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My Little Wooden House: Wood Building Techniques in Canada

Canadians, for the most part, used wood as the material of choice to build their homes. For hundreds of years. The construction methods however, have changed over that period of time. And when we go back to the 17th and 18th centuries, some of the methods seem foreign to us today. Here is a brief chronological rundown (starting with the most recent) of those building construction methods, ending with some very unique ones I have seen in Alberta.

I’ll quickly summarize the modern techniques which are elaborated on elsewhere. Also, J. Gottfred has extensively covered log building construction techniques, and I (Pyszczyk, 1992) have also written extensively on western Canadian log construction techniques (more from an archaeological perspective).

Modern Stud Frame Building Construction

Depending on where you live, current stud frame house construction started sometime in the early 20th century. Here uniformly cut 2″ x 4″ or 2″ x 6″ ‘studs’, 8′ – 10′ long were used to build the building frame. The studs for walls only extended one storey, and then the entire process was repeated at the 2nd and 3rd stories. Wall infill consisted of various materials to insulate the building. The interior and exterior was then clad with a variety of materials. This construction technique uses large quantities of nails or screws to join everything together.

Balloon Frame Building Construction

Said to date from the 1830’s – 1930s in the US, the balloon frame house shown in this photograph differs mainly from the stud frame house by the length of the studs which extend all the way to the roof line in the former (even in a second or third storey building). As with modern stud framing, infill and cladding consisted of various materials, and everything hung together with nails. Some people think the ‘balloon’ description for this building method originated from its skeptics believing it would blow away in a severe wind, like a balloon. (Courtesy of Scott Sidler)

The Old Bay House, Fort Vermilion, Alberta, shown on the front page of my web site, constructed in c.1908, is a balloon frame building. One of the oldest in Alberta. I’d be guessing if I tried dating this method in various parts of Canada (if any of you have more information on this method in Canada, I’d love to hear from you). It likely first appears in areas having access to standardized milled lumber.
Inside of the Old Bay House, Fort Vermilion, Alberta, showing wood interior wall and ceiling cladding.

Massed Log Building Construction

This technique consists of laying a series of horizontal logs on top of one another and connecting them with various types of notching on the corners of the building. It has various names and origins, and appears at different times in different parts of Canada. The French called it “pièce sur pièce” (piece on piece) construction. The cracks between the logs were chinked and the interior walls were sometimes mudded (more on that later). The technique is ‘wood heavy’, requiring large, long, straight logs, which are left rounded or squared. Few nails are used in this technique; logs are joined by wooden dowels at intervals along the wall.

The dovetail corner notching method is one of the most elaborate techniques found in western Canada (shown below). The angled joints in this method don’t require overhang (as in a saddle notched corner) and prevent the corners from coming apart. There are many good examples in Alberta, but some of the best I have seen come from the central and northern parts of the province.

This somewhat unique log building, at Carcajou, Alberta, has dovetail corner notching and logs only squared near the corners; the rest are left round. Carcajou was one of the earliest Metis settlements in Alberta, already shown on David Thompson’s 1826 map, as ‘Wolverine Point‘. In this community, this technique might have had a French Canadian influence. This building dates to the late 19th – early 20th century.
This log building, constructed in 1987 by the Hudson’s Bay Company, at Carcajou, Alberta, also has dovetail corner notching. The ethnic origins of its builder are unknown. The Company at this time hired people with different ethnic backgrounds, including French Canadians.
Close up view of the Carcajou HBC log building showing a series of round auger marks in the logs. The marks were used to number the logs, suggesting that this building had been dismantled and repaired, or dismantled and moved.

Massed log corner notching construction technique, probably the most familiar to many people, is also difficult to date in Canada. In some parts of the country it likely goes back as far as the beginnings of basic log construction, with a simple saddle notched log cabin at the lake or woods. And being built as recently as the last decade. In Alberta, the earliest dated example of dovetail notching is the clerk’s quarters at Dunvegan (c.1878 – present-day). The first Ukrainian immigrants (late 19th century) in Alberta used the dovetail notching method as well. Here are a few more examples of this technique. Assigning any definitive ethnic affiliation to these methods is problematic. There are likely many.

Top Left Photograph: The clerk’s quarter, Hudson’s Bay Company, Dunvegan, Alberta (c.1878 – present).

Bottom Right Photograph: A close-up view of the clerk’s quarters building corner showing the elaborate dovetail corner notching.
Old cabin, near Buck Lake, Alberta. Massed log saddle notching construction technique. Date unknown.

Red River Frame/Post-and-Plank

Also referred to as poteaux et pièce coulissante (posts and sliding piece), Gottfred suggests this method was adapted in New France from the French method of plankwall framing. In the much colder Canadian winter, logs replaced planks. In this method upright logs were grooved (mortised) and set along the building walls and corners at intervals, and then horizontal logs filled in the rest of the wall by carving tenons on the ends which fit into the uprights (Tongue and groove, mortise and tenon). The technique uses shorter (than massed log construction) infill logs between the vertical uprights. It uses few nails. Instead wood dowels along the walls and corners kept everything together.

I have seen two types of log wall framing methods in western Canada: 1) Post-on-sill; and, 2) Post-in-ground (see schematic diagram below). Post-on-sill was used after c.1830 by the Hudson’s Bay Company at many of its inland forts. Post-in-ground is an earlier form of framed log construction, going back to the 1780s in Alberta, and probably much earlier at the Saskatchewan and Manitoba fur trade posts. With this method the vertical posts are set in pits in the ground. At the turn of the 19th century we also see combinations of the two methods, such as at the HBC Nottingham House in northern Alberta. However this method should not be confused with the true post-in-ground (Poteaux-en-terre) method used earlier in French Canada (discussed later).

Pretend you are looking at a vertical wall and a cut-away of the ground in this image. These were the two most common log framed construction techniques for the various fur trade companies in western Canada. Archaeologically, the post-in-ground method is easy to identify because of the large pits dug to place the posts in, up to a metre deep in the ground. For some reason this method was abandoned in favor of the post-on-sill method, which eventually gave way to the massed dovetail log construction method.
All of the excavated buildings at the North West Company Fort George (c1792-1800), Alberta, were constructed using the post-in-ground method. In this photograph we exposed a vertical wood post in a pit with horizontal wood sills (foundation logs) butting up to it (likely tenoned into it).
This scaled drawing of a building wall found at the North West Company, Boyer’s Fort (c.1788-1792) shows a vertical post in a pit with the building sills (base logs) butting up to it
Excavations of the main house, at the HBC Buckingham House site, northern Alberta, showing some post pits holding the vertical posts of building walls, and the corner posts sitting on sills. Courtesy Karlis Karklins, Parks Canada.
One of the large warehouses at the c.1830 – 1915 HBC Fort Edmonton, Alberta being dismantled. A good example of post-on-sill-construction where the squared horizontal infill logs were inserted into the grooved vertical logs along the wall of the building. A large vertical timber is laying in the foreground of this c.1915 photograph. With this method the entire building could be taken apart and repaired, or moved and built elsewhere with relative ease. This particular fort building was built in the c.1860s when the fort expanded.
When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for log buildings. A large barn structure, New South Wales, Australia. A kind of post-in-ground framed log construction technique without the bottom logs. Adapted for either better ventilation, or flooding, for which parts of Australia are notorious.

Original Post-in-Ground (Poteaux-en-terre) and Post-on-Sill (Poteaux-sur-sol) Construction

Unfortunately, there is some confusion with all these similar architectural terms. The original 17th century French versions of Post-in-Ground and Post-on-sill log construction refer to entirely different log construction method. In this method the logs for the entire wall are all placed vertically, either in a trench in the ground, or sat on a horizontal foundation log (sill), or stones. The spaces between them were filled with stone, bricks and mud. As the images below show, they have a very distinct archaeological imprint making them readily recognizable.

Post-on-sill vertical log wall construction. An early French Canadian method where cracks between the vertical walls are filled with stones, bricks, plaster or mud. Courtesy: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drawing_of_Poteaux-en-Terre_in_the_Beauvais_House_in_Ste_Genevieve_MO.png
Image of a rowhouse, Fort Michilimackinac (c.1715 -30). Vertical wood wall posts would either sit on a sill or in a trench in the ground. (from Stone, 1974)
French House (c.1720-30), Fort Michilimackinac (from Stone, 1974). This small French house at the fort was definitely French post-in-ground construction. The archaeological evidence would reveal vertical post remains standing side-by-side in a trench. We searched for this building construction method in western Canada, but to no avail. Even though many of the early forts were likely constructed by French Canadians. I thought I had found a vertical building wall at the 1798 NWC LaFleur’s post in the Peace River Region. Later I realized that a new building had been constructed over a former old palisade wall which would have had similar vertical posts sitting in a trench.

The post-in-ground method originated in France, possibly the Normandy area. Here vertical posts for the wall were placed in the ground, and filled in between with either brick or stones. In the much colder climates of Canada the entire wall was made of vertical wood and covered by mud or plaster to prevent drafts and heat loss (from Russell Versaci, 2008)

Mud, the Plaster of Yesterday

Whenever I lecture on log construction techniques, I emphasize the importance of mud, or some mud/clay mixture, during construction. Many of the 18th – 19th century framed log buildings we excavated in Alberta used a mixture of mud/clay/straw to chink the outside walls. Sometimes entire the interior building walls were completely mudded. Also stone fireplaces and chimneys were covered with mud as well. I think the mud was not only used to prevent drafts from coming through the cracks between the logs, but when the interior walls or fireplace was mudded (as much as two inches thick) the mud worked as a heat sink absorbing the heat from the fire and retaining it in the mud walls.

Mud outer wall chinking on this building from Carcajou, Alberta. A branch or sapling was inserted into the crack (because it was large) and then the entire area filled with mud.

The importance of good mud or clay for this type of log building construction cannot be overstated: “I arrived at the entrance of Riviere Original…I brought the goods,however, to a large point on the south-east of the lake, and wrought two or three days at felling trees, but, to my great mortification we then discovered there was no clay to be found within five leagues of us.”  (Angus Shaw, NWC, 1789, near Moose Lake, Alberta)

Top Left Photograph: A schematic drawing of the willow lathe framework placed diagonally over the log inside walls of Angus Shaw’s big house at the NWC Fort George (c.1792-1800).

Lower Right Photograph: Fired mud chinking and wall suggesting that the building burned down. And by doing so the mud became fired and hard as brick. The impressions in the fired mud told us whether the wall logs were squared or rounded and if lathing had been placed on them. I have seen cut lathing on the inside walls of early 20th century Ukrainian houses in Alberta, to keep the mud in place. (Images from Kidd, 1970)
Top Left Photograph: Still standing (at least in the early 20th century) stone and mud fireplace, Fort Reliance, NWT. Similar fireplaces were built at other 18th-19th century fur trade posts. The chimney is made of logs and sticks, covered in mud. A similar fireplace chimney was noted in some fur trade journals: “…fixed Poles to the chimney of Mr. McLeod’s upper Room in order to heighten it.” (Daily Transactions, Fort Dunvegan, Alberta).

Bottom Right Photograph: A single stone fireplace at the NWC Fort George, Alberta (now on display at the Royal Alberta Museum). After being abandoned the mud from the fireplace and chimney oozed over the charred floor remains, preserving them perfectly.

Not Everything was Wood

I’ll end this post with one of the most unusual houses I have ever set my eyes on in Alberta. ‘Soddies’ were a common form of building construction on the Canadian prairies where wood was rare. But in central Alberta? Below is a still-standing (I hope) sod and wood framed house in east central Alberta. A truly unique and rather unorthodox home.

This wood framed house, with sod infill for walls, was built in east-central Alberta. Perhaps one of the most unique houses I have ever seen. According to Government of Alberta files: 1907 – Homestead filed and smaller sod house built; 1910 – House built; 1911 – Exterior plastered with lime and sand, and interior finished with Beaverboard; 1950 – last occupied. (Photographs and information Courtesy of Historic Sites Service, Government of Alberta)
A close-up view of the sod infill used to fashion the walls of this house. The sod was then covered with plaster and beaverboard. Unfortunately, this exposed part of the wall now makes for a great nesting area for barn swallows. As with straw bale wall construction, the trick here is to completely seal the wall to prevent rodents or other critters from getting in. (Photographs and information Courtesy of Historic Sites Service, Government of Alberta)

What is ‘Canadian‘?

As Canadians we have a long tradition of building our homes with wood. And we continue to do so. For example, in 2019 there were a total of 187,177 houses built in Canada, and I would think most of them were wood framed structures.

Some of the Canadian wood building methods used over the centuries occur in other places in North America and the world. Assigning specific dates, or origin, or builder ethnic affiliation, is risky and cannot always be generalized. The examples I give here are mostly from western Canada, and dates, ethnic affiliation or construction methods, will vary elsewhere in the country and continent.

But, there are some Canadian wood building methods that were adapted from Europe to deal with our often harsh Canadian environment, peoples’ specific needs, or their economies. They are truly our own. They are Canadian.

References

Kidd, Robert, 1970. Archeological Excavations at the Probable Site of the First Fort Edmonton or Fort Augustus, 1795 to Early 1800’s”. Provincial Museum of Alberta Human History Occasional Paper No. 3. Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Historical Resources Division, 1987.

Pyszczyk, Heinz, 1992. The Architecture of the Western Canadian Fur Trade: A Cultural-Historical Perspective. Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 17(2):32-41.

Stone, Lyle M., 1974. Fort Michilimackinac, 1715-1781. An Archaeological Perspective on the Revolutionary Frontier. Publications of the Museum Michigan State University.

Versaci, Russell, 2008. Roots of Home. Our Journey to a New Old House. The Taunton Press.