Restoring a historic site involves more than just looking at a few old pictures and sawing a few new logs.
The public is invited to take in a detailed chronicle of the restoration work that went into the Albert Lacombe Chapel when the historic site hosts restoration specialist David Koshman this Saturday.
Up until last year Koshman was a restoration officer with the province. The chapel was one of his first projects when he joined the department in the early 1980s.
“It was a challenge and I took a lot of pride in the fact that I was preserving a piece of Alberta’s heritage,” he said. “It means a lot to so many people.”
Originally built in 1861, the chapel is Alberta’s oldest surviving building. The province designated it a provincial historic site in 1977.
Entitled Restoring the Past, Koshman’s talk will include a slide presentation in outlining the restoration process.
This began in the early 1980s when Koshman found the building encased in brick, the result of a 1929 effort to protect the building from the elements. However, a wooden skirt around the base had attracted powderpost beetles. Their feasting left about a third of the original logs severely weakened and needing replacement.
Koshman hired a specialized contractor who was skilled in the old hand hewn methods used in pioneer times. They used lime and sand between the logs then whitewashed the building.
“We actually had a photo from the 1890s that showed Father Lacombe sitting on a bench outside the building so we had a pretty good idea how the exterior of the building looked in the 1890s, so that’s what we restored it to,” Koshman said.
Koshman is hoping that people come away with an appreciation of the labour and skill required to build in those days, when there was no railway or road to bring in outside materials.
“You had to use what nature provided so it was ingenuity and hard work,” he said.
The chapel is already open daily during the summer and staffed with bilingual interpreters but Koshman’s talk will provide more technical insight into the building structure, said Marianne Mack, facility supervisor for Alberta Culture and Community Spirit.
“The building is quite fascinating because it was probably Alberta’s earliest restoration project,” she said, referring to the brick encasement undertaken in 1929.
Shari Strachan, programs manager for St. Albert’s MusĂ©e Heritage Museum, has witnessed the presentation before and found it to be a real eye-opener.
“The thing that interested me the most is just how intricate it is,” she said. “You think they have to cut a few logs, and maybe do a little research and look at a few pictures but there’s a lot more to it than that.”
Restoring the Past runs Saturday July 10 at 11 a.m. at Father Lacombe Chapel, which is located adjacent to St. Albert Catholic Parish (7 St. Vital Avenue), just off St. Albert Trail. Admission is by donation.
