How do you protect the oldest wood-framed building in the Yukon?
Lift it off the wet ground extremely slowly—one shim at a time.
In August 2023, three specialists from the Yukon government’s Historic Sites Unit lifted the 130-year-old Pacific Steam Whaling Company Community House on Herschel Island (Qikiqtaruk) Territorial Park, a full 18 inches off the ground.
It took four 11-hour days, plenty of planning and a lot of hard labour.
“So we started with sixteen airbags and six toe jacks, and then just lifted a half-inch by half-inch and levelled it out as much as we could,” said conservation carpenter Stephan Biedermann.
They slowly pumped up the airbags and then placed plywood shims in every gap, to support the walls. As the gaps got larger, so did the shims—until they were replaced by wooden cribbing.
“We were running around, moving around a lot and crawling under the building to get cribs underneath the other sets of beams,” said restoration and reproduction specialist Gisli Balzer. “It was like the building sort of smiled at us when we’d lift the outside, and then we’d settle it down again. It was amazing.”
The Community House is the fifth building that’s been lifted and placed on cribbing on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island. The Northern Whaling and Trading Company Warehouse, the Northern Whaling and Trading Company Shed, the Customs Warehouse and the Karlik House, were successfully lifted in past summers, but the Community House was the largest, the heaviest and the most challenging.
The Community House is approximately 9.4-metres wide by 17.7-metres long. Its weight is unknown because there’s no way to put it on a scale, but the team knows they used 16 airbags, each with a point load of 11.7 metric tonnes; and six toe jacks, each with a point load of six metric tonnes. That’s a total of 223.2 metric tonnes of lifting power to raise it and ensure that its weight was distributed along its beams, so the structure wasn’t damaged.
Luckily, the building was so well-built that it was raised up in one piece.
“The big, huge spikes that they drove into the wood one-hundred-and-thirty years ago, they stuck everything together,” said Balzer. “So, the building just came up and those beams just stuck to the floor. It was pretty wild.”
The Community House and other structures on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island were built right on the gravel bed at Simpson Point. For decades that wasn’t a problem.
Now, with increased coastal erosion, loss of sea ice and rising temperatures, the once-dry ground is often waterlogged in summer. There are pools and puddles of water.
“All the buildings were originally built right on the ground, so they collect moisture from the ground and start deteriorating from the ground up,” said Biedermann.
Biedermann, Balzer and restoration planner Brent Riley—for whom getting the Community House on cribbing was a crowning achievement before his retirement—hope that lifting the building out of the water will stop the damage in its tracks. It will also help prevent rot and mould, which could permanently destroy or disfigure the historic structure.
The Community House was constructed in 1893. The wood, mostly rough-sawn Douglas Fir, was pre-cut and labelled in San Francisco, then shipped as a kit to Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island with the Pacific Steam Whaling Company’s whaling fleet.
It was first used as a community building for the officers (of the whaling ships) who spent winters on the island. After the whalers left, it was used by Bishop Isaac Stringer and the Anglican Mission, the North-West Mounted Police (precursor to the RCMP) and by researchers studying the island. It’s currently used as a park office and a meeting place for visitors to the park.
The Community House has been standing for 130 years, through 10-foot-high snowfalls, howling winter winds and powerful storm surges.
“Some of the woodwork is perfect,” said Balzer. “The building is extremely strong. It’s a little bendy because it’s so wet, but it is just really … It’s beautiful. It’s a great building. The more you see, the more respect you have for the previous builders.”
Each summer, the Historic Sites Unit team spends at least two weeks on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island, keeping up with regular maintenance and monitoring of the buildings. In the next few years, they plan to also lift the Bonehouse onto cribbing, as well, to save it from deterioration. The Bonehouse was used to store valuable baleen—a giant filter in the jaws of Baleen Whales, which was used to strain their food during the island’s whaling era.
“When I started the job, I didn’t have the history lesson. And I still don’t have it all, but the more I learn, the more I just really enjoy the work,” said Balzer.
Watch a time-lapse video of Historic Sites Unit specialists Brent Riley, Gisli Balzer and Stephan Biedermann, lifting the Community House building (youtube.com/watch?v=dByDVFYCVSE).
And there are 3D drawings of the Community House and other historic buildings available at herschel.preserve.ucalgary.ca.Find more information about how Yukon Historic Sites is working to preserve and protect heritage on Qikiqtaruk—Herschel Island. And watch for future stories in this series. Read the Herschel Island–Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park Management Plan: yukon.ca/en/herschel-island-qikiqtaruk-territorial-park-management-plan.
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Sources
- Interview with Stephan and Gisli
- herschel.preserve.ucalgary.ca
