THE BRANDON SUN • Lake Life • SATURDAY, MAY 24, 2025
3
A
lot of things can cause a delay for a con- struction company. It
could be bad weather, a delay in the supply chain, a glitch with permits and plans, a la- bour challenge. For Sullivan St. Pierre Construction ... it was bears. It’s not something your average con- struction company would encounter, but Sullivan St. Pierre Construction works in Riding Mountain National Park and the surrounding areas. Bears are kind of a thing there. “We’re building a secondary bunk house at a cabin and we couldn’t start the project because bears had been denning under the main cabin. It was a mom and three cubs, so we had to wait until they vacated the property,” says Gillian Sullivan, who along with her business partner Joel St. Pierre owns and operates Sullivan St. Pierre Construction (@sullivanstpierrecon- struction). “Everybody in the park knew where they were. They were playing with the lumber that we had delivered, so we have lots of great pictures - that’s not something that you run into when you’re working in Brandon.” It’s just one of the quirks of the area that Sullivan gets a kick out of. “It’s such a wide variety of projects in the Parkland area - working on old campground cabins that have a very small footprint and trying to fit every- thing that was on the list for the client. Working on historical buildings and cottages and trying to maintain their
Above: Sullivan St. Pierre Construction partners Joel St. Pierre and Gillian Sullivan. Left: The Stowaway Inn. (Photos submitted)
character and charm,” she says. “It is always a real, real fun place to work and it’s beautiful.” Some of those old cabins and build- ings have historical value, so that’s another consideration in the region. Sullivan says Riding Mountain Nation- al Park just came out with new guide- lines for maintaining the appearance of the community. “We’re both pretty big fans of the original architecture that was set up at the lake, so we do like to try to follow those guidelines as much as possi- ble whenever possible,” says Joel St. Pierre.
“Talking with other contractors, it seems like they’re intimidated a lot of times by all those rules and regulations that go along with building there, but we’ve both done a fair bit of work up there, so I guess we’re just a little bit more used to it.” Sullivan says the guidelines are help- ful to determine parameters. “They’re very specific on colours and they really like to try and have the exterior stick with a little bit of a Tudor style, which is historically what Riding Mountain National Park has had,” she says.
» Continued on Page 4
SUMMER EVENINGS WITHOUT THE BUGS!
RESERVE A SUMMER DATE FOR THE INSTALLATION OF YOUR SUNROOM.
FREE ESTIMATES
SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES
204-726-8488 | www.elitesunrooms.ca | 155 Prairie Crescent Brandon | sales@elitesunrooms.ca
Serving Westman since 1997
Powered by FlippingBook