Sleepers and Amish

It’s a long way to Iron Bridge, near Sault Sainte Marie, but it feels like another world there. More like a frontier, less traffic and history abounds in the form of pioneer settlements and farms still left intact.
Last year I was up there to take down a 12-sided 62-foot diameter barn and then erect it on municipal property about six miles away. This year we began the process of putting it up. Well, the foundation is poured to replicate the old one using boards and I went up there last week to help install the joists, or sleepers as they are called in barn terms. We tried to use as many of the old ones as possible, which span a distance between 20 to 25 feet. Even dry, these old timbers weighed a lot and with the use of a crane, Amish and some volunteers we managed to install about 60 old sleepers and new fresh cut red pine ones. The average size of the sleepers was about 10 inches, flat on two sides and 14 to 16 inches wide. One could not move any of them without the use of machinery and I wondered how they were installed 90 years ago when the barn was built.
I had great hosts, Will and Elaine Samis, who farm 164 acres near Iron Bridge. They both love reading and discussing everything from farm problems to the world’s philosophers and laughter was a common theme around the kitchen table.
One day I worked just with Joseph Yoder, a 20 year old Amish man, finishing up some notching on short connecting joists. He forgot his lunch and as there are no restaurants around I drove him to a small Trans Canada Highway general store that looks forgotten in time. An enthusiastic clerk greeted us and Joseph asked for bologna and a loaf of bread. Nope, they had run out of bologna, but had ham instead. Joseph was disappointed, as he really wanted bologna! Well, with a loaf of Bambi white sliced bread and ham, he managed to have a meal, while I contributed some chips and an orange. We sat in the shade eating, watching his horse graze, and laughed about the silliness of the fast world.

AMISH ROOFING

I’ve worked with the Amish that live around me for years. They are hard working and fearless, especially doing roofing work and so on a job I had to do in October, I hired Peter to help. Peter had just turned 21, and my job was the first for him where he got to keep the money I paid him. Up until then all the money he made went into the family’s fund.
The job was to repair a barn roof where two ten-foot sheets of metal roofing had come off at about the center of the roof on the south side. We got there with my mini-van, carrying a very long ladder, some rope, a 12 volt drill for screwing the sheets down and a few other hand tools.
We decided to go up on the ladder, both of us, Peter first to see how slippery the roof metal was. Peter thought he would just walk on the roof up to where the repair was needed. As he stepped onto the roof, about 25 feet from the hard ground, I was behind him on the ladder. He said in case he started to slide down the roof, I was to hold onto the eavestrough so that the ladder and both of us wouldn’t fall down! Great! Well, he did start to slide immediately and I held on to the eavestrough and nobody fell down. Good!
Plan B was to throw a rope, with a weight, over top of the peak and tie it off on the other side. It was a bit windy but the rope and weight finally caught on the ripped part of the roof we were to repair. Peter tried his weight on the rope and said he would try it. Yup, so I did the same, held on to the eavestrough just in case. The caught rope held and Peter was then able to throw the rope from the middle of the roof over the peak from there, and I was able to tie it off on the other side. I carried the ten foot sheets of metal roofing up to him and in an hour we finished the work. It was another adventure in barn roof repair.

Only Three Twelve Sided Barns in Canada

In Canada there are only 3-twelve sided barns. (There are many more in the USA). One is in the province of Quebec in the little historic village of Mystic. That barn, which is on the front cover of my latest book, "Barn Building," has many extraordinary features. Not only has it twelve sides but it has twelve distinct roofs as well. You can see and read more about that one in my book.

The other two are located in the north, near Iron Bridge, Ontario, which is haflway between Sudbury and Sault Ste marie. Now what are two complicated barns doing up north where Lake Huron's warming affects give farmers a short growing season and the Canadian Shield, starting just north of the lake, prevents anymore farming altogether.

The three barn's construction are related, so the story goes which is gathered from a few different sources. While the Mystic barn was built in 1882, one of the workers there moved all the way to the Iron Bridge area and built this 62-foot diameter barn pictured here in 1919. One of his workers who helped, then built the 3rd 12-sided barn about 1 mile away in 1928. Amazing how these things work out and are related.

The period beginning in 1900 was a boom time for towns and farmers in this area as the last of the great pine forests growing there were being cut down to build the cities of North America. Farmers had huge demands not only for produce and meat, but hay and grain to feed the hundreds of horses needed to log the bushes in the surrounding areas. By the 1920's it was all over, most of the good pockets of pine were logged out and then the Great Depression came, wiping out demand.

Luckily both barns are still standing and I was fortunate to have been invited on the annual barn tour up there by farmer and organizer Will Samis. "Barns are our biggest antiques," Will says. He is so right. And there is an effort to save this barn and move it down the road about 10 miles to the hamlet of Sowerby as a meeting place, dance hall, art display, antique impliment display-- a kind of museum with a social flair. The owners of the barn don't farm and don't really want it and have given to the local Heritage Farm Building tour buffs. They recieved a grant from the Ministry of Culture to take the barn down, preserve all the working timber frame pieces, and put it back up.

And, I have been asked to supervise and organize this event. Oh boy, what a fantastic challenge. And here is another coincidence. My Amish neighbour, who made the windows for my house 10 years ago and has tons of building expeience, moved up to Iron Bridge last year. I got to visit with him and his family when I was there. So... I've asked him and his brothers to help with the barn, and even though they are very busy carving a new life out of this northern frontier, he wrote me a letter recently saying he would help. It's going to be a great challenge, but fun for all as well. We'll see this summer.