Interested in hosting a timber framing course in your community?

Get in touch with us.

Email: andrekennedyw@gmail.com

Phone : 403-619-2280

Or complete the form below to learn how Totem Timber Frames can help your community thrive.

About the Course

Totem offers a 4-week training program teaching timber frame building to classes of up to eight participants, delivered locally within their home communities. Graduates will be able to build complete timber frame structures, excluding internal finishing (drywalling, electrical, plumbing, heating, etc.). We work with local governments, band administrations, and training bodies to secure contracts to deliver the training to participants, with the resulting structures being available for use in the communities afterwards.   

Why Particpate?

Graduates of the training will have relevant construction skills, at a time when employers are continuing to cite labour shortages as their top constraint. The local delivery of this training in rural and remote communities will result in a higher graduation rate for students. Communities will get multiple benefits: trained workers within the local labour force; better returns on their investment in training due to higher completion rates; new structures that are built during the training period that are available to residents; and the local use of local wood in locally-built structures. 

Graduates will be able to work go work for firms building structures in timber frame design, building local infrastructure, utilize local resources and improve life in their own communities.

Benefits

This locally-delivered training will offer the following benefits: 

1. Graduates will have relevant skills to allow them to get jobs building timber framed structures – homes, public buildings, and so forth; 

2. Completion rates will be significantly higher than in current options that require students to leave their home communities to get trained. This addresses a significant weakness within the current offerings – the lower completion rate among First Nations students who leave longer training programs early due to a sense of isolation from their families and familiar surroundings. 

3. Communities will benefit from additional structures that are locally built by local residents using local wood. This will assist them in increasing the available housing stock for residents. 

Skilled labour training in your community

We believe that the local delivery of training is helps overcome a significant barriers to helping First Nations workers access opportunity. The combination of added cost to live away from home and removal from a familiar setting of family and friends present major hurdles to people living on reserve.

Equipment is provided

Totem Timber Frames Inc. will transport the necessary equipment to rural and remote communities, which will be used to provide the service. Participants will be run through the process by a Trainer and an Assistant during a four-week program. Fees of $5,000 per seat will be charged, with each group being a maximum of 8 students.