………’cause I never wrote it up. But this took place last year.

I was planning on renovating the old Q-hut but didn’t really know what I was doing so I asked one of the Dougs to walk up there with me and look the situation over. 

Doug is a ‘let’s-get-ér-done’-kind-of-guy’ but he doesn’t usually wait long for others to come along.  He just get’s her done with or without help.  He recently built a 30 foot sailboat from scratch and ‘scratch’ means first logging the trees and milling the wood.  Doug lives on a boat and building another while you live on one anchored in the wilds away from the grid ain’t easy.  Suffice to say, power tools are minimally factored in.

He had more than a passing interest in the Q-hut as it was billed as a ‘boat building shop’.  It has since been renamed a woodworking shop, however, in the interests of appealing to a broader community but his interest is still high.   

“So, Doug, imagine you have a $1000 and some time on your hands.  The community is giving us the Q-hut but it is in terrible shape.  Where would you start?”

“Well, I’d bring my tools in and build a boat.”

“No, you know what I mean…….we have some guys and we have some materials and we are standing in the wrecked old Q-hut.  Where do we start?”

Doug surveyed the length and breadth of the building, stared at the wood stove for a bit, shuffled his feet and said, “Well, now that depends on the boat we are going to build.”

“OK. OK.  I get it.  You don’t think we have to do much of anything to the building.  You think that if you want to build a boat, you just get on with it.  I get that.  But, let’s just pretend for a minute that we are a work party, see.  And there are say, five of us, OK?  And, like we have a few thousand dollars.  What would you do then?”

“I’d start several boats at the same time.”

“Doug!  You have ten guys, ten grand and no one wants a boat!  They want to fix up the Q-hut.  Where would you start?”

“I’d go up to Jack’s and start a boat up there.”

And that is the kind of humour and character that has surrounded the building of the Q-hut.  Each guy is unique and independent and each has a level of expertise that transcends conventional construction.  Larry can build anything and do it expertly.  He has been a professional carpenter all his life.  Dan has homesteaded in the deepest fiords up the coast and either builds or invents whatever he needs (that’s right, he i-n-v-en-t-s!).  And Herb is the same and can also weld and do machining as required. 

Honest to God, I am pretty sure that this group could build just about anything short of a 747 and, with Rod (from another island), another Doug and Sammy, we could make a pretty passable attempt at a DC3.  These guys can do stuff!