don't just trust their experience, they measure carefully and they step back and discuss what should be done. It's a slow process.

Another annoying part of the job is wear and dulling of the blade. These things are expensive and they need care because they break easily and dull very quickly. When they are dull, they are worthless and have to be taken away for sharpening.

The problem is that logs dragged out of the bush gather up dirt and stones from the ground and these are embedded in them. This is terrible for the blade and will slow down work and finally stop it altogether.

We tried cleaning them with the Fire Department coming into the bush with a tanker, but this did not do it. Finally Mike Goodwin took on the task of cleaning every log by hand with just a few tools. It's a lousy job and requires extreme patience. Mike was able somehow to keep up with the mills demand, but just barely as we moved quickly through the wood.

All the timber used in the reconstruction was cut and milled in this way with the exception of the roof, which came from Dow Phillips mill in Elsinore. The tree used was a historic one that came from Durham. It was more than 200 years old.

By and large the material used was hemlock, which is very sturdy. As we would find out later, it resists nails and pounding into it is a real chore with large nails. If you tense up, you will injure yourself. The best bet is to get a long hammer that suits you and relax while pounding. Also, you can't choke the hammer.

The pile of accumulated lumber was huge as it stacked up in the Trelford's farm field. It gave us a very good feeling and it smelled great. We used any opportunity to show people our progress. They could not see any on Chantry as our work there was hidden from view. This was our first tentative effort at marketing. It worked.

Going on at the same time was our concern for the stone structure itself. The walls were made of limestone quarried at Inverhuron and transported by John Brown's men to Chantry Island. Ron Seaman suggested that we contact Bill Robinson of Tara about what was to be done with the stone work.

Bill was the best stonemason in the area and had a lot of experience. He had a small and loyal crew. Bill had done stone work his entire life and he had a crusty and respected reputation. Bill did not entertain fools and would have no part of unsafe or slack work.

Over an intense period that lasted two years, we worked with Bill. He was very safe to work with and knew boats well. The entire crew consisted of Bill and his two assistants. One, Daryl worked with Bill closely, while the other mixed mortar all day long. That was hard work, getting water from the lake. We brought a generator to power the mixer.

Before we got going, we took Bill out to take a look at what was to be done.

The place was a wreck as seen in the pictures. Ron Seaman was emphatic that we preserve that beautiful inset roof line so characteristic of John Brown's work.

Bill took a long and hard look. He told us that this was not an easy job. We needed to clean out the structure and surroundings so he could work. There was no water, no hydro and it was off shore, so you could not forget anything.

At the time none of us realized the scope of the sand problem. The structure literally ate sand by the ton, with Bill and his crew at work. Remember we had no large boat that could get close enough to the Island to dump 100 tons and more of sand.

Days like this can come along in November and December with huge breaking waves at the mouth of the Saugeen

So every day we had to take out a days worth of sand. Bill had huge piles of it dumped at the mouth of the Saugeen River. We had large plastic buckets and every morning Bob and I would fill them up starting at about 7 am for transport to the Island. Mike Goodwin and others would come along later. We would head out in all manner of weather. When the day was really too dangerous due to waves, Bill would take his crew to work on a land job. Sometimes he would have to take a day off to do other work and we would use that to take more sand and concrete out to the Island and do other work.

The Peerless was not in good shape, so we had Tom Shillingllaw make it seaworthy and not dangerous. We would tow at first Ian Evan's 12 footer with my punt on board the Peerless or later Ron Seaman's 15 foot Tilbury. Still later still it would be our 17 foot Tilbury workhorse in tow by the Peerless.

We would load everything we could on the Peerless and in addition tow the 12 footer filled with sand buckets behind us. In addition we needed 80 pound bags of sand every day.

Struggling with those concrete bags on the makeshift dock that we had built was a real chore. One time Bob was heaving one up on the one plank dock and he lost his balance. The Tilbury was below him. I looked on horrified as though it was an action movie in slow motion. It was the late fall and the water was cold. Bob teetered backwards trying to gain equilibrium, but failing. In a deft act of coordination he managed to toss the bag of concrete into the water and and that effort made him fall backward into the Tilbury with no injury.

He came within inches of the angry tongs on the makeshift anchor. Without saying a word, he grabbed another bag and continued. Nobody said a word. It was standard and we trusted the agility of all the team members. If we didn't they were quietly put on other tasks or did not come back voluntarily.

Since our little dock did not extend out very far, we were subject to hitting the rocks in windy weather. It was a real pain in that we would break shear pins. It got so bad that we started to carry a certain type of nail that was galvanized and brittle. We got good at using these as shear pins.

Finally, I got the idea of pounding in a steel post out in deeper water and attaching a long line to it. This way we could cut the engine on the Tilbury or 12' foot aluminum boat and hand over hand pull ourselves into shore with the engine cut and raised. It worked well.

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