The Family Y has a giant wooden airplane parked in its family recreation room.
The plane is a playhouse outfitted with a pair of slides and little hidy-holes for kids to scamper around in. It is made mostly of wood, and was donated by a consortium of wood-industry corporate sponsors.
The idea for the playhouse came from Canfor, who called on the other forest companies of the province to join them in the initiative. Many did so. Also called in to help were some of the most creative architects in the province, who drew up plans for a series of wild and eye-popping playhouses. The blueprints were handed over to construction professionals (the plane was both designed and built by students at BCIT). One of them was bought by the BID Group of Companies during an auction at the Pacific National Exhibition and presented as a gift on Thursday to the local Family Y.
"The BCIT playhouse is modeled on the Mosquito Bomber," said Canfor's president and CEO Don Kayne. "Canfor got its start in the 1930s and 1940s as a supplier of plywood for the production of Mosquito Bomber airplanes used in the Allied war effort. The Mosquito Bomber was known as the 'wooden wonder' after its primarily wooden construction."
Ainsworth, Conifex, Interfor, Western Forest Products and West Fraser put aside any marketplace competition differences and worked on these "clever, whimsical structures made of wood," said Kayne.
