Stored in a shed at Richardson Ranch is a one-of-a-kind metal sculpture that really rocked Tlell.
Like a fan blade of warped steel, it’s the twisted top of an oxygen tank that caught fire and blew apart the ranch workshop on Good Friday last year.
“That cap, off the top of the bottle, was behind the clinic out in the bull pasture,” said Don Richardson, pointing to a treed pasture maybe 200 metres away from the workshop.
Turning back to the rebuilt shop, he cracked a wry grin.
“And it came out of that building with four walls and a roof on it.”
No one, person or pet, was hurt in the Easter fire.
And there were plenty of heroics, Don said, stepping across the drive to tour the new workshop and kennels.
Volunteer firefighters from Tlell and Port got there quick and, led by fire chief Mike Richardson, they managed to power-saw a firebreak between the burning shop and the kennels next door, which they filled with foam.
Luckily, the wind was light.
Don was actually in Fraser Lake looking at cows and talking with his son Dane on the phone when the fire started. It seems a spark flew off a grinding tool and into an empty oil drum that had fumes or residue inside.
“I heard ‘Oh my God the shop’s on fire’ in the background and then, ‘Gotta go’ — click,” Don said.
By the time he and his daughter got home on the Monday ferry, a team of family, friends and neighbours had already landfilled what was left of the shop, leaving nothing but a burned-out concrete slab.
“The day afterwards, it was amazing how many people were here to put it to bed,” Don said.
| Some of the workshop hardware survived the fire, but several tools, including some that go back to the ranch's earliest days, were too weakened by the heat. (Andrew Hudson/Haida Gwaii Observer) |
Walking through the new workshop, Don explained how they had to level and recap the burned-out floor, which has a pit for getting under ranch tractors and other vehicles.
In a back room is a new tractor-powered alternator that can power several of the ranch buildings in a blackout, including the animal clinic where surgeries might be going on.
Overhead in parts of the shop and the kennels are new high-efficiency UV heaters that warm up nearby objects but not the air.
The shop was pretty well insured for contents, Don said, but the building itself had expanded beyond what their policy listed umpteen years before. And on a ranch that has been in the Richardson family since 1919, the fire took some things that were irreplaceable — tools seven generations old.
“It was so hot that if you take a bar or a wrench that was in it and grab hold of something, it just bends in your hand,” he said.
“All the temper has gone out of everything.
Still, Don said the workshop is “pretty well back to where we want it to be,” pointing out an unfinished storage area in the workshop for salvaged steel.
“It’s a farm, it’s never finished.”
| A Persian cat eyes a visiting reporter from the brand-new cat condos at the Richardson kennels. (Andrew Hudson/Haida Gwaii Observer) |
As well as a farm, Richardson Ranch has been home to the islands’ animal hospital since 1980 and, since 1976, to boarding kennels for islanders’ pets. For years before they also rented several cabins to fishermen.
The day he spoke with the Observer, Don asked his mother, now 85, why they switched to kennels in the first place.
“I changed over to dogs because you tell them to sit down and shut up,” she said as a joke. “You couldn’t do that with the fishing guests.”
“And besides, they don’t drink as much.”
Enjoying a four-unit “cat condo” all to herself on the day the Observer visited was a handsome Persian cat.
Although the kennel building survived the fire, parts of the aging building were so badly smoke-damaged that the family decided to take it down and rebuild.
| Visiting dogs enjoy the runs outside the new boarding kennels. (Andrew Hudson/Haida Gwaii Observer) |
Don showed off some sliding pet doors that let dogs come and go to the runs outside, which have new galvanized cattle fencing that is stronger and more open than wire gauge. There is also a smaller run for six-pound Chihuahuas and other little dogs.
Re-opening the kennels this spring was a big relief, not only for Haida Gwaii pet owners, but also to everyone on the ranch, who had used the overnight kennels in the animal clinic as a temporary but less-than-an-ideal option for boarding when pet owners had to go away on medical and other urgent trips.
Sometimes the kennels have just a handful of boarders, but it really varies.
“Our worst nightmare was in the nineties,” said Don. “We had 56 dogs and 28 cats for Christmas one year.”
The last stop in the new kennel building is a people spot, an office where the shelves are already filling up with fair ribbons and trophies awarded to the Richardsons’ prized Polled Herefords.
A stall sign with a short history of Richardson Ranch was still waiting to be hung up on the wall. Next year will mark a full century since the Richardson family started farming between the Tlell River and the sea.
“We’ll make a day of it,” said Don.
