When I was wee, my family of nine used to load up our big old Ford Country Squire station wagon with kids and gear and head up to Canada to go camping for a week or two. This always involved some drama, such as Massasauga rattlesnake sightings, errant fishhooks, and trying to stay dry in leaky canvas tents during biblical downpours, but what I remember most is the beauty of the area: Forests, clear lakes, and the granite of the Canadian shield poking up everywhere through the landscape. Taking a look at photos of one of WWG Design & Build’s recent NADRA-award-winning projects brought back memories of those happy days.
While the serene setting is familiar, this lakeside deck is considerably more civilized than the provincial campgrounds that my family enjoyed (or was it “endured”?). Jon Witt, who owns the Fenelon Falls, Ontario-based company, explains that the water level on this lake fluctuates seasonally, and that his clients wanted a platform that could be used during the spring high-water season—for a few weeks each year, the water level is only 8 inches below the deck surface.
Work on the site started while the lake was still iced over (top photo). In warmer weather, the lakeside gazebo offers shelter from the summer sun.
Witt says that one of the lakeside project’s main challenges was dealing with the lot’s steep hill and large outcrops of granite bedrock. With no way to mechanically move the lumber to the building site, every piece had to be handbalmed from the rear of the house and down the embankment to the water’s edge.
Fitting the deck to the rock outcropping involved a lot of heavy masonry anchors and some careful scribing. To ensure that the PT decking could withstand the harsh northern climate with grace, the decking was pre-finished on all four sides with Cutek Extreme stain, by a local company named DEck Protect. For a barefoot-friendly surface, the decking was fastened to the framing with the Camo Edge hidden fastening system.
Stairs connecting the lakeside deck to the house meander through granite outcroppings.
After completing the lower deck, Witt and his crew had to figure out the meandering path and stair system to traverse the steep embankment and granite outcroppings. But the result was worth the effort, and during the short but glorious Canadian summer, I suspect that there’s no place the family that owns this camp would rather be.
Photos by Jon Witt and Doug Logan.
