Dutch Lake Community Centre Entrance

The Dutch Lake Community Centre was opened in Clearwater in the summer of 2014 to house municipal offices and a wide array of community services.  Formerly an elementary school that had stood vacant for many years, the building was re-purposed as a Community Centre through an amazing show of collaboration among a number of community groups who pooled funding and resources.  NEST Timberhome & Design was asked to create a timber entrance for the building, and we jumped at the chance to showcase a project that used local timbers in a value-added way.

Before

After

Timbers for the project were sawn from logs harvested just outside of Vavenby, BC - a distance of approximately 35km from stump to final installed location.  The trees were standing dead Douglas fir, and harvested under a salvage permit which left adjacent green stems standing.  The logs were then milled into timbers at the salvage logger's small scale sawmill in Vavenby.

This whole process required the commitment and cooperation of a number of players, including the salvage logger, the local consultant who prepared maps and plans, the provincial government small scale salvage program, and the forestry company who holds tenure in the area the logs were harvested from.

Next stop: NEST shop, just a couple of blocks from the community centre, where the timbers were planed, cut and fitted, sanded and stained before being set up on site. 

The resulting entrance is an enduring showcase  of the truly inspiring resources our valley has to offer, both in terms of the quality of the timber produced in the area, and in terms of the level of community cooperation found in Clearwater.

We feel so fortunate to live and work in this community!