A Vancouver Island cottage has taken an unusual route to its new home, travelling by road and sea before arriving on Malcolm Island.
Nickel Bros, a company specializing in moving buildings, shared photos of the 1,300-square-foot cottage being loaded off a barge as part of its journey from Black Creek.
Before setting out, the company says crews assessed tides, beach access, overhead wires and the route the cottage would need to take between the shoreline and its new home.
The cottage was transported to the water, loaded onto a barge and carried across to Malcolm Island, located off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, a roughly 170-kilometre journey by sea.
Once there, crews faced another challenge: getting the building from the barge back onto solid ground.
“For every barge move, there comes a point where the water ends and the land begins. That’s where we build the bridge,” Nickel Bros said in a social media post.
Photos shared by the company show the cottage perched on the barge before being carefully brought ashore. It was then moved across a road to reach its new site.
The move is far from the first time Nickel Bros has taken a house out to sea.
Last October, the company transported a 113-year-old heritage house from Vancouver to West Vancouver by barge. The home, originally built in Kerrisdale in 1912, was moved across Burrard Inlet before being unloaded at Caulfeild Cove.
Nickel Bros has also carried out several high-profile house moves around Vancouver Island, including transporting a nearly 7,000-square-foot home by barge from Oak Bay to Powell River in 2023.