When Arthur Vickers stepped into the old Cowichan Shipyard for the first time five years ago, he exchanged a knowing glance with his wife, Jessica, and his heart started drumming.
For years he had wanted to build a traditional Northwest Coast longhouse and suddenly, here he was, standing in a space that felt so familiar, so similar to one of those historic structures.
“I had been planning to build a longhouse in the Cowichan Valley, like I built for my brother’s gallery in Tofino, and then someone told us there was a shipyard available here,” he said. “As I walked downstairs to the front door and put my face against the window, I turned into a six-year-old again.
“Then we went inside. I could smell the cedar and the oakem,” which is a tarred hemp or jute fibre used to caulk joints and seams in old wooden ships.
“The smell of yellow cedar and fir was overwhelming.” It reminded him of being a child, going into a shipyard for the first time on the Oona River, off Ogden Chanel, about 47 kilometres south of Prince Rupert.
This Cowichan property is home to one of the oldest, continuously running shipyards on the west coast. Grant and Melodie Blundell have continued to run the business on the lower level of the building. The shipyard has been operated by their family for more than 45 years, although today they mostly do maintenance and repairs as there is not much call for wooden boat building.
Arthur fell in love with the building’s high, open ceiling and beautiful beams and, having previously renovated an old farmhouse, he and his wife knew what to expect.
Their goal was to both restore the old structure “and turn it into a place that felt like home,” said Arthur, who added that the project has been an absolute joy.
All that existed on the upper floor were beams, walls and floors, said Jessica, who noted they transformed everything, while remaining respectful of the maritime history, which they both love.
Their dining table is in the former sail loft, which is 20 metres long and features a king post-truss system. A giant steel bracing cable runs the length of the ceiling and undergirds the trusses with a massive, hand-forged, tensioning turnbuckle.
“There are four of these truss-and-cable systems throughout the building and they were needed to hold up the roof with such a huge span. They’re gorgeous,” said Arthur.
They added elegant floor-to-ceiling linen drapes and new carpeting, as well as nautical embellishments, such as V-groove boards along the walls, deep baseboards and old ships’ lanterns from early in the last century.
“When we first stood in this space there was a lot of sound bounce,” said Arthur.
“The intimacy just wasn’t there, so after we put in the insulation and vapour barrier, I stretched canvas across the ceiling and let it sag a bit. What happened was quite magical. All the bounce went away.”
They emphasize the building is neither a commercial gallery nor a studio workshop, but is instead an intimate gathering space.
“It is a very private place where people visit occasionally by appointment or by chance,” said Jessica.
It features a new catering kitchen and bathroom, and Jessica has furnished it attractively with a mixture of antiques and second-hand finds.
“Just about everything here is a found object. I’m a firm believer in giving things a second chance. I spot things in second-hand stores and like the juxtaposition of old and new, rustic and elegant.”
Their 1885 dining table was found by their late friend Randy Streit, “who was an architectural salvager,” and the visionary who created Whippletree Junction in 1969, using remnants of Duncan’s old Chinatown, which he had been contracted to tear down.
“We had asked him to keep a lookout for an old claw-footed table and he found this in the States and brought it up for us. It has 12 leaves, and he was gracious enough to let us buy it on time.”
In the middle of the table sits a small model of a Cowichan canoe, which Arthur made with a compressed bow and stern. “My grand-pa was a carver and when I was a little boy I thought he was carving these little canoes for me, but he was actually making scale models.”
Jessica has arranged an eclectic mix of Christmas balls, greenery, crystal and west coast glass floats on a burlap runner down the middle of the table. She created this and other seasonal decor with the help of friend Judy Mead, who has the Old Farm Garden Stone.
“She has a fabulous eye and helped me to arrange our own things.”
Jessica spotted all her dining room’s “funky” chairs in a second-hand store and she had them refinished with a grey stain and off-white linen upholstery.
They team well with the room’s old wingback chairs, which she slipcovered in muted white and gold brocade. The latter are all on casters so they can roll around, up to the table or for gatherings by the fire. The look is glamorous but down to earth,
Adding to the beautiful surroundings are Arthur’s 24-karat gold two-dimensional works, which glow on the wall, and and bentwood boxes that have made their way to collections all over the U.S. and Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
“I make spirit boxes in the traditional manner, from one piece of wood that is steamed and bent,” he explained. “These boxes were used to store everything from smoked and dried fish to clothing. In Bella Bella, people put moss and water into a box, and then used them to transport salmon roe to a creek, like incubators.”
He is working with old-growth cedar these days, which friends find for him buried in the woods, left behind decades ago by early logging operations, which didn’t value such logs.
“I’ve counted as many as 602 rings in some of the wood. It has survived because cedar is so incredibly strong and because it seals itself when buried.”
Jessica said school children love coming to the shipyard and listening to Arthur’s stories, often about his grandfather.
“Arthur is a bridge between the old world and the new, and he has such reverence for materials and the past.”
One of the children’s favourite stories is one he tells about the eagle feathers he finds on the beach, and the pair of nesting eagles he has been feeding for 16 years, “because they are tremendously challenged due to overharvesting of salmon.
“My grandpa told me the eagle feather is divided into two parts, light and dark, male and female, good and evil. It represents ancient wisdom.
“The Creator gave us two ears, one to hear good things, the other bad; he gave us two eyes, one to see good, the other to see evil; he gave us two hands, one to reach out in friendliness, the other to harm; two feet, one to lead us down the right path, and the other down the wrong.
“And he gave us a mind to choose, every day, to make good decisions or not.”