The Sun Peaks Historical Society (SPHS) is working on restoring a historic cabin on the West Bowl to showcase a piece of history from the days before the ski hill.
SPIN met up with SPHS’ president Kristin Passmore, vice-president Jim Alix and directors Nancy Raine and Neil Otsig at Bollaco Cafe.
As rain spattered the windows outside, the group gave a run-down of the project.
The first step was applying for the initial grant of $5,000 from Heritage B.C., Passmore explained.
“That will allow us to hire a third party that will come up and assess how much it would cost to restore,” she added.
They are in the very early stages of restoring the cabin, consulting now with Heritageworks who has experience in similar projects.
While SPHS has not yet heard back about the seed money grant, Alix said the grant is set up for projects such as this one, so they’re optimistic.
“Once we have an estimate of how much it would cost to restore it, we would apply for another grant to fund that,” Passmore said.
This grant would need a statement of significance and therefore would require more community support, and SPHS is looking into hosting an event to educate the public and increase awareness in the future.
The history
The historic cabin sits in a wooded area near where the new West Bowl chair lift is being built.
Erected around 1949, the cabin was used for sheep and cattle herding, according to Raine.
“It is the first building in this area, and it was the only building for a long, long time,” she said.
Many early settlers who lived in The Louis Creek area worked on Tod Mountain in the early days, Raine added.
Workers brought cattle up the mountain to graze and use the corral there. The cabin housed shepherds for short periods of time while they worked on the mountain.
Now that the cabin will be more accessible with the new chairlift, Passmore said it’s become a concern to the community, given its state of disrepair.
After its time as a sheep herding cabin, it became a spot for locals to hike up to. The access up to it changed when the ski hill was established and the Burfield chairlift was put in, after which it became less accessible according to Raine.
The goal
As part of the project Passmore said SPHA would like to restore the original horse and hiking trails. On the building itself, the damage can be seen especially in the roof where the chimney has deteriorated, allowing in the elements according to Otsig, who was shown the cabin about six years ago. His main concern is weather proofing the roof.
While people have contributed their own patch jobs, including Otsig, who received permission from Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR) to do some repair work, the remote location of the cabin makes it difficult to get materials in, Passmore said.
Still, Ostig has hauled sheets of plywood and other materials through trees to the cabin for some of those repairs.
“In a way there’s sort of two parallel projects,” Raine said. “One is to protect the cabin from further disrepair, and the other separate thing is to prevent…trees falling on the cabin.”
For that, they’ve asked for support and manpower from SPR to help log the area, but pulp prices are a problem right now, delaying any logging.
In the end, if the building is too far gone and becomes a liability, Passmore said SPR would likely take it down. She discourages visitors so it doesn’t become more of a liability, threatening the future of the renovation.
While the cabin has been an unsanctioned stop on many hiker’s sightseeing lists, it hasn’t been subject to vandalism. It does however have initials and other carvings, Alix said.
“There are quite a few carvings on some of the logs from old locals,” Ostig said. “I recognize some of the initials up there.”
Preserving these marks of history are a point of concern for people, Passmore said.
“We would obviously try to maintain all that if possible.”
SPR has been very supportive of the restoration becoming a project for the historical society to use to educate the community, Raine said. Among the goal of awareness and education, Passmore added the group envisions the area becoming a picnic spot, with signage and historical significance.
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