Short courses add to island schools’ appeal
By Bruce Mason, Gabriola Sounder
Monday, July 16 2007
Every class at the Silva Bay Shipyard School and the Island School of Building Arts is jam packed with interesting people and I like to check in regularly at both locations to chat with students and share their stories.
The most recent motivation to visit ISBA was somewhere between a news tip and a half nelson, an early morning phone call from Eric Boulton, strongly suggesting that I interview his dinner guest from the previous evening; Jim Antoine, former premier of the NWT, the subject of an interview in last week’s Sounder.
Eric’s son D’Arcy, was enrolled in the Introduction to Stone Work Course - which may explain why he named his new practice, Sandstone Sport and Spinal Physical Therapy Clinic, in the interim clinic at Twin Beaches that opened earlier this month.
You may have met Jim Antoine on the golf course, or his youngest son, Timbah - cutting it up with the Devil Dolls, or playing crib at the White Hart Pub. They had been on Gabriola taking courses, since March.
ISBA founder and owner James Mitchell said: “We’ve come full circle. I taught a log building course in 1979 in Fort Simpson.
“Jim was chief then, and another future NWT premier, Don Morin, was also a student,” Mitchell added. “People from all over the region came to learn and it’s been great to have worked with him again, especially since it also involved his son, who wasn’t even born back then.”
“I built two log homes using what I learned, including one in 1988 in which we still live,” Antoine reported.
Timbah said. “I took all four ISBA courses (log building, two in timber frame construction, and stone work) to learn the tricks of the trade, to be able to do things fast and best,” adding that an extracurricular highlight was discovering Karaoke and fellow crib players who were “older but cool.”
He intends to make a living with what he learned in the log building course and timber frame courses, as well as the two-week course in stone and fireplace building.
Instructor Chris Bell, who shares what he had learned from 27 years in the trade said: “Everyone is on a different learning curve, but I’m content if they all leave with an understanding of the basics.”
Apparently the two-week mission was accomplished, judging from students who were summoned from a chimney they had built from the ground at the side of Mitchell’s house, a pillar to match one built by a previous class and external facing on the fireplace that last year’s class constructed in the student lounge.
Anita - a young entrepreneur from Kamloops who started the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company with her mother and sister - had put on makeup for the photo. “I came here to learn how to make jewelry,” she said before climbing the scaffolding with the others.
“I’m joking,” she added. “Actually I wanted to learn enough to show my dad how to do things right.”
She then took her place beside the aforementioned physiotherapist, the former premier and his son, a geologist from Victoria, a native of London who intends to hone his new skills in the South of France, among others.
“We are booked through 2008, in some cases over-booked,” said Mitchell, who after 11 years on the island has become accustomed to welcoming students from the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, all over Asia and Europe.
He is putting the finishing touches to his definitive book: The Craft of Modular POST & BEAM, which will be three times as large and even more definitive. For more information visit: www.logandtimberschool.com.
Meanwhile, a series of short courses kicked off last week at Silva Bay Shipyard School with Cedarstrip Kayak Building, followed by instruction on Steam-bending wood, this week and then: Making and Using Wooden Planes, Oar-Making and Building the Nutshell Pram.
We’ll check in at SBSS, soon. In the meantime, visit http://www.boatschool.com.
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