A Red Seal takes you to next-level carpenter

Carpentry and building is the right choice of jobs and careers

Ryan Barker 31, was born and raised in Port Alberni, B.C.. "I went to school in Port Alberni, Nanaimo, and Victoria." The building industry caught his attention early, "I started in carpentry between grades 11 and 12 and that's why I went to Victoria to take a construction class in my final year of high school." Even as a teenager, "I was a construction labourer, mostly in roofing, and later I moved into house construction and renovation. I wanted to apprentice as a carpenter and within the first five years after school I think I had enough hours to do a Red Seal challenge," he laughs.

Work was sometimes sporadic, however, and there were times when getting the hours under apprenticeship was difficult. 'Basically I did the first year of apprenticeship early, then years later I did 2nd year," and he persisted in getting the work until finally, "I decided it was time to challenge the exam."

Enter Richard Dickenson, Integrated Carpentry Tutorials, "I found out about his course -- actually my wife saw it on Facebook, and she said I should apply to get on the list. I did the Prep for the Red Seal Exam course, which was delivered in Courtenay over three weeks."

Barker says, "I liked it, it was informal, with lots of information. It's math and a refresher to the memory on things like calculating volumes on concrete," (carpenters do a lot work in concrete; every inch of concrete has to be poured into a form) and all the intricacies on building stairs, trusses, joinery.

"The course was set at the right pace. You have to pay attention, you have to go ahead with all the assignments. For me it was right place at the right time."

On June 20th, 2017 Barker received his certificate of qualification for Red Seal Carpenter. All those years of building houses on the west coast of the island paid off. "I was employed by two different employers in all those years. We built dozens of houses in Ucluelet and and 100 houses in Tofino." He was experienced indeed.

So the time came to start his own business. "I started my own company five months ago, called R. Barker Contracting, in Port Alberni. I decided, why not? I had all the knowledge and all the tools over the years, and had been waiting for my journeyman ticket. Me and my wife made a couple of calls to the business bureau."

It was another move at the right time and the right place for Barker. "We've been super busy since then and I have six guys working for me now. We've been doing concrete slabs, sidewalks, retaining walls, concrete stairs, a lot of different projects keeping us busy through the summer, and now, two weeks ago, we started a house."

To be a contractor on a house construction you need to be a Red Seal. "We continue to do decks and siding and roofs and fencing. Whatever comes up, our name is out there for everything."

R. Barker Contracting is working in the city of Port Alberni. "I've got 2 carpenters and rest are labourers, two guys I picked up had run out of work, and I put an ad on Facebook to hire others."

Port Alberni is where the jobs are happening, which is great for a young man who spent so much time, 10 years, working out on the west coast of Vancouver Island. "Now I am home with the family at dinner time."

The current house building project is from start to finish, "Footings and foundations were done, now the floor system is being built, next is framing and then siding. It's 2,300 square feet and we will be on it for about six months on this build. We started it at the beginning of November and it's progressing well."

Running a business has its challenges, "The stress is there, I can sympathize with the people who employed me over the years. This past summer we would have four or five jobs on the go and I found myself trying to be in several places at once."

Barker's wife Tess does the bookwork and paper work, permit applications, other office duties. Tess and Ryan have two children, Ryson, 7, and a daughter of 4 named Brynlee.

The construction business in Port Alberni is competitive, "but we've managed to keep finding the work, There are quite a few other companies in town. At least the economy is pretty good for building right now."

R. Barker Contracting works right through the year, "Winter jobs are good, and we're enthusiastic about working year-round," including new builds, additions, and renovations.

Barker is from Tla-o-qui-aht Nation in Tofino, "I maintain connections and we spend time with family on the west coast."

Carpentry and building is the right choice of jobs and careers. "We're working anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day. The Red Seal means everything to me. Ever since I was in high school I wanted to attain this designation." and being on job sites since his teenage years, he learned from the experienced hands that, "Having a Red Seal makes you a next-level carpenter."

Now he's apprenticing others in the trade, hours are going on the record, "Some of these guys are working toward the Red Seal certification and they have their hours going on the books."

Freelance Writing by  Mack McColl  

Carpenter Skills Ingrained from 30 Years Building Experience

BURWASH LANDING -- This part of the Yukon Territory is home to about 120 people, "Not large," says Chief Bob Dickson, "Our Kluane First Nation is about 250 members." Burwash Landing holds a good share of Kluane's people, "Burwash Landing is on land set aside for the Kluane First Nation as part of a Yukon First Nation Final Agreement," with Kluane's agreement established in 2003.

The community lies about 300 km west of the capital, Whitehorse, "We are busy in the summer. The Kluane First Nation is the big employer in Burwash Landing. We have a relationship with a mining company, Nickel Creek Platinum."

The mine is located 25 km from Burwash Landing within traditional territory in Kluane First Nation. "The Nickel Shäw project (named with the local Southern Tuchone word Shäw, meaning Big, by Kluane First Nation Elders) is host to over 2 billion pounds of nickel and other valuable minerals, and aspires towards becoming a world-class nickel sulphide mine." (Kluane Community Development Corporation LP http://kluanekcdc.ca/nickel-shaw/)

"At one point 40 of our people were working up there on the mining project, and we are hoping it comes back to that level of activity." Dickson says Kluane Community Development Corporation LP has agreements in place with Nickel Creek Platinum involving tasks like catering, maintenance, equipment leasing, and, of course, other jobs in mining.

"It's in the developmental stage and the project has not been determined as to which way they're going to go, open pit or underground, but they have been working for the past 10 years on a site which has been around since the 1950s. There was a mill operating in the 1970s and it went dormant, and was torn down."

Nickel Creek Platinum is working with Kluane First Nation, "in coming to some kind of comprehensive agreement before they go ahead." The Kluane are doing hands-on groundwork, "We want training for technical and management and executive positions," and Kluane wants business opportunities, "We are a small First Nation but we want to know what the impact is going to be on the land and we want to bring benefits to the community from the mine."

Kluane people are not going anywhere, "For us it's about building capacity." Which brings us to the matter of the capacity Chief Dickson has built for himself, for he is a Red Seal carpenter, "I started in construction back in the days when I got out of school, but first I went into heavy equipment operator training, then I saw a program called Skookum Jim R-2000 for First Nations to enter the trades."

Dickson says, "Skookum Jim R-2000 was designed for First Nations to participate in building and renovating at a time when funding came through for houses, renovations, and construction of a friendship centre in Whitehorse. There was other infrastructure being built around the Yukon, and we worked in many communities around the Territory. I ultimately zeroed in on carpentry."

Dickson worked with a lot of people he describes as well intentioned, but, "The problem with the apprenticeship of the building trades is that we had so many skilled people working on a crew and nobody getting credit for the hours. In a First Nation community without anybody with a Red Seal qualification, people are missing credit for knowing their trades, and they don't get valuable certification."

Dickson, now in his mid-50s, intended to follow through on Red Seal carpenter certification in the early 1990s. "I signed up to a 6-week course to challenge the Red Seal exam at Yukon Advanced Education in Whitehorse. But I got elected chief of Kluane First Nation in the 1990s and I was occupied with the business of politics."

A few years later, "I saw an ad in the paper called a Red Seal Challenge (provided by Richard Dickenson's Integrated Carpentry Tutorials), so I called Jeff Sloychuk representing the BC Regional Council of Carpenters/United Brotherhood of Carpenters, Yukon, Local 2499, Whitehorse. They were sponsoring the course in Whitehorse. I wanted to sign up, and I was told, 'Whoever comes in with money gets signed up,' and Sloychuk at the carpenters union assured me there would be space."

After driving three hours from Burwash Landing to Whitehorse, he arrived to find there wasn't space in the course. Dickson perservered, "I persisted with Jeff Sloychuk with daily phone calls and finally I got my chance because Jeff made room and I paid for the course, but because of the distance and other challenges, I missed the first couple of classes, still, I went to Whitehorse every weekend and played catch-up with tutorials from Richard Dickenson." Dickson is grateful to the union for making the effort to get him there and for hosting Dickenson's ICT Red Seal Course.

He says, "Dickenson knew that a lot of carpentry skill was ingrained from 30 years of building experience, plus I was always reading and playing on my strengths." Dickson having been in construction as a builder and contractor over the years had taken various courses in plumbing, heating, electrical, courses related to building trades.

It has been a long road of experience. "The main thing in the Yukon is we don't build skyscrapers, we build houses, we work with permafrost, and we use materials like Permanent Wood Foundation (PWF) pads, a lot of cribbing and blocking. The construction is practically all carpentry, and here in the Yukon it's expensive to build, more than $220 per sq. ft.."

Having had kept his eye on the ball all those years and put Dickenson's training to practical use, "I think the Red Seal is high value. I was always reading a lot, always trying to find the mechanism to get the Red Seal certification done, but I wasn't ready to go to Yukon College where they want you to start from square one.

"When it first appeared to me in the 90s I missed the opportunity, but I finally got connected and dropped everything and went straight to Whitehorse. Dickenson prepares you for the challenge, which is an exam lasting 4 hours to answer 100 questions. It's about two minutes per question, you have to deal with math questions and not defeat yourself. I was good at math, but you must be prepared. If you're prepared, put it this way, I wrote the test once."

Dickenson, the teacher, notes that Bob Dickson is in the top rung of scorers on the Red Seal exam (and Dickenson has taught the course right across the country).

Dickson says, "In the building trades I worked with a lot of good people." He has had two stints as Chief of Kluane First Nation. The first was a long 14 year stretch, then he was out of politics for a while and recently he re-entered politics. "I am not currently apprenticing anyone since I went back to the chief's office, but I got my daughter started in the carpentry trade." Alanna Dickson is a registered carpenter's apprentice. "In fact she worked for me for a number of years doing jobs in siding, house building, and renovations."

A lot of work in housing in the Yukon is maintenance and renovation. "Alanna is also an Emergency Medical Technician and currently she is working as an EMT for an organization on road projects." There are, however, building opportunities on the horizon because Burwash Landing has obtained badly needed funding for housing. Dickson's goal in apprenticing carpenters is straight forward, "Part of what I do is teach people to do things the right way from the start."

Dickson says, "I spent a lot years working with people who really took the time to do it right. I am passing this on to the next generation. We've had meetings with Yukon College to get skilled people recognized, and get them into apprenticeship with the goal of Red Seal certification. Outside contractors come in and we will have people working, training and having hours recognized and recorded. There are fewer toss aways." A lot of good people work hard and deserve the recognition.

Burwash Landing is a community that stays busy on a year-round basis, but is remote, "We have Kluane National Park next door, there are fishing, guiding, and outfitting companies, we have big game hunting. We sell a hunting permit on a Dall sheep. The proceeds go toward conservation. We plan the hunt, scout it, my cousin guides on it, and we do it in July before the rest of the Territory's hunting season begins in August."

Most of the hunting in the area is for moose and cariboo, "Mostly it's subsistance, and we have a bison and elk specialty draw. We get a bison permit every year for Woodland Buffalo, which is a bigger bison than those of the prairies, 2000 lbs."

The community gets a lot of hunted carcasses donated, "Usually the outfitters bring them to the community and we prepare the meat for lunches and distribution to Elders and others who are non-hunters. Outfitters in the territory bring meat because usually hunters are here for the horns."

The northern winter is dark for long hours, "We have tough winters but a lot can happen in the winter with renovation. It always depends on funding and the funding comes late in the fall. When we get our funding, we start, and we always have houses that need the work done."

Freelance Writing by Mack McColl

Becoming a Red Seal Carpenter in Saskatchewan

Bradon Gardypie, 26, lives at Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, 45 minutes north of Saskatoon. He grew up at the Cree Nation reserve of Beardies and Okemasis, "I know some Cree, my Dad is a fluent Cree speaker." 

He graduated school and started working in the carpentry trade. "Most of the work was in Saskatoon, I had to go there for jobs in construction on housing, building schools, or hotels." He had a goal of getting the journeyman ticket in carpentry, "I struggled. I actually fell off a roof in my first year and broke my back. I had to take a year off and do all the physiotherapy." 

He went back to work and cycled through apprenticeship levels to become a journeyman carpenter, and eventually encountered a social media announcement by Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies. SIIT is a post-secondary educational institution in Saskatoon, and Mark Pollard, Dean of Trades and Technical Training was sponsoring a special course on preparing for the Red Seal exam. 

Pollard had hired Richard Dickenson of Integrated Carpentry Tutorials to put the two week course on in Saskatoon. "It was good dealing with Mark Pollard, and I got lucky. Actually I saw it online though social media when SIIT posted, they said they were trying out a new training program. It proved a good opportunity for me, Even though there was a maximum of 13 seats, they made one more seat available for me." 

Gardypie was a skilled workman, "I had my carpentry apprentice levels but on my first try at the Red Seal test I failed by two points, I got a 68." 

He took the SIIT course offered with Richard Dickenson instructing, which was delivered in a classroom in Saskatoon for two weeks. It was a highly informative two weeks, "Richard showed me the tricks to figuring out formulas. The class was two weeks and it was very good.

"Things I found difficult, especially math, Richard explained in a different way, and made it easy. We learned the ins and outs of dealing with complex problems, material for the Red Seal exam was explained, he gave us problem-solving scenarios, and we worked through the different types of formulas to get the right answers." 

Gardypie says, "I wrote the Red Seal the second time passed with 78 percent after two weeks of instruction." The change in his career path was instantaneous, "Immediately I was offered a job as Red Seal carpenter in the oil industry and I went from $28 to $38 an hour overnight. I went to Cold Lake, Alberta, and applied for a job in the oil sector."

He works shift 7 days on 7 days off. The work varies, "It's a lot of everything, concrete, finishing, renovation, maintenance, housing, roofing, camps, plants, oil plants, an oil sands project for Cenovus." It's a big project on a large area and lots of people as they are mining the oil."

The drive to Cold Lake is 4.5 hours, then they truck north an hour to camp and job. "I started a year and 2 months ago."

Gardypie wanted the shiftwork in this arrangement. It makes it possible for time camping, hunting, boating and recreation. "It's real nice to be out in the territory." Furthermore, "With that job, in six months of being employed, I was able to buy a  house in the town of Duck Lake (population 650)."

He says, "It's a pretty small town, a few hundred. We travel to Prince Albert or Saskatoon for shopping and groceries. I have a family, my wife and I have two kids, a 5 yr old (going into K-12) and 2 month old. My brother is apprenticing in carpentry. It's a good trade to have, carpentry applies to a lot of different construction scenarios."

Gardypie says, "We use the training Dickenson provided on all the job sites, and having the Red Seal allows more confidence on the job. The boss is more confident in me. When you are Red Seal you can instruct on the job site. You can teach others."

He plans to make business his future, "With the Red Seal I can apprentice others under me, start my own business, and get things going help the local guys into the trade, like my brother and cousin, they will learn the right experience in the trade." 

He credits SIIT's Pollard for finding the right guy to get the training done, "Richard Dickenson ended up making it a completely successful classroom experience."