Cob Building on Mayne Island

It's been an incredible week of work and making new friends. Cob building has been more exciting than I imagined and I look forward to doing some more down the road. "What is Cob?" you ask. Here's a little history from your friendly wikepedia.



History and usage

Cob is an ancient building material, that has possibly been used for construction since man first housed himself. Cob structures can be found in a variety of climates across the globe; where many homes have survived over 500 years and are still inhabited. Many old cob buildings can be found in Africa, the Middle East, Wales, Devon, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany and some parts of the eastern United States. Traditionally, English cob was made by mixing the clay-based subsoil with straw and water using oxen to trample it. The earthen mixture was then ladled onto a stone foundation in courses and trodden onto the wall by workers. The wall height would progress according to how long it took for the last course to dry. After drying, the walls would be trimmed and the next course built, with openings for doors and windows being placed as the wall takes shape.

The walls of a cob house were generally about 24 inches thick, and windows were correspondingly deepset giving the homes a characteristic internal appearance. The thick walls provided excellent thermal mass which was easy to keep warm in winter and cool in summer. Walls with a high thermal mass value act as a temperature fly wheel inside the home. Surprisingly, the material held up really well in rainy climates, so long as a cob house was built with a tall foundation wall and a large roof overhang.


Modern cob buildings

When Kevin McCabe built a two-storey, four bedroom cob house in England in 1994, it was reputedly the first cob residence built in the country in 70 years. His methods remained very traditional; the only innovations he added were using a tractor to mix the cob itself, and adding sand or shillet (a gravel of crushed shale) to reduce the shrinkage.

In the Pacific Northwest of North America there has been a resurgence of cob building both as an alternative building practice and one desired for its form, function and cost effectiveness. There are more than ten cob houses in the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia built by Pat Hennebery and the Cobworks workshops.



Not only has Pat built many homes here on Mayne but he also organizes an annual cob workshop in Baha, Mexico. This year they are constructing a national history museum in a small town called San Antonio which is about 35 minutes from Cabo San Lucas.

The people I have met here have been truly supportive and have extended a great effort to help me find a way to stay on the island for the winter season. And so even though I thought it was too late and would return to Ontario this week, I have found renewed support and I will decide this wednesday should I stay or should I go.

Above all working and housing difficulties it has been the the new friends i have met and old ones i have come to know again that make me want to stay.


The cobbing this week was fairly informal. A few people who have taken workshops this year returned to Pat and kit's place to help finish constructing a home they will soon move into, a project that was started earlier. There is a large straw bale house , framed with driftwood logs and plastered a beautiful yellow including decorative releifs. We worked on filling in the final gaps on the cob kitchen addition to the balehouse and also the cob bathouse. (detailed photos can be seen at flickr)
It is quite incredible what you can do with cob and a wild imagination is not a bad thing here. Ready to see some imaginative designs? click here to link to the cobworks gallery of houses on Mayne island.

Tattoo Zoo

This is not a hoax. Yes it is going to be there for the rest of my life and I love it!
I have been wanting to get a Tattoo for some time now, but not your average wizard or ship & anchor. I have always been fascinated by tattoo's early history, It's tribal roots. Polynesians approached the body as a canvas. They had some amazing graphic artists who would mark the body in bands, sleeves, and plates, which would mark tribe, origin, landscape and would be added to as one grew older. Travels, hunting expeditions, and life ceremonies were marked on the body like life rings which told a personal story of there heritage and growth.
Now i am not from polynesia, so I did not get a polynesian tattoo. But i did use this approach to marking the body as ritual, to represent a change, that I am no longer who i was but changed forever by time and the world. This mark will be an ornament to mark this time of my life and no doubt there will be more periods of time worth marking.

It became important for me to have this done before I returned to Ontario (Yes you heard right. I will return shortly) For this time out here has been an incredible adventure and learning experience, it has allowed me to reconnect with old friends, make new ones and invest a great deal of energy in a new period of my life, which is just beginning.

I cannot thank Bryan Turnbull enough for doing this Tattoo for me. On short notice and with a broken leg he stayed 3 hours past close to make this happen. The work is nothing short of amazing. Strangely enough it's a big small world. Bryan has just moved out from Toronto and we now many of the same people. He even did some work on one my co-workers, Anna Bensick. The experience was great filled with conversation of common friends and transplanting travels. The shop is called "Tattoo Zoo" and it stands above other shops, friendly, informative and not to mention its great artists. Check out some of Bryan Turnbull's other work on his flickr page

Searching for a Home

After a week of work-prep (buying tools and safety gear) and doing some pitiful temp work for dispicable pay, I am back on mayne island to get the goods on the housing situation and work scene. No one has replied to my ads on island. There seems to be only two expensive cottages for rent which are unessicarily big. I get the feeling you really have to know someone out on the islands to get a toehold out here. Some people are pretty open and friendly others guard there slice of heaven. After talking to some people i was directed to check out a rough cabin that needed work to become livable. It is true, the caretakers are doing what they can to get a toehold on Mayne themselves, but the landowners couldn't care if anyone lived there. The place needs a wood stove, outhouse and a lot of love to be livable, but it doesn't feel like the safest place.

I don't feel that work could be too hard to find here, I've already given out my # for odd carpentry work, and picked up some quick cash splitting wood for a cottager. I will be doing a fencing job with colin back on Vancouver island tommorow, and then hopefully take a trip up island to see my step-sister Kerry and an old friend Melota. I want to check out the housing and work scene there before I make any decisions.
I will be returning to Mayne for a big party at Pat Henneberry's place and staying for a week of free cob building instruction!Yay my first green homebuilding class.
Pat and Kit are really amazing, creative, innovative, and welcoming people i have met here. Pat is a self-taught cob home builder. He just got back from Burning Man festival, and had some wild stories. See there webpage "Cobworks" for more info. I will have detailed stories and pictures of the work i get into later.
On saturday night I went for a hike up to Mount Parke park, with Jeff and Sam what a view! not to mention the sweet helicopter landing pad with peace sign. far-out!

Party to the Max w/ Raffi on Mayne Island

Wholly smoke! I don't beleive what an awesome time i had this weekend. I caught an early ferry to Mayne to visit Jeff and Samantha who have just moved there 2 days ago and who are reviving a farm, recording an album, oh ya and getting married too, all in this month. It's safe to say they are thrilled and excited and overwhelled by the opportunity and new life they are starting. I was a day early for a party I had been invited to for the landowner Jacky, who is fronting the finances for this farm revival.

I had no idea where they live or how to find them so I bike into what is considered the island centre. "That's where all the action is" the ferry attendant directed. I borrowed a bike to explore and headed for Miner's Bay. At the grocery store I asked about a community Bulliten board but there was no sign of jeff, so I asked about the unknown farm and it seems there's probably no one else on the island that hasn't heard about this farm revival. "Hardscrabble farms?" the storeowner projected. "There diggin a lake up there". It sounded about right. So off i went and soon found Jeff with a socket rench bent over the farm plough as he attached a second blade. A few seconds to register this stranger and he was all smiles. Just having arrived on the farm an hour earlier, it's just as exciting to him too. He tested out the tractor and it seems to pull real well.

The farm feild rolls out across a small valley and up a slope where giant ceder and fir begin a forest hill. 2 more fields extend to the east. This is big. In the bottom of the field bucket arms are digging a big pond right down to clean blue clay that will fill in the winter and be used as irregation in the summer. The north bank is being terraced for an orchard. Jeff is wide eyed and humbled by this opportunity but not afraid.

They have rented a place just a walk down the road, that will keep them until spring when the owners wish to take up residency again for the prime summer season. They call them "summerer's", there are also "weekenders" and these are terms created by the "full-timers" which are the 900 or so permanent residents which call mayne island home.

Raffi is one of them. He showed up to the Farm dinner party as an invited neighbor. When he introduced himself i gave him a big hug and thanked him for being a part of my childhood. He laughed, i'm sure it happens a lot. I'm what he calls a "Beluga Grad" see his website for the amzing work he is continuing to do now.Raffi News.We had wine and olives and talked about his father, who was a portrait photographer in Cairo. His dad Poineered and simplified the early colour 3 step developing process that we are familiar with today. Once neighbors, friends and family had shown up. We dove into a great big Alberta Beef roast.
After dinner a banjo stuck up a chord in the living room by the fire. People gathered and joined in song. Then we sang some rounds, a guitar appeared, and we were treated to Raffi doing john denver and bob dylan covers. It was an awesome time. Samantha and two others are impressive singers and part of a group called "the No-shit Shirley's" an all woman acapella group. She is organising a group singing session on the island and after that night I can't say no to it. The evening was not complete without home-made blackberry pie. Raffi said he's a pie-athlete, trianing for a pie-athalon, and was first in line. As Jeff and I said goodbye and headed home, we heard Rafffi strike up "Baby Beluga". It was icing on the cake, and a good feeling that i should find a place to live and work on the island.

I arose at 6am to catch the ferry to swartz bay, and posted a couple rental want adds up as i left. Cross my fingers and i'll be an islander for the winter. Sorry no photo's from this party, you'll have to paint a picture in your mind for this one.