Construction of his new house began in the spring of 1901, with completion on June 17, 1901, for a total cost of $77.00 of which $50.00 was for labor, $25.00 was for lumber and supplies and $2.00 was for freight!! The house consisted of one main room 16 foot square, with a 6 foot veranda on the north and west sides. There were two doors, the cookstove being located in the house near the rear door. The house was used primarily for eating and living room purposes. Sleeping accommodation was in tents set on raised wooden floors and located close to the house.  This arrangement was the one mainly used  in the layout of summer cottages in those days.

 

In 1902, with four month old William (Bob), father of Bob, Sally and John, the family stayed for the summer. With the family settled, Calvert left the family and returned briefly to work in Vancouver. Was this the start of week-end commuting and The Daddy Boat!

 

Along with other tents, two special tents occupied the site; one occupied by William Blair  (Ada's Father) and the other by Mrs Jean Chrow (Calvert's sister).  Jean Chrow came to Buccaneer to help Calvert raise Joe and Bob following Ada's death in 1914. Her tent frame still stands between the original house and Bob Simson's site lA. Other notable structures that existed were two boat sheds and a tool shed located on the front beach. The boat shed had a railway which allowed the old green gas boat to be taken out of the water daily and made it easier for Joe and Bob to polish the large brass propeller which they used as their flasher when fishing. The boat shed eventually moved to the back yard and ended its days as a jeep shed. Many of the current residents have stories of their discoveries in the most special shed of all-the old red shed which was full of treasures and seemed like a museum-Millbank cigarette boxes, earthen crocks, nails and screws, and even a gun! Calvert Simson, owning a ship chandlery, purchased everything by the dozen-even if he needed only one. It was torn down just before it fell. 

 

Calvert constructed a sleeping shack that occupies Site lB (Cowrie's).  It was  often used by his caretaker, Walter Starrett.  In the winter when Walter moved to the main house, his sons used it when they came to hunt. Most often it was used by Calvert as an escape for an afternoon nap when there were too many people around the house.

 

As the Simson family grew, Billy Blair built The Blair House which occupied the cur­rent Davidson, Annable and Bernard sites and Bob Simson built The Road House which is  currently occupied by the Carmichael's.

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In 1964, Joe sold the house to the holding company while retaining a life interest. In 1981, he purchased the house in order to keep it in the Simson family.   Joe enjoyed many happy times at Buccaneer, from his first visit in 1900 to his last in June 1983. He passed away on September 30, 1983 and left the cabin to his nephew John.   He left many memories which we treasure today. His tide books were his diaries and  chroni­cled every day he was at Buccaneer from 1952 -1983.

 

In 1984, John and Carol began the restoration which appears to be ongoing. While mouseless, the noisy carpenter ants remind us nightly that the project may never end. The porch, timbers, some siding and foundation have been replaced. The most difficult task was stripping paint from the exterior walls. The paint had been a special brew creat­ed by Joe Dunn, prior to his days as caretaker, and consisted of plenty of linseed oil and very little paint.  The main feature of the restoration was hooking up Calvert's 4 ft. claw foot bath tub which he had specially ordered from Scotland in the 1900's.  In  1995, it experienced its second bath after about 90 years as a storage bin.

 

1985 saw the construction of the sleeping cabin which was designed by Carol and John. It was a 220 square foot challenge, limited in size by the land use contract.

 

It is truly a house of all sorts. The windows were scrounged from Victoria, Sydney and Vancouver; the stained glass from Victoria; the timbers were milled from Thormanby trees; the lath on the interior walls was used because there was no other lumber in the shed on that day; the gutters were milled in Duncan and the double french doors came across the Gulf of Georgia from Nanaimo in our 17 ft. Whaler. As is often the case at Buccaneer, most of the labor was provided by friends and neighbors. Only two of them fell off the roof while we were shingling. Eventually it will be finished and we will graduate to the routine maintenance stage. Buccaneer has been a huge part of the life of six generations of our family that have lived  on the site·.  The changes are slow, the projects are fun and never ending, and the memories are wonderful. The mosquitoes are huge and plentiful, and lilac is expanding, the lilies are returning, the first gap Wildflower Garden will grow and some day some future generation may see our dry cows give milk! It's a place of dreams and treasures and we continually thank Calvert for his foresight 108 years ago and our parents and Uncle Joe for the opportunity to enjoy such a wonderful place.