The rugged coastal wilderness at the northern tip of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada is home to Cape Scott Provincial Park. Established in 1973, the park has about 30 kilometers of remote beaches. A 6 hour hike from the trailhead brings you to Nels Bight, a spectacular remote beach stretching 2,400 meters and the most popular camping destination in the park.
As you can imagine, as Tamlin entered into an agreement with BC Parks and to supply a cabin for park rangers for Nels Bight, it presented some interesting challenges due to the terrain and the remote location. Tamlin’s knowledge of remote building was a huge advantage when working through the design, manufacturing and subsequent shipping of the cabin. Because of the remote location getting large equipment onto the island was not an option. Everything including the foundation had to be easy to handle and install. Tamlin worked closely with wilderness recreation manager, Shaun Korman from Strategic Natural Resource Consultants, who was an invaluable asset on this project.
For the foundation a PIN concrete foundation pier system was used. It was ideal for the sandy soil conditions and could be installed in a very short time (15 to 30 minutes per pier) using hand tools and minimal excavation. This was an environmentally sound, simple and quick solution for this remote location.
Cabin Layout
The cabin consists of a main living area, 2 bedrooms, loft with fire egress and ladder access from the main living area. To prevent bear entry there is an exterior steel door and a short hallway with an interior solid wood door. There is an exterior wood shed, propane shed, and shower building. Completing the cabin is a 360 square foot deck with stair access front and back.
The cabin is made of 6×8 milled Western Red Cedar “D” log. This is more suitable for high seismic areas than a smaller log and also is more fire resistant and has higher insulation value. Reclaimed Douglas Fir was used for the roof structure and ceiling finish. There was no fibreglass insulation, glulaminated wood or drywall used in this cabin to make sure it was environmentally friendly to the eco system in which it is located.
Once the cabin was manufactured our experienced shipping staff took over to make sure that they built the lifts (packages) to the specifications required to helicopter the product to site. The goods were taken to Northern Vancouver Island on large trailers and BC Parks then trucked the material on smaller trucks as far as they could go and the material was then helicoptered in from there.
We expect this environmentally friendly, Western Red Cedar log cabin to be serving the park rangers and hikers in Nels Bight Cape Scott for many years to come.
Follow the link below to read more about Cape Scott Provincial Park:
