Dawson Lake Progress : April 28, 2010 : Last Week of April

The hats and coats came out from behind the truck seats on the last week of April with a blast of winter weather.

Bob Chamberland and the home construction crew are making great progress with laying the block for the 1st home and should have that project completed by week's end.

Massey Reclamation has completed the hydroseeding of the area around the dam and the rye grass has already spouted along the backside of the dam.

Bob's foreman on the road construction crew, Richard Persinger, is working on the mountain top repairing a slip in the road and they are getting along very well with that project.

Mr. Persinger and crew just finished the construction of the new wetlands area below the dam last week and Massey seeded it down with a special mixture of sedges, rushes and other wetland species in time to catch the spring growing season.

Dowdy Road and Field Service was on hand to repair a problem with the Komatsu dozer.

The lake can now be seen in the long view from Lot 14 which is very exciting.

- Richard Grist

Dawson Lake Progress : February 19, 2010 : Dawson Lake in February

February at Dawson Lake and over 50 inches of snow has fallen since December '09. Spring is just around the corner and Bob Chamberland and crew will be cranking up and rolling in just a few weeks.

Looks like snow shoes are in order until the winter thaw arrives.

- Richard Grist

Dawson Lake Progress : January 28, 2010 : January Progress

Dawson Lake continues to move forward despite the ongoing winter blasts of blizzards, torrential rains, sleet and high winds.

Bob Chamberland has secured the building permits for the terrific cabin that architect Ole Sondresen has designed for the project and the carpenters and crew are ready to get started.

In the meantime, Bob and crew continue to take care of the many details that go into making Dawson Lake a very special place.

The pictures attached show Bob and crew making a few final internal adjustments on the stand pipe. Bob was also maintaining some of the culverts along the roadways with his sturdy shovel.

- Richard Grist

Dawson Lake Progress : December 10, 2009 : First driveway goes in

Here are a few pics of the first driveway going in at Dawson Lake. This will be used to access the 1st home that architect Ole Sondresen has desiged and Bob Chamberland and his carpentry crew will build over the next few months.

Notice the white out condition in the first picture below, taken during one of the snow squalls that passed by with some 45mph winds this morning.

To build the driveway required building up the road with the excess dirt taken from a second drive that will be built just up the road. The dirt is then spread with the dozer and then compacted with the vibrating roller. The drive will then be stoned a little later on before construction begins.

- Richard Grist

Dawson Lake Progress : December 7, 2009 : Winter comes to Dawson Lake

The first week of December brought rain, ice, wind and snow to the Dawson Lake project but Bob Chamberland and crew continued to stay busy winding up the work around the dam. Read below for more information.

- Richard Grist

{above & below} The crew is putting the finishing touches on the top of the trash screen that the crew set in place on Sunday. The galvanized steel screen sits atop the standpipe that runs about 40' to the bottom of the dam. A portable acetylene torch was brought in to cut the necessary holes in the top.

{above} The crew was putting the last of 20 quad axle dump truck loads of rip rap limestone (650 tons) on the face of the dam. This has been a long and tedious process that covered the entire 800' length of the dam.