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From Necessity to Style:A History of Log Buildings in British Columbia,

from the colonial era to the present

Prepared by Tusa Sheafor the BC Heritage Branch,Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts

September 2005

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Acknowledgements

This study could not have been undertaken without the assistance of a number of

people who generously shared their knowledge. I would especially like to thank Bill

Quackenbush, Curator of Barkerville Historic Town, for accommodating my visit to

the Barkerville Archive and providing valuable insight into the history of log

buildings; Dave Coulson of David Coulson Design Ltd. for introducing me to two of

his log preservation/rehabilitation projects; Roger Wiles, caretaker of the Stoker

Simpson property; Mike Patrick, owner of the River House; Peter Rothfels and

Sylvia Frier, owners of the Oliver House; John Hudson, Curatorial Assistant at the

Kaatza Station Museum and Archives in Cowichan Lake; Bea Johnson, President,

Saanich Pioneer Society; Gerry Borden, Commemorations Officer, Fort Langley

National Historic Site; Steve Dale, Historic Places Program, Parks Canada; and Tara

Racette at the Friends of Fort Steele Society.

In addition, I wish to thank everyone who took time out of their busy

schedules to respond to the request sent out on the BC Museums Association

listserve for information and suggestions, including: Dr. Lorne Hammond, Curator of

History, Royal BC Museum; Kris Andersen, Program Coordinator, St. Anns

Academy, Victoria, BC; Alistair B. Fraser, Kootenay Lake, BC; Steve Bender,Manager, BC Interior Forestry Museum, Revelstoke; Leanne Riding, Vancouver,

BC; Lynne Wright, MSA Museum, Abbotsford, BC; Krista Kaptein, Courtney BC;

Troy Hunter; Tom Roper, Sointula; Sandi Ratch, Calgary AB; Catherine Siba,

Assistant Curator Social History, Courtney and District Museum; Cynthia Barwell

Hansen, Director/Curator, Heritage Park Museum, Terrace, BC; Kathleen Trayner,

Alizarin Consulting; Many provided insightful observations about their own

experiences of building, living in, and researching log structures. Others helpfully

directed my attention to significant BC log buildings all of which I have attempted

to include in an appended list.

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Purpose

This study is designed to assist in the creation of value for historic BC log buildings

in three ways. First, it provides a contextual historical overview of significant log

building trends in British Columbia. Second, this study provides a useful review of

the available published and unpublished sources of information on the history of log

buildings in BC. The review of sources will help direct future researchers to

pertinent information. Third, this study provides an appended list of log buildings

some that are designated heritage properties, and others that are potentially

significant.

The purpose of this study is to provide a contextual history of log buildings inBritish Columbia, and to explore their value, while taking into account that values

are socially constructed. Thus, this study is not a systematic inventory of all log

buildings or their styles and forms, nor is it a technical manual. It is a broad

historical survey that synthesizes information from scattered sources and provides

case studies of specific BC log buildings as examples of how their value has been

constructed and, in turn, shifted over time. Being mindful of shifting values involves

viewing history as a process, rather than looking at static points in the past. Some of

the key questions posed by this study are: Why do we value historical log buildings?

Are all historical log buildings of value? And if so, to whom? In order to answer

these questions it is necessary to understand that the history of log buildings in

British Columbia is both a material history of actual buildings anda history of the

changing symbolic meanings associated with log structures.

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Introduction

With its abundance of forests, the region of British Columbia has had a long and rich

history of log building. For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, diverse

groups of aboriginal peoples who lived in and traveled through the area used logs

and hand-hewn planks to construct sturdy winter dwellings, fortified villages, and

temporary shelters.1In the early nineteenth century, the North West Company and

the Hudsons Bay Company (HBC) introduced their corporate pice sur pice2log

building technique in the form of forts and other structures. HBC log structures were

followed in the mid-nineteenth century by early log buildings constructed throughout

the province, particularly in the Cariboo and Peace regions, by European, American,

and Chinese immigrant settlers as they cleared land for mining, agriculture, and

ranching. Settlement of the land continued into the first decade of the twentieth

century. But the history of BCs log buildings does not end with pioneer

architecture;there are other distinct log-building trends that reflect specific regional

socio-economic, political, and cultural currents.

From the 1880s onward, log buildings became increasingly associated with

the aesthetic Rustic Style favoured by wealthy Britons, Canadians, and Americansfor private recreational retreats.

3Rustic Style log architecture was also built by the

Canadian Pacific Railway for BCs National Parks between the 1890s and 1930s.4

The romance of the log cabin and its association with wilderness recreation,

continued to play a role in the promotion of tourism in BC throughout the 1950s. An

important revival of log building occurred during the 1960s and 70s, on a more

individual scale, encouraged by the increasing value of ecology. In 1971, Bob

Mackie opened the School of Log Building in Prince George, and through his

promotion of quality hand-built log homes he helped to bring attention to the

restoration and preservation of old log structures as well. Log buildings have enjoyed

an increased popularity over the past thirty years, and there are currently over fifty

companies manufacturing log homes in British Columbia.5Indeed, 100 Mile House,

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in the South Cariboo region, has recently been named the Log Building Capital of

North America.6

As this brief introductory overview indicates, the history of log buildings in

BC is a consistent but not static one, and provides fertile ground for new research.

Yet, it has received little attention as a distinct topic. Currently, information on log

buildings must be gleaned from multiple sources that range from broad surveys of

Canadian architectural history to narrow studies of specific log buildings or sites in

British Columbia. Additionally, log buildings are often relegated to a subsection of

vernacular or pioneer architecture. This treatment limits our understanding of later

log-building practices, and hinders a full discussion of the symbolic use of logs in

high style architecture. A review of the available sources demonstrates the need for

consolidation and synthesis of information in order to create a foundation for further

research on the history of log buildings in BC.

A Review of the Available Sources

Two nationally focused survey histories of Canadian vernacular architecture include

information on the history of log building in Canada. John I. RempelsBuilding with

Wood and other aspects of nineteenth-century building in central Canada(1967,revised 1980) discusses the technical methods used in traditional wood construction.

Although focused on central Canada, it provides both a general history and a

technical explanation of the different styles of log buildings in North America.

Particularly useful for this study is Rempels overview of the pice sur pice

building method used by the Hudsons Bay Company in western Canada.

While construction methods and architectural data are important means of

reading old buildings for which little or no historical records exist, it is equally

important to acknowledge that buildings are more than the sum of construction

techniques and styles. They are places that have multiple meanings that accrue

over time through a process that encompasses the skills of the builder, the use of the

buildings, the temporal and geographical locations in which they were built, and the

events that occurred within and around them. The more recent publication,

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Homeplace: The Making of the Canadian Dwelling over Three Centuries (1998), by

Peter Ennals and Deryck W. Holdsworth, presents such a multivalent social history

of the built landscape in Canada. As historical geographers, Ennals and

Holdsworth situate the history of vernacular housing in Canada within the social and

economic forces that shaped particular places, and then relate this specificity to

larger national and international socio-economic and political conditions. Through a

series of case studies they examine not just the style and form of dwellings, but also

the ways in which they were used in order to force questions about antecedents,

ethnicity, economy, social aspiration, interaction, and transformation.7

Though useful in a general sense, neither of the studies mentioned above

specifically discusses the history of log building in BC. Indeed, in their treatment of

log structures, both tend to concentrate on eastern and central Canada where there

has been a longer historical record. This has had two unfortunate side effects. First it

has inadvertently supported the assumption that log building in western Canada

developed in the same way as it did in eastern and central Canada. And, second, it

has helped to perpetuate the overly simplistic explanation that log-building

techniques and styles traveled from east to west following the routes established by

French Canadian fur traders during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.8

True enough, some of BCs earliest log structures were built by the Hudsons BayCompany in the pice sur pice, or Red River, style and many early log

structures can be attributed to French Canadian builders,9however, these facts

provide little insight into the historic value of BCs log buildings. While both of the

above sources supply a foundation for understanding the broader history of

vernacular architecture in Canada, a full discussion of the history of BCs log

buildings remains to be integrated in a national survey.

A recent regional survey,Building the West: The Early Architects of British

Columbia, edited by Donald Luxton, supplies information about early BC architects,

some of whom designed Rustic Style log structures, such as Bertram Dudley Stuarts

extraordinary BC Wood Products Building (1913), which used huge unpeeled logs as

Doric columns.10

Nevertheless, most of the historic log structures in BC were not

designed by architects, but were built by individuals with carpentry, engineering, or

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mechanical skills. This is one of the reasons log buildings are often treated as folk

architecture, reflective of idiosyncratic and ethnic traditions rather than the larger

socio-economic, political, and social conditions that can be applied to buildings

designed by trained architects.

There have been only a few studies that focus exclusively on the history of

log building in BC. Gary Lee Bunneys MA thesis, Log Buildings in Southern

British Columbia: Pioneer Adaptation to Housing Need in the Kettle Valley and

Chilcotin, (1980) takes a geographical approach, analyzing field data and oral

histories in order to draw conclusions about the development of regional pioneer log-

building styles. His study documents two regional groupings of 168 log-built

structures, and provides information about the ethnic origins of a number of settlers

in the Kettle Valley and Chilcotin areas. Nevertheless, although he initially expected

to find a correlation between ethnicity and construction methods and styles, Bunney

concludes that the ethnic relationship did not greatly affect the type, form, or quality

of the log buildings, rather, log building forms are more often the result of three

conditions: expediency, the availability of logs, and the skills of the builder.11

Bunneys study is limited by its concern only with pioneer log structures, but it is

useful because it calls attention to the shortcomings of treating log structures as

typologies that correlate to particular ethnic groups.

12

This is especially true in British Columbia, a region that was settled relatively

late by people who likely had already been exposed to the different building

traditions of their fellow immigrants from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. As Ennals

and Holdsworth explain, by the nineteenth century the population of North America

was shifting: Exceedingly high rates of geographic mobility ensured that most

people were repeatedly exposed, by their own wanderings or those of others, to a

variety of different house-building solutions.13

In addition, as Bunneys study

shows, many of the builders of pioneer log dwellings in BC came from urban areas

of Europe and the United States and had no log building traditions of their own. In

such cases it appears they quickly adopted the prevailing building technologies.14

One such dominant log building technology was brought to BC by the Hudsons Bay

Company. Michael Wills study A Technical Overview of Hudsons Bay Company

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Fur Trade Post Architecture in British Columbia, describes the two most prevalent

styles of HBC log building: pice sur pice and Scandinavian or log cabin style

which used squared and dovetailed logs, both of which are found in early colonial

log building.

Most published sources on BCs historic log buildings tend to be non-

academic documentary surveys. Donald Clemsons general interest bookLiving with

Logs: British Columbias Log Buildings and Rail Fences (1974) remains the only

published source entirely devoted to the subject. His documentary approach has been

followed by three other publications that focus on old or pioneer architecture and

include a number of log structures.Early Indian Village Churches: Wooden Frontier

Architecture in British Columbia (1977) by John Veillette and Gary White

documents the missionary churches built near sites of traditional aboriginal villages

in BC. Some of these structures were constructed from squared-logs covered with

siding, and most were built with the help of local First Nations people. These

structures represent colonial missionary efforts to enforce an agrarian settled

lifestyle, which did much to alter the housing practices of a number of First Nations

groups. Veillettes and Whites study documents this history in photographs, and

provides an inventory of existing (in 1977) pioneer churches.

More recently the Royal BC Museums Living Landscapes program,workingin cooperation with local research partners has documented a number of log

buildings in the Prince George area. June Chamberlain, a long-time resident of the

area, has photographed local log buildings and compiled information about early

homesteaders, which can be accessed on theLiving Landscapeswebsite.15

Her study

is a model for other local studies of log buildings, demonstrating the wealth of

historical information that can be found within the community, and which adds

crucial contextual information for seemingly forgotten log structures.

Artists have also documented historical log buildings. Rudi Danglemaiers

Pioneer Buildings of British Columbia(1989) presents a series of watercolour

paintings of old buildings done by the author, which are accompanied by

descriptions. Useful for its visual documentation, Danglemaiers publication is of

general interest, but its lack of source citation limits its usefulness for the researcher.

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Michael Kluckners Vanishing British Columbia(2005) remedies this situation by

providing footnoted sources for his historical research on a number of old buildings,

which he has documented in paintings over the past twelve years. A concern shared

by all of these documentary surveys is regret over the demise of old log buildings

that have suffered from neglect.

As previously noted, the above sources tend to place log buildings in the

category of frontier or pioneer architecture. Books that discuss the later use of

logs in architecture are often how-to books that endorse log building as an

ecological alternative to the use of mass-produced milled lumber. The Complete Log

House Book: The Canadian Guide to Building with Logs (1979), by Dale Mann and

Richard Skinulis, provides a brief historical overview of log building in Canada, but

tends to over-emphasize the idea of a pioneer flourishing followed by a slow decline

toward the 1950s, and a subsequent revival in the sixties. This rendition disregards

the widespread use of logs for fishing and hunting cabins in the 1920s and 30s, as

well as the use of logs in Rustic Style architecture that continued to be popular in BC

throughout the 40s and 50s. Indeed, a number of BCs most spectacular log

buildings were built in the mid-twentieth century.16

This is not to deny the importance of the log building revival that did take

place during the 60s and 70s, which is partly responsible for a growing interest inrestoring old log buildings and in producing new ones. InBuilding with Logs(first

printed in 1971), Bob Mackie provides a rationale for a return to unprocessed lumber

stating, log construction is the only contemporary construction method which

enables an individual to exchange his own labour and ingenuity, rather than cash or a

mortgage debt, for a home to be proud of.17

In addition, he adds, good log

buildings may, in the next century, be all thats left of our vanished forests.18

Thus,

according to Mackies logic, building with logs helps to preserve trees in

architecture. Bob Mackie and his wife Mary are well known in BC for starting the

School of Log Building in Prince George and a serial publication, The Canadian Log

House.

In addition to these published sources on log buildings, there are a number of

unpublished research reports and feasibility studies on specific log buildings and

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sites produced by both the provincial and national governments. The Lillouette-

Fraser Heritage Resource Study(1980), conducted by the Heritage Conservation

Branch of British Columbia, is a substantial two-volume summary of significant

heritage resources in the Lillouette-Fraser area, and a meticulous inventory of sites.

A large number of the buildings included in the study are small log structures, many

located on Reserve lands. Other Heritage Conservation Branch studies of specific log

building sites consulted for this study include Patrick Freys Keremeos Grist Mill: A

Research Report1974; Cuyler Pages The Grist Mill. Keremeos(1995); Linda

Eversoles Keremeos Grist Mill-Machinery: Research Notes(1984); Eileen

Fletchers Wells Heritage Area Revitalization Program, Project Implementation

Manual (1982); Jennifer Iredales Wells, BCA Proposal for Heritage Conservation,

Part 1 and 2(1984); Judith Strickers Cottonwood House Research Report(1982);

Kerr, Priestman, and Associates Ltd., Structural Assessment of Nanaimo Bastion:

Report to Ministry of Provincial Secretary and Government Services(1985); and

Jonathan YardleysRestoration Study: The Bastion Nanaimo(1989).

Parks Canada has also produced a number of studies on specific sites and a

thorough study of Rustic Building Programs in Canadas National Parks by

Edward Mills. Millss study of rustic architecture provides a thorough history of the

development of the Rustic Style in Canada, and focuses on the evolution of buildingprograms. In addition it provides an inventory of rustic buildings found in Canadas

National Parks. Other Parks Canada reports consulted for this study include Kate

MacFarlanes Twin Falls Teahouse Report and Character Statement (98-081); and

Edward Millss Yoho Ranch Report and Character Statement (00-002).

With the exception of Millss study of rustic park architecture, the above

government research reports and studies frequently make little attempt to relate the

construction or restoration of log buildings and sites to the larger socio-political and

economic conditions and currents that helped to shape the development of log

building in BC. Essentially, what is missing from these reports is the evolving

historical context in which these buildings were produced a context that help us

understand not only the value of log buildings but, more specifically, whywe value

them.

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Methodology

Log buildings, like other forms of vernacular architecture, have traditionally been

analyzed in terms of their construction techniques and patterns of diffusion in order

to create typologies of style. Yet, a narrow focus on style and form can have a

number of shortcomings. Scholars of vernacular architecture have pointed out that

the ways in which people actually use architectural spaces cannot always be

determined by form.19

For example, many temporary log structures were built

hastily without a thought for domestic niceties, but ended up being used as dwellings

for extended periods. In addition, studies that focus only on materials tend to lack

social relevance that is, they make little attempt to integrate their findings into

larger socio-economic and political conditions that shape, and in turn are represented

by, the built environment.20

As architectural historian Dana Arnold states, to

consider a building in isolation as a total history in itself, and concentrate solely on

form or appearance, is to denude it of much of its meaning21

This study presents a contextual history by using multiple sources of different

kinds. In this respect it is interdisciplinary, relying on geographical studies, the

careful data collecting done by archaeologists, and historical documents, texts, and

visual images, in order to analyze the socio-political, economic, and culturalconditions and currents that helped to shape log building trends in BC. In some

cases, such as Section 2 on Aboriginal log building, which relies heavily on

published research conducted by Grant Keddie, Curator of Archaeology at the Royal

BC Museum, a significant amount of time was spent examining the visual record. In

other cases, such as Section 4 on Rustic Style log building, information was

compiled from site visits and archival research.

Constructing a contextual history of log buildings in BC is an ambitious

undertaking, and it is acknowledged here that each section of this paper could

comprise an independent report of a substantial size. It is also acknowledged that

there is no one single history of log building in BC. Nevertheless, general log

building trends that occurred within certain time periods can be discerned and have

been presented here, illustrated with examples from a number of regions across BC.

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Research Parameters

The parameters of this study remain intentionally loose in order to provide as

inclusive a study as possible. The way log buildings are defined here is broad,

however, this study looks primarily at log buildings that have structural walls

composed of either horizontally or vertically positioned logs. In some cases,

buildings that incorporate logs as stylistic elements will also be discussed because of

their symbolic use.

Log buildings included in this study are found in Southwestern BC,

Vancouver Island, the Cariboo, the Okanagan, and the Kootenays. While this study

attempts to be representative of the history of log building province-wide, some

regions are better represented than others. This is partly because of the method of

research undertaken, which included archival research, site visits, and outreach to the

community for input. Information was solicited from the public through a request

circulated on the BC Museums Association (BCMA) listserve. This yielded a great

deal of information about both public heritage sites and privately owned buildings.

Suggestions from the broader community sometimes dictated which buildings were

investigated a method justified because, in many ways, the communitys interest in

these buildings is testimony to their significance. Additionally, some areas are betterrepresented than others because they have larger numbers of historic log buildings.

Specific sites were also chosen as examples because of the amount of existing

information on them.

At the same time that the research parameters of this study have been left

intentionally loose, in order to place reasonable limits on a topic of this scope, the

time frame has been delineated from 1821, when the Hudsons Bay Company

merged with the North West Company, to the present day. While it was suggested

that this study incorporate Aboriginal log building, which began thousands of years

before the Hudsons Bay Company arrived in the region now known as BC, it is only

after European contact that we have a historical record of these building forms.

Because of this, Aboriginal log buildings are explored here in relation to the building

activities of European colonizers.

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As well, some important areas of research are touched on only briefly here

because of the nascent state of the current research. These include a discussion of

ethnic forms of log building. In particular, the study of Chinese log building in BC,

while potentially a rich topic, is in a formative stage and is not well documented. In

most cases, where gaps appear in this study, it is because of a lack of documentation

and a need for further primary research on specific sites and buildings.

Two persistent themes have shaped this study. The first theme is the material

itself: all of the buildings discussed were constructed with logs some round and

covered with bark, others hewn square and hidden beneath siding. The second theme

is the pervasive association of Euro-Canadian log structures with a romantic image

of the frontier or pioneer lifestyle. By incorporating the work of scholars who have

taken a wide variety of approaches to the study of log buildings in BC, and by

undertaking additional primary research, the present study constructs a context-based

regional history that is both a material and a theoretical analysis.

Each section of this paper identifies a general log-building trend in BC and

then illustrates aspects of this trend through concrete examples drawn from differentareas throughout BC. These examples are meant to illustrate general patterns, not to

present the only examples extant. Section 1 introduces and discusses three prevalent

myths that are embedded in the image of the log building, and which play a primary

role in the construction of their value. Section 2 provides a brief overview of

aboriginal log structures found in BC, and looks at some of the points of exchange

between aboriginal and non-aboriginal builders during the colonial period. Section 3

discusses three forms of early log architecture: HBC structures, early settler

temporary buildings, and early settler permanent buildings. Section 4 examines two

uses of the Rustic Style, on an individual level evident in the cabins built by wealthy

individuals, and on a corporate level evident in building styles used for CPR and

National Parks architecture. Section 5 discusses the connection between the

popularity of logs for recreational architecture and the rise of tourism in the 1950s,

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and the impact of the back-to-the-land revival of the 60s and 70s that helped to

resurrect an interest in old log structures and to foster a log building industry in BC.

These sections are followed by an appendix that lists a number of log buildings

investigated during the process of research.

1Here I am referring to the winter pithouses of the B.C. interior First Nations and the portable longhouses of the coastal First Nations, both built using logs.2Also known as Red River Frame or Post on Sill construction.3Edward Mills, Rustic Building Programs in Canadas National Parks, 1887-1950 (Architectural

History Branch, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, 1992),19.4Mills, Rustic Building Programs, 1.5Most are concentrated in the Cariboo, especially in 100 Mile House, as well as the Okanagan. Someof these log building companies can be found at the following website:

http://www.logassociation.org/directory/builders_canada.php#britishcolumbia6See, for example, Demian Pettman, Log Homes in The 100 Mile House & South Cariboo Visitor

Guide(2005-2006), 28.7

Ennels and Holdsworth, The Making of A Canadian Dwelling, xiii.8John I. Rempel,Building with Wood and other aspects of nineteenth-century building in CentralCanada, revised edition (Toronto: U of T Press, 1980); Ennals and Holdsworth, The Making of A

Canadian Dwelling, 123-24.9For example, the Nanaimo Bastion, constructed in 1853, was built of hand-hewn logs by French

Canadians Jean Baptiste Fortier and Leon Labine. See, Donald Luxton, ed.,Building the West: The

Early Architecture of British Columbia(Vancouver, Talonbooks, 2003), 23. Expert French Canadian

carpenters continued to build log structures throughout B.C. into the first decades of the 20thcentury

a carpenter by the name of Dan Savoie built a number of log homes along the Cowichan Riverbetween 1901-12. See, Kaatza, Chronicles of Cowichan Lake, 1967, 42.10Luxton,Building the West, 380.11Gary Lee Bunney, Log Buildings in Southern British Columbia: Pioneer Adaptation to housingneed in the Kettle Valley and Chilcotin, (UVic, MA thesis, 1980). This conclusion is echoed by more

than one expert on log-building history, including Bill Quackenbush, Curator, Barkerville Library and

Archives.12Jon Goss, The Built Environment and Social Theory: Towards an Architectural Geography,Professional Geographer, 40 (4), 1988, 393.13Ennals and Holdsworth,Homeplace, 5314Bunney, Log Buildings, 36, 116.15Chamberlain, JuneLiving Landscapes, Royal BC Museum Website:

http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/upperfraserbasin/cottonwood/house.html.

16Some examples include the Grouse Mountain Chalet (1926), North Vancouver; Eaglecrest (1929-

30), Qualicum Beach; H.W. Herridge House (1937-1950), Upper Arrow Lake; and the John and

Kathleen Barraclough House (1946), Saanich, B.C.17

B. Allan Mackie,Building with Logs(Prince George, 1977, first edition 1971), 1.18Mackie,Building with Logs, 4.19Annmarie Adams and Sally McMurray eds,Exploring Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives inVernacular Architecture VII (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, c1997).20Goss, The Built Environment, 394.21Dana Arnold,Reading Architectural History(London: Routledge, 2002), 7.
http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/upperfraserbasin/cottonwood/house.htmlhttp://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/upperfraserbasin/cottonwood/house.htmlhttp://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/upperfraserbasin/cottonwood/house.htmlhttp://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/upperfraserbasin/cottonwood/house.html


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A building is more than it seems. It is an artifact an object of

material culture produced by a society to fulfill particular

functions determined by, and thus embodying or reflecting, the

social relations and levels of development of the productive forces

of that society.John Goss, The Built Environment and Social Theory: Towards anArchitectural Geography, Professional Geographer, 40 (4), 1988, 392

If we accept architecture as a cultural artifact then we must also

see its histories as a text open to a variety of meanings.Dana Arnold,Reading Architectural History. London: Routledge, 2002, 7.

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Section 1: The Log Cabin, the Pioneer, and the Front ier Myth

Although log buildings appear to speak of a simple and immediate engagement with

the natural environment, they are more than they seem. Just as a modernist

skyscraper evokes notions of machine-age progress and efficiency, log buildings are

emblematic of the romance of the pioneer, the wilderness, and the frontier. These

associations are embedded in the image of log buildings, and shape their meanings,

value, and historical significance. In order to understand whywe value historic log

buildings, it is necessary to question how and why both the materials andtheir

symbolic meanings have been employed.This section focuses on the latter by

examining some of the ways in which log buildings have been invested with

symbolic meanings that continue to shape how we interpret them. These include the

mid-nineteenth-century American Log Cabin Myth; the iconic use of the log cabin

as a symbol of pioneer triumph over the wilderness; and British Columbias regional

identity as a western frontier.

The Log Cabin Myth refers to a nineteenth-century error in the American

historical record, which posited that the first dwellings built by the English and

Dutch Pilgrim Fathers were log cabins. In 1939, historian Harold Shurtleff tracedthis tenacious popular belief to the use of the log cabin as a symbol of American

democracy in the presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1860.1Drawing on

associations with Abraham Lincolns birthplace, the simple dwelling of the

common man, and pioneer ingenuity, politicians used the log cabin as a powerful

symbol of national identity one that resonated deeply with the American people.

Although it has its genesis in U.S. politics, the Log Cabin Myth is important

for our purposes because it highlights a more general misconception about log

buildings: their association with traditional pioneer values, such as honesty and

wholesomeness, that are held to represent the dominant culture of white European

colonizers. According to historian Elizabeth Furniss, the myth of the frontier begins

with the settlers journey to the wilderness and their cultural, moral, and material

regression to the more primitive conditions encountered there. The frontier

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experience involves a series of encounters with morally opposed forces, the most

important being civilization and wilderness, humans and nature, and whites and

Indians2 In this way, the image of the log cabin stands, not just as a symbol of

the pioneer, but as a symbol of the moral triumph of the pioneer.

Myths are perpetuated largely through representations in the form of images

and texts, such as popular novels and newspaper articles that are widely circulated.

Romantic poetry, childrens literature, and travel literature have all been culpable in

strengthening the association between log cabins, pioneer values, and the conquest of

the frontier during the nineteenth century.3For instance, in a lengthy poem entitled

Idylls of the Pioneers, nineteenth-century Canadian poet Alexander McLachlan

posited the log cabin as a site of harmony and quietude in the wilderness:

The Little log cabin is all alone;

Its windows are rude, and its walls are bare,And the wind without has a weary moan.

Yet peace, like an angel, is nesting there4

This romantic vision of the pioneer experience is also reflected in fictional stories of

the frontier. Anexample is provided by British childrens author Elizabeth Maxwell

Comforts sentimental novel of 1895, entitled Grizzlys Little Pard, in which a young

orphan girl comes to live with an old prospector. Comforts description of the

fictional town of Gold Ledge in the Rocky Mountains, with its rudely built

cabins and rough ugliness of mud-chinked walls5illustrates how the image of

the log cabin was used to represent a primitive land. In contrast, a log cabin built for

the orphaned girl represents community pride and a strong work ethic when it

indicates permanent settlement of the land:

A site for the new cabin was selected among the pines andhemlocks; the ground was cleared and evened off; the logs selectedand trimmed with great care In a very short time, with the many

willing hands doing good work, the cabin was up Altogether it

was a very comfortable, cozy little home, and all the Gold Ledgerswere very proud of it.

6

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Likewise, nineteenth-century travel literature, with its assumption of truth, also

strengthened the association between the image of the log cabin, the pioneer, and the

frontier. In his book, On Canadas Frontier,of 1892, British tourist Julian Ralph

romanticized British Columbias past, while traveling in a west-bound train:

where the only true homes are within the palisades or the

unguarded log-cabin of the fur-trading agents, and where the onlyother white men are either washing sand in the river bars, driving

stages of the only line that penetrates a piece of the country, or are

those queer devil-may-care but companionable Davy Crocketts of theday

7

These examples demonstrate that by the 1890s, when settlement of the land was still

occurring in BC, the log dwelling already had a number of frontier associations.

The tenacity of the association between log buildings and pioneer values

continues to endure today, for example the 2005-2006 South Cariboo Visitor Guide

proclaims for over a century residents have used logs to build their structures. You

will often see these historic buildings, long forgotten, but still standing as tributes to

pioneer character, will power, and hard work.8As Harold Shurtleff reminds us, the

log cabin, along with the Indian, the long rifle, and the hunting shirt, is associated

with one of the greatest of all conquests, the winning of the west.

9

It is thisconnection between the log cabin and settlement of new land that forms the basis for

a discussion of the myth of the frontier in British Columbia.

Due in part to its geographic isolation from central and eastern Canadian

centers of culture and government, a strong regional western frontier identity

developed in British Columbia, and continues to endure. British Columbia entered

confederation relatively late in 1871 and, at that time, the Canadian Pacific Railway

played an important role in promoting the province as an undiscovered wilderness

land a topic revisited and discussed in greater detail in Section 4 of this paper. As

political scientist Philip Resnick has commented, The sense of being a geographical

region apart seems deeply ingrained in the BC psyche.10

Those in doubt need only

look to more recent examples, such as the first issue ofBig Country Cariboo

Magazine, which referred to the region as Canadas Romantic West,11

or the many

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pioneer restaurants and hotels that dot BC highways. Even urban areas of BC, such

as Vancouver, are influenced by a frontier sensibility, articulated by contemporary

author Douglas Coupland as stemming from a tradition of abandoning [the] centre

to try something new.12

The perception of British Columbia as a frontier can be recognized as a

vestige of the Frontier thesis of American History articulated by Frederick Jackson

Turner in 1893.13

Turner isolated the pastoral West from the civilization of the

urban East and Europe, equating it with cultural simplicity, stating that the West, at

bottom, is a form of society rather than an area. It is the term applied to the region

whose social conditions result from the application of older institutions and ideas to

the transforming influences of free land.14

To early colonizers, western regions of

North America were thought of as unclaimed territories, where free land awaited

the improving efforts of agrarian pioneer settlers. Indeed, in BC the Land Ordinance

Act of 1861 encouraged settlers to claim large tracts of unoccupied Crown lands

for a small fee, on the condition that they occupy the land within thirty days.15

The

fact remains, however, that land settlement was rife with dispute, not only between

the United States and Britain, but particularly between settlers and Aboriginal

people, who had different traditions and expectations of land use. Implicit in the

narrative of land settlement is the celebration of the pioneer and the marginalizationof the Aboriginal people who originally inhabited the land.

16

Historian Elizabeth Furniss has examined the conflict that arises when

pioneer narratives intersect with Aboriginal histories, using the community of

Williams Lake as a case study. She cautions:

Frontier histories provide Euro-Canadians with a sense of collective

identity paternal benevolence and natural superiority constructed

in opposition to Aboriginal peoplesGiven how deeply embeddedcultural myths are in the dominant worldview of a society, it wouldbe simplistic to suggest that the solution to this situation is to

abandon the frontier genre or to censor or criticize those who choose

to express the past in this format. Important, rather, is a reflexiveawareness of the pervasiveness of the frontier myth and of the way

in which frontier narratives convey implicit values, assumptions, andbeliefs that reflect the legacy of Canadas colonial past.

17

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A well-known example of the ways in which revisionist interpretations of the

past can elicit angry responses from those who identify with pioneer histories can be

seen in the 1991 exhibition The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the

Frontier, 1820-1920. The exhibition, curated by William Truettner of the National

Museum of American Art in Washington D.C., scrutinized popular beliefs about the

heroics of American westward expansion, and criticized its effects on Aboriginal

people.18

Angry viewers felt that criticism of pioneer history was an affront to white

Americans. In her bookMaking Representations: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era,

Moira Simpson explains how reactions to the exhibit sparked political debate: the

matter was raised at an appropriations hearing when two senators accused the

Smithsonian Institution of having a political agenda and called for cuts in the

Smithsonians public funding.19

Frontier and pioneer histories are important ways

in which people identify with their heritage. At the same time, the cultural biases

embedded in historical narratives need to be acknowledged.

Historical interpretations of pioneer log buildings have tended to

emphasize frontier histories without examining how this might perpetuate a colonial

attitude in which aboriginal people are positioned in opposition to the civilizing

efforts of the pioneers. Thebuilding of the Saanich Pioneer

Memorial Log Cabin (fig. 1) in

1933 provides an example of the

deliberate use of log construction

to evoke associations with

pioneer values. The structure was

built as a museum and meeting

hall by the Saanich Pioneer

Society on Vancouver Island.

Even though the society had been

gifted a large amount of milled lumber toward the construction of a hall,20

the use of

logs was an important choice deliberated at length in society meetings. One

Fig. 1 Saanich Pioneer Memorial Log Cabin

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- 22 -

suggestion was put forward that each pioneer family supply a log for the building,

with older pioneer families supplying the bottom logs and newer families logs

continuing upwards.21

In fact this never took place. But, a supply of logs left over

from the building of the nearby Sidney wharf was eventually procured for the

construction of the museum.

At the opening celebration for the new museum in 1933, Premier Tolmie

gave a speech and presented to the Pioneer Society a copy of the agreement of

purchase of land made by Sir James Douglas with the First Nations Chiefs of

Saanich.22

In doing so, the premier drew a connection between the building of a log

cabin by pioneers and ownership of the land. In 1932, however, just prior to the

building of the Pioneer Memorial Log Cabin, the Saanich Chiefs had sent two legal

documents to the provincial government denying the validity of both the North and

South Saanich Land Treaties, stating that gifts of blankets had been given in

exchange for peace, not land.23

Premier Tolmies presentation was a symbolic act

that reinforced the legitimacy of the colonial directive. While this interpretation may

seem overly analytical, it is presented to highlight the pervasiveness of the frontier

myth, and how it encodes our understanding of history.

This is not to say that all log buildings constructed during the colonial period

are symbols of oppression. Individual log buildings are material objects with theirown specific histories. But, as symbols they can also be understood to represent the

values perpetuated by the frontier myth. Government legislation of land acts and

Western ideas about the value and proper use of land have also played a role in

sustaining the association of pioneer values with the myth of the frontier and its

symbols, such as the log cabin. The role of such myths in the construction of history

needs to be discerned and accounted for, especially in a discussion of log building

during the colonial period. The complexity of the colonial encounter is a topic that

reappears in other sections of this paper. In particular, the following section on

Aboriginal log building examines the different cultural perspectives on land use.

1Harold Shurtleff, The log cabin myth; a study of the early dwellings of the English Colonists, 5.

2Elizabeth Furniss, The Burden of History: Colonialism and the Frontier Myth in a Rural Canadian

Community(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1999), 18.


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3Harold Shurtleff notes that it was the publication Pageant of America(1925), which was widely

distributed to schools, that solidified the connection between pioneers and log cabins in the United

States (page 194). In particular, he points out that illustrations, as visual representations, areespecially forceful in the perpetuation of myths.4Alexander McLachlan, The Poetical Works of Alexander McLachlan(Toronto: W. Briggs, 1900),

234.5Elizabeth Maxwell Comfort, Grizzlys Little Pard, (London: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1895), 2.6Comfort, Grizzlys Little Pard, 34.7Julian Ralph, On Canadas Frontier: Sketches of History, Sport, and Adventure, and of the Indians,

Missionaries, Fur-Traders, and Newer Settlers of Western Canada(London: James R. Osgood,

McIlvaine & Co., 1892), 249.8Demian Pettman, Log Homes, The 100 Mile House & South Cariboo Visitor Guide, 2005-2006,

28.9Shurtleff,Log Cabin Myth, 6.10Philip Resnick, The Politics of Resentment: British Columbia Regionalism and Canadian Unity(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 2000), 4.111976.12Douglas Coupland, City of Glass (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2000), 106.13Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History(New York: Henry

Holt and Company, 1921), first edition published in 1894.14Turner, The Significance of the Frontier, 205.15For more on the selling of British Columbia lands to immigrant settlers, see Newton H. Chittenden,

Settlers, prospectors, and tourists guide, or, Travels through British Columbia, first published inVictoria, B.C., 1882 (Vancouver: Gordon Soules Book Publishers Ltd., 1984), 19.16See, for example, the main argument in Furniss, The Burden of History.17Furniss, The Burden of History, 78.18Moira G. Simpson,Making Representations: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era(London:Routledge, 1996), 30.19Simpson,Making Representations, 30.20Saanich Pioneer Museum Archive, F2005S26, Minutes.21Saanich Pioneer Museum Archive, F2005S26, Minutes.22Saanich Pioneer Museum Archive, F2005S26, Minutes.23See Grant Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 49.

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Section 2: Aboriginal Log Building and the Colonial Encounter

Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian architectural forms are not often discussed together;

they stem from radically different cultural values and traditions.1As historian Susan

Buggey has pointed out, indigenous people in many parts of the world regard

landscape in ways common to their own experience, and different from the Western

perspective of land and landscape. The relationship between people and place is

conceived fundamentally in spiritual terms, rather than primarily in material terms.2

In particular, in colonial BC Aboriginal and European ideas about the use and value

of land differed greatly.3For that reason, this section on Aboriginal log building

focuses on the intersection of those values as they manifested in the built

environment. After a brief overview of the types of Aboriginal log buildings found in

BC, this section discusses conflict over land use by looking at the building of log

missionary churches near Aboriginal settlements throughout British Columbia, and

the changing landscape of the Songhees reserve in colonial Victoria.

BC Aboriginal Log Buildings

Long before Europeans set foot in the region now known as British Columbia,diverse groups of Aboriginal peoples had been using well-developed forms of log

and plank construction to build both permanent and temporary dwellings. Relying on

archeological, archival, and visual documentary sources, a number of researchers

from different disciplines have investigated the origins and cultural uses of

Aboriginal dwellings.4These can be roughly divided into two general types: plank

houses on the coast and pit houses in the interior. In addition, a third type of structure

Aboriginal defensive sites also used logs for fortification.

Defensive Sites

The remains of Aboriginal defensive sites are found throughout BC. An example is

the Kitwanga Fort National Historic Site, in northern BC near the Skeena and Nass

Rivers, which comprises the remains of an eighteenth-century Gitwanak fortified

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village. According to Grant Keddie, Curator of Archaeology at the Royal BC

Museum, Aboriginal defensive sites usually consisted of a group of houses

surrounded by a log or plank palisade and a deep trench. Descriptions by early

explorers of palisaded forts indicate that they were fairly common due to feuds and

raids between neighboring groups.5Archeological excavations conducted since the

1960s reveal that some of these sites are thousands of years old.6Keddies research

suggests that fortified villages were common from the late 1700s to the 1850s due to

increased warfare.7This hypothesis is supported by oral history stories associated

with the Kitwanga site. According to legend, the chieftain Nekt used the fortified

village as a base from which to raid other Aboriginal groups for goods such as food

and slaves, as well as control over trade routes such as the Grease Trail so called

for the candlefish oil traded along the Nass River. The Kitwanga fortified village was

destroyed in the early nineteenth century in a battle between the Gitwangak and other

Aboriginal groups.8

Aboriginal groups in BC were familiar with the purpose of defensive sites. In

his book Songhees Pictorial, Keddie describes how in 1843 HBC Chief Factor James

Douglas spoke with the local Songhees people about constructing a fort in the

vicinity of present day Victoria. Many Songhees procured logs for the palisade in

exchange for blankets. After the fort was erected, HBC officer Roderick Finlaysonrecorded that a large number of Songhees camped around the fort, all armed,

without any of the wives or children, which looked suspicious.9Perhaps cued by

the building of a fortification, they were expecting a raid. Songhees were sometimes

employed at Fort Victoria and defended it against threats from other Aboriginal

groups.10

Pit Houses

Another type of Aboriginal log

structure found in BC is the pit

house, used by the Interior Salish,

the Kutenai, and the Plateau

groups as semi-subterranean

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Fig. 2Interior of Pit House at Hat CreekRanch Historic Site


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winter dwellings.11

Pit houses were generally constructed of four to six upright

beams, angled together with an opening at the top and splayed outward at ground

level. Horizontal poles were lashed to the beams in a concentric web, which formed

a cone shaped roof frame over a dug-out pit. This roof frame was then covered with

bark and packed earth. Examples of reconstructed pit houses can be found at the Hat

Creek Ranch Historic Site (fig. 2), and at X:ytem, near Mission, where the remains

of ancient pit houses were uncovered in 1991. One of the excavated houses at

X:ytem originally measured eight meters by eight meters, and had been repaired

numerous times indicating a sustained occupation over a long period. Artifacts and

deposits associated with the site have been carbon dated to between 3,300 and 3,650

BC.12

Plank Houses

Of all the types of log structures built by Aboriginal groups in BC, the sophisticated,

and sometimes monumental, plank houses of the coastal region have received the

most attention. The Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Kwakwakawak, Nuu-chah-nulth

(Nootka), Nuxalk (Bella Coola), and Coast Salish groups all produced differentversions of the plank house.

13Early European explorers were mystified by the

advanced construction they encountered on the coast. In 1790, the explorer Meares

wrote of a Nuu-chah-nulth dwelling:

The trees that supported the roof were of a size which would

render the mast of a first rate man of war diminutive, on a

comparison with them; indeed our curiosity as well as our

astonishment was on its utmost stretch, when we considered the

strength that must be necessary to raise enormous beams to theirpresent elevation

14

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Each coastal group had its own local

refinements, however, for the sake of

brevity they are categorized here as

northern plank houses of the Haida,

Tlingit, and Tsimshian; central coast

plank houses of the Kwakwakawakw

and Nuu-chah-nulth; and shed-roofed

houses of the southern Nuu-chah-nulth

and Salish-speaking peoples.

While the Haida built a number

of variations on the plank house, the

two most common types were the six-

beam (fig. 3) and the two-beam house.15

In both cases four corner posts were

mortised at their tops to hold sloping front and rear plates. At the ground level, the

posts were notched to receive wall plates, which would hold vertical wall planks in

place. Either six or two roof beams, and a ridgepole, comprised the roof structure,

which was covered by planks or sheets of bark held down by rocks An opening was

left in the roof for a smoke hole.These dwellings were

embellished with carving and

painting. In particular, Haida

dwellings usually had an

entrance pole with an oval

opening for a doorway.16

Tlingit plank houses were

similar in form to Haida

dwellings, but with a more

complex roof structure (fig. 4).

In addition, the Tlingit did not often use entrance poles, but rather had carved and

painted facades around an oval entranceway.17

Tsimshian plank houses were also

Fig. 3 Six-beam Haida House, after Duff

and Kew (1958:49, figure 1).

Fig. 4 Tlingit House Structure. From Shotridge(1913: Figure 69).

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similar to the Haida and Tlingit, although here too a number of variations could

occur. Plank houses built by the Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian are characterized by

their careful mortising and precise integration of parts.18

On the central coast,

both the Kwakwakawakw and

the Nuu-chah-nulth built

massive versions of the plank

house. Kwakwakawakw houses

were built of eight large cedar

posts and four large beams (fig.

5). Two pairs of posts at each

end of the building, hollowed at their tops, supported two heavy round roof beams.

Four other posts defined the corners of the building and supported two more beams

at a slightly lower height than the centre beams. This provided a sloping roof. As

with the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian, the log frame was the permanent element of

the structure and was independent of the wall planks, allowing for easy removal and

relocation of the boards.19

The Nuu-chah-nulth, on the West Coast of Vancouver

Island, built similar expansive plank

houses.

20

Fig. 5 Kwakwakawakw House Structure. Frontelevation showing wall construction from Boas(1888:Figure 2).

Both the southern Nuu-chah-

nulth and the Salish-speaking groups

built shed-roofed longhouses, which

consisted of clusters of individually

constructed units that could be

extended in either direction. Each unit

had four upright posts, with the front

posts higher than the rear, and two

heavy beams laid on the tall and short

posts. Rafters were then laid

crosswise and topped with roof planks

(fig. 6). The roof was sometimes used

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Fig. 6 Coast Salish House Structure.From Waterman and Greiner (1921: 15).


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as a platform during potlatch ceremonies.21

Like the northern and central plank-

houses, the shed-roofed house had independent plank walls that could be removed

and re-erected on other permanent frames at different locations.

BC Aboriginal log buildings are the result of a highly refined response to the

environment. Heavy log frames provided sturdy, long-lasting, and large structures

for communal living and ceremony. Plank walls were easily transported between

village sites, and several planks could be hewn from one tree. The dwellings built by

these Aboriginal groups served as both practical shelters and as ceremonial centres.

Their forms reflect cultural traditions that included communal living arrangements,

communal ceremony, and seasonal movement between summer and winter

villages.22

The Colonial Encounter

Although they both used logs as raw materials, the structures built by Aboriginal

people and those built by early colonizers reflect different attitudes toward land use.

As Susan Buggey emphasizes, The orientations of these two broad cultures differ

radically. The Aboriginal world-view is rooted in identification with the land.

Western experience is rooted in objectification and rationalism.23

The colonial

perspective on land use was influenced by the frontier myth in which newlydiscovered territory, such as British Columbia, was seen as an uninhabited

wilderness that could be civilized through settlement and harnessed for resource

extraction and farming.24

Traditional Aboriginal lifestyles were associated with the

wilderness and relegated to the past. As a turn-of-the-century article in the Victoria

Daily Colonist opined, the Indian, as we know him today, is degenerate from the

somewhat heroic figure we were wont to associate with the wilderness on the

continent of America.25

Appropriation of land and the assimilation of Aboriginal peoples were both

central concerns of colonial society. An example of how these two directives merged

in the built environment can be seen in the numerous wooden churches built near

traditional Aboriginal settlements. From the mid-nineteenth century onward in BC,

missionaries of all denominations sought to convert Aboriginal peoples to

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Christianity.26

In doing so, they attempted to eradicate what they saw as foolish,

wasteful and demoralizing cultural

practices such as potlatching and

seasonal relocation, and to inculcate

Western values of permanent agrarian

settlement, industrial growth, resource

exploitation, and capital gain.27

Churches were central

meeting areas for instruction and

worship, and missionaries encouraged

Aboriginal people to build permanent

houses around them.28From the time

of missionary contact in the 1860s,

milled lumber was becoming

increasingly available in BC, however,

log churches continued to be built in

isolated and poor rural areas by

Aboriginal builders under missionary

instruction.

29

Most of these logstructures were built with tightly-fitted

squared dovetailed logs, and covered

with siding. A number of examples,

such as the Roman Catholic St. Peters Church in Quesnel, built sometime between

1904-1910, can still be found in the Cariboo and Peace regions of BC.30

Likewise, a

log church owned by the Skwelwas Band stands at Cayoosh Creek, just south of

Lillooet (fig. 8).31

Fig. 7Church at Fountain, n.d., built fromlogs and hewn timber, RB.C.M 16601.

Fig. 8Church at Cayoosh Creek, 1974,B.C. Archives 27818N.

While these early churches can be seen as symbols of missionary efforts to

convert Aboriginal people to Christianity, and thereby to alter their traditional social

patterns, it should also be acknowledged that many old log churches are valued by

Aboriginal groups today. The Upper Sttimc History Through Photographs

website provides an example of how these churches also hold histories that are based

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on experiential engagement with community members and places, rather than

symbolic representation. In interpreting a photograph of the old church at Fountain

(fig. 7) Sttimc storyteller Angus Doss remembered helping to disassemble the

church, and that it was built with a combination of logs and sawn timber. Albert

Joseph recalled that it was a centre for Christmas celebrations and feasting.32

It is

crucial to recognize that the power relationships inherent in the colonial discourse

are also part of a Western paradigm that may not hold the same power or meaning

within the Aboriginal world view.

Establishing churches as central meeting places around which permanent

settlements could be built, was one aspect of the colonial directive. Strong beliefs

about land productivity led to the relocation of aboriginal people to inadequate

reserve lands.33In particular, the Aboriginal tradition of traveling between seasonal

camps led colonists to believe (either ignorantly or willfully) that they were a

nomadic people, with no concept of land ownership. Thus, settlers, backed by

government legislation, felt justified in claiming large tracts of land for farming and

ranching.34

By 1873, BC Commissioner of Indian affairs, I.W. Powell was embroiled

in a number of resulting land disputes, noting in some instances great injustice has

been done the Indians in not reserving sufficient land for their use, and in some

cases land actually occupied by Indianshas been pre-empted by white settlersand certificates granted.

35

The changing landscape of the Songhees Reserve in colonial Victoria

provides an example of how

Aboriginal peoples log building

traditions were affected by colonial

attitudes toward productive land use.

As noted previously, after Fort

Victoria was erected in 1843,

Songhees and Clallam groups

camped nearby (fig. 9), and by 1845

they had built a double row of plank

houses parallel to the shore on the

Fig. 9 Henry Warre, Clallum Village next to FortVictoria, Sept. 27, 1845. American Antiquarian

Society (Keddie: 2003, 28).

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site of the future Songhees Reserve.36

These were traditional shed-roofed, permanent

frame structures with removable

wall and roof planks (fig. 10).

Between 1845 and 1886, the

Songhees lived in these houses on

the reserve across the harbour from

the original fort, however, colonists

increasingly petitioned for the

removal of the reserve, often citing

the lack of land improvement on

what they saw as increasingly

valuable land as one of the reasons.

Fig. 10Paul Kane, The Canoes Returning fromgathering camas to Esquimalt, watercolour, 1847.

Stark Museum of Art, 31.78/58,WWC58(Keddie: 2003, 24).

In 1849 Vancouver Island became a Crown Colony, and the British

government agreed to let the Hudsons Bay Company continue to use the land as

long as they promoted permanent settlement. In response to this new directive,

Governor James Douglas began to create Aboriginal reserve lands that would be held

in Trust by the Crown. According to HBC instruction, only lands that the Aboriginal

people had built houses on or cultivated were to be considered.37

Thus, occupied

villages were considered Aboriginal lands, while unoccupied hunting grounds werenot an oversight that demonstrates the colonists lack of understanding of the

Aboriginal relationship to the environment. In his book Songhees Pictorial, Grant

Keddie offers this summary of the traditional Songhees relationship to the

environment:

Traditional Songhees culture experienced a different reality in the

natural world than Europeans did To the Songhees, the human and

natural worlds are interwoven by threads of spiritual powerTheSonghees had the knowledge necessary to find what they needed tosurvive in their territory. They understood the cycles of time by

observing the movement of the stars and planets and the patterns of

wind, water and plant growth38

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Unlike the traditional European idea of the land as a static material resource, the

Songhees, like other Aboriginal groups, saw themselves as intimately connected to

the environment. The concept of a reserve would have likely seemed not just

strange, but absurdly abstract.

By 1859 an assembly of colonial landowners had begun to petition the

removal of the Songhees reserve. Aside from the fear of violence, one of the main

reasons cited by spokesman James Yates was that the Songhees did not know the

value of the land, and their presence on the harbour of the growing city of Victoria

would devalue adjacent properties.39

Douglas attempted to appease the colonists by

proposing to lease portions of the reserve to persons who will undertake to build

and to make other improvements upon it40

In June of 1860 Douglas met with an

assembly of Aboriginal leaders. During the meeting he instructed that they must

erect suitable houses on the reservations [sic], under the instructions of an Indian

Agent.41

Plank houses had

long provided suitable

housing, appropriate for

the traditional seasonal

migration betweensummer and winter

camps. But, as traditional

ways of life conflicted

with the values of the

largely European and American immigrant settlers, pressure to abandon traditional

ways of life, and housing, increased. In spite of an 1862 smallpox epidemic, which

led to the burning of Aboriginal villages and camps near the Songhees, villagers

returned to the site after the epidemic had run its course and rebuilt their dwellings in

the traditional plank house style (fig. 11). Such actions can be seen as an indication

of their poverty making do with salvaged materials as well as the continuing

strength of their building traditions. It was only after British Columbia joined

confederation in 1871 that federal pressure to assimilate Aboriginal people into the

Fig. 11Front of the Songhees Reserve Village, 1863-64(Keddie: 2003, 80).

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- 34 -

dominant Euro-Canadian culture led to the abandonment of the old plank houses. By

1886, anthropologist Franz Boaz noted that most of the Songhees had built European

style houses.42

The overwhelming urge to improve the land through building and

cultivation shaped the colonists perspective. In contrast, the Songhees traditional

way of life was disrupted by complex forces that included foreign government

policies, disease, and, after 1871, a strong federal assimilation policy. The colonial

perspective on land use was influenced by the frontier myth in which newly

discovered territory, such as British Columbia, was seen as an uninhabited

wilderness that could be civilized through settlement and harnessed for resource

extraction and farming.43

Nevertheless, Aboriginal groups have continued to preserve their building

skills and reconstructions of pit houses and plank houses serve as both as teaching

and interpretive aids as well as ceremonial centres. By incorporating a discussion of

aboriginal structures into the larger context of the history of log building in the

province, this study acknowledges the multiple perspectives of different cultural

groups. The following section examines the types of log buildings built during the

colonial period largely by European and American settlers.

1Two recent exceptions are Harold Kalman, Aboriginal Building in Donald Luxton ed.,Building

the West(Vancouver: Talon Books, 2003); and Michael Kluckner, Vanishing British Columbia

(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 2005).2Susan Buggy, An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes, Parks Canada Website,http://www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/pca-ac1/sec1/index_e.asp.3Susan Buggy, An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes, Parks Canada Website,http://www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/pca-ac1/sec1/index_e.asp. See also,A Sto:lo-Coast Salish historical atlas.

Keith Thor Carlson, ed. /Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Seattle, WA: University of Washington

Press; Chilliwack, B.C.: Sto:lo Heritage Trust, 2001.4See, for example, Kenneth M. Ames, Doria F. Raetz, Stephen Hamilton, and Christine McAfee,Household Archeology of a Southern Northwest Coast Plank House,Journal of Field Archaeology,

vol. 19, no. 3 (Autumn 1992), 275-290; Roy Carlson, Excavations at Kwatna, in Roy Carlson ed.,Salvage Archaeology Undertaken in British Columbia in 1971. (Burnaby: Simon Fraser University

Department of Archaeology Publication, 1972), 41-57; George F. MacDonald,Haida Monumental Art

(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1983); and Joan Vastokas, Architecture of the Northwest Coast Indians

(PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1966).5Grant Keddie, Aboriginal Defensive Sites, Part I: Settlements for Unsettling Times, RB.C.M

Website, www.royalB.C.museum.ca.6Grant Keddie, Aboriginal Defensive Sites, Part III: Modern Archeologists Collect Evidence,

RB.C.M Website, www.royalB.C.museum.ca.7Keddie, Aboriginal Defensive Sites, Part III, www.royalB.C.museum.ca.


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8 All of the information on the Kitwanga Fort in this paragraph came from: Kitwanga Fort National

Historic Site of Canada, Parks Canada Website, http:// www.pc.gc.ca/Ihn-

nhs/B.C./kitwanga/index_e.asp.9Roderick Finlayson, 1843, as quoted in Grant Keddie, Songhees Pictorial: A History of the SongheesPeople as seen by Outsiders, 1790 1912(Victoria, B.C.: Royal B.C. Museum, 2003), 22.10

Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 27.11Kalman, Aboriginal Building, 31.12Ellen Lee and Lyle Henderson, Hatzic Rock Comparative Report, Archaeological Research

Branch, CPS, http://www.xaytem.ca/ancient.htm13Harold Kalman, Aboriginal Building,Building the West: the Early Architects of British

Columbia, Donald Luxton ed. (Vancouver: Talon Books,14 Meares, as quoted in Joan Vastokas Architecture of the Northwest Coast Indians of America

(PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1966), 2115Joan Vastokas, Architecture of the Northwest Coast Indians of America (PhD dissertation,

Columbia University, 1966), 27. See also, Kalman, Aboriginal Building, 29.16Vastokas, Architecture of the Northwest Coast Indians, 32.17Vastokas, Architecture of the Northwest Coast Indians, 37.18Vastokas, Architecture of the Northwest Coast Indians, 42.19Kenneth M. Ames et al. Household Archaeology of a Southern Northwest Coast Plank House,

Journal of Field Archaeology,vol. 19, no. 3 (Autumn 1992) 275-290.20Vastokas, 42-59.21Vastokas, 6222Keith Thor Carlson, ed.A St:l Coast Salish Historical Atlas(Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre,2001),41-43.23Susan Buggey, An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes: Aboriginal Versus Western

World Views, Parks Canada Website, http://www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/pca-acl/sec1/sec1f_e.asp.24 See the following sources for more on this: Paul Tennant,Aboriginal Peoples and Politics: The

Indian Land Question in British Columbia, 1849-1989(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1990); Robin Fisher,

Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia (Vancouver: UB.C. Press,

1992); Cole Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia (Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1997); and ColeHarris,Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia

(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 2002).25A Vanishing Race, The Daily Colonist Magazine, Victoria, B.C., 15 December 1912, n.p.26 See the essays by Robin Fisher and Warren Sommer in John Veillette and Gary White eds,Early

Indian Village Churches: Wooden Frontier Architecture in British Columbia(Vancouver: UB.C.

Press, 1977).27John Veillette and Gary White eds, The Missionaries in British Columbia,Early Indian VillageChurches: Wooden Frontier Architecture in British Columbia(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1977), 7.28Warren Sommer, Mission Church Architecture,Early Indian Village Churches: Wooden Frontier

Architecture in British Columbia(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1977), 13.29Sommer, Mission Church Architecture,Early Indian Village Churches,18.30Sommer, Mission Church Architecture,Early Indian Village Churches,19.31This photograph taken in 1974 comes from the Upper Statimc History through Photographs

website, but can also be located at B.C.A, #27828N.32Upper Sttimc History Through Photographs Website:

http://www.maltwood.uvic.ca/statimc/default.html.33See the overarching arguments of the following: Paul Tennant,Aboriginal Peoples and Politics:The Indian Land Question in British Columbia, 1849-1989(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1990); Robin

Fisher, Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia (Vancouver: UB.C.Press, 1992); and Cole Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia (Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1997).34For a case study, see Soren Larsen, Collaboration Geographies: Native-White Partnerships Duringthe Re-settlement of Ootsa Lake, British Columbia, 1900-52,B.C. Studies, no. 138/139

(Summer/Autumn 2003), 87-114.35I.W. Powell, Papers connected with the Indian Land Question, 1850-1875(Victoria, B.C.: R.

Wolfenden, 1875), 34.

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36Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 26.37Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 48.38

Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 159.39Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 59.40Governor Douglas, Reply to the House of Assembly, 8 February 1859, as quoted in Keddie,

Songhees Pictorial, 59.41Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 71.42Edgar Fawcett, Evolution of the Songhees, Victoria Times, 23 March 1912.43 See the following sources for more on this: Paul Tennant,Aboriginal Peoples and Politics: The

Indian Land Question in British Columbia, 1849-1989(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1990); Robin Fisher,

Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia (Vancouver: UB.C. Press,1992); Cole Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia (Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 1997); and Cole

Harris,Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia

(Vancouver: UB.C. Press, 2002).

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Section 3: Early BC Log Buildings, c. 1820s-1880s

When most people think of early log buildings,

they think of the typical pioneer log cabin, of

the type commemorated by the popular

Lincoln Logs toy (fig. 12). However, colonial

log buildings took many forms. Some were

humble dwellings constructed from round logs,

keyed with a simple saddle notch, and others

were sturdy buildings constructed from

squared logs with tight-fitting dovetailed corners. In fact, the keying of corners in

early log buildings is often complex and idiosyncratic, with more than one notch

style occurring within the same structure.1Some log buildings are hidden behind

shingle siding to give the appearance of frame construction, while other buildings

that appear to be made of logs turn out to be frame buildings faced with log half-

rounds. Some log buildings form the core of larger frame additions and, likewise,

early frame buildings can have later log additions. The construction styles and forms

of log buildings are often dependent on the wider context within which these

buildings were constructed.

Fig. 12 Lincoln Logs Toy

In spite of the variety of styles and construction techniques, early BC log

buildings can generally be fitted into two categories: Hudsons Bay Company (HBC)

fort structures and early settler log buildings. The log buildings constructed by early

settlers can be further divided into permanent and temporary structures

categories that overlap at times, but which are generally useful. Permanent log

buildings often have squared logs with tight-fitting dovetailed or lap-jointed corners,

while temporary log structures often have round logs with simple saddle-notched

corners. As June Chamberlain has recently observed in her documentation of log

buildings in the Prince George area, while the barns were often built with round

logs and saddle-notched corners, the houses were built more meticulously by

squaring the logs with a broadax and dovetailing the corners to make a neat square

built log house.2 The time allotted for building was also a factor in quality log

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buildings erected to fill immediate needs were expected to be replaced in a few

years.3In short, permanent log buildings often display a degree of finish, while

temporary buildings are rudimentary.

Of the three types mentioned, HBC log structures are the most homogenous,

and exhibit a corporate style that is readily identified. This section begins with a

discussion of the history of HBC log building in British Columbia and looks at how

it influenced early permanent log structures, such as Cariboo roadhouses. It

concludes with a discussion of the diversity of construction styles in early settler log

structures.

Hudsons Bay Company Log Buildings

HBC log buildings are the oldest surviving non-aboriginal log structures built in

British Columbia. There were other log buildings constructed prior to these, such as

the original 1811 Fort Okanagan post founded by David Stuart and Alexander Ross

of the American Pacific Fur Company, however these buildings were torn down

when the post was bought by the North West Company in 1816.4From 1821, when

the HBC first amalgamated with the North West Company, to the 1840s, hostilities

between American, British, and Aboriginal trading interests often arose, and violent

encounters were anticipated.

5

The HBC therefore required secure defensive fortstructures, which usually consisted of a palisade and bastions surrounding a group of

utilitarian buildings. From the 1820s to 60s, the most prevalent form of HBC log

construction was the pice sur pice (also referred to as post on sill or Red

River) style, adopted from the North West Trading Company when the two

amalgamated.6The pice sur pice method was largely spread throughout the west

by the French Canadian

labourers who worked for the

HBC and were generally

hired as builders of all kinds

of structures.

The Fort Langley

storehouse, built in the early

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Fig. 13 Fort Langley Storehouse, 2005.

Fig. 14Fort Langley Storehousedetail of wall construction, 2005.


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1840s (figs. 13-14) provides an example of this building style. The construction of

Fort Langley on the Fraser River, began in 1827 under the direction of Chief Factor

James McMillan. A saw pit was used to square timbers and cut planks for the

bastions, storehouse, and living quarters.7However, in 1838 a new fort was built

three miles upstream in order to bypass what turned out to be turbulent waters at the

former site.8Within 18 months the new site had burnt down and had been

reconstructed by 1841. A stockade wall, 18 feet high, was constructed of round cedar

logs, and bastions built at

all four corners.

The storehouse,

originally used for storing

trade goods, is the only

original fort structure to

have survived to the

present day.Itis a one

and one-half storey

building with squared

cedar logs, topped with a

hipped roof, and built in the pice sur pice style. This type ofconstruction consistsof a log foundation, known as a sill, on top of which squared posts are set. These are

tenoned into the sill logs at the corners and intervals along the length of the sill.

Squared logs with tenoned ends are then placed horizontally between the upright

posts. An early form of pre-fabrication, the pice sur pice method had many

advantages, including tight-fitting bullet-proof walls and a heavy carrying capacity.

Above all, it allowed for uniform construction that facilitated quick assembly,

disassembly, relocation, and repair.

Fig. 15 Fort Langley Storehouse, 1925. B.C.A HP107733.

Two factors that likely helped to preserve the Fort Langley storehouse were

the relative ease of repairing decayed timbers and its usefulness as an outbuilding.

After 1886, when Fort Langley stopped operating as a company post, the storehouse

was used as a cow barn.9Its usefulness as a farm outbuilding up until the 1920s

ensured its maintenance and repair. In the 1920s, the Native Sons of BC recognized

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its historic value and made some repairs to the building (fig. 15). It is possible that

timbers were replaced at this time, as there are several areas in which milled timbers

have been scored with an axe to resemble hand-hewn timbers. In 1954 the

government of Canada bought the building and replaced some logs.10

It has since

been used as a model for the reconstruction of other buildings on the site.

Most other surviving early HBC structures

were also built in the pice sur pice construction

method, such as the Nanaimo Bastion (fig. 16)

built in 1853-55 as a defensive refuge for HBC

residents of Colville Town (Nanaimo) who settled

there in 1852 after the discovery of coal in the

area. A unique variation of HBC log construction

can be seen in the Fish Cache (fig. 17) at the Fort

St. James National Historic Site, built in 1888.

Although constructed in the pice sur pice style,

the form of the building was adopted from the

Carrier people, who raised their food storage

buildings on posts.11

Fur traders relied on

Aboriginal food gathering skills for survival andthe Carrier, who had long been trapping and drying salmon to store or trade with

other peoples, were an influential presence at Fort

St. James.

Fig. 16Nanaimo Bastion

Fig. 17 Fish Cache, Fort St. JamesNational Historic Site

There are also examples of other, slightly

later, HBC log construction styles, particularly

those used for non-defensive structures. Some

early HBC retail outlets were built by contractors

in the Scandinavian or log cabin style.12

For

example, the Quesnel Post (fig. 18), built in 1867

and rebuilt in 1881, exhibits this log construction

style, with single squared timbers running the

whole length of the building and dovetailed

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corners. This style of log construction is prevalent throughout BC, especially in the

permanent structures built by early settlers in the Cariboo region.

Although the HBCs primary interest in British Columbia was commercial

profit, it also looked after other

in

bc logbuildings

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