Working in the trades can provide a life of adventure and excitement along with a variety of personal benefits.
Benefits such as using the latest in technology to solve real life problems, working alongside other skilled and talented individuals, having opportunities to try new things, the ability to travel and work in various parts of the world and being passionately rewarded by the tangible outcome of one’s work.
However, when queried, people may be able to provide the names of a few trades, yet there are many trades that will cause a personal reaction of “I did not know that was a trade.”
Within Canada a unique and “lesser-known” trade exists – that being the piledriver and bridgeworker trade. These tradespeople work in marine civil construction where the focus is on building and maintaining structures in or near water, such as docks, bridges, seawalls, underwater reefs, breakwaters and offshore platforms.
This industry combines civil engineering with maritime expertise and requires specialized equipment like crane barges, underwater drill gear, diesel/hydraulic pile driving hammers and submersible tools to address construction challenges such as tides, wave action and underwater conditions.
People working in the marine civil world of construction are those who have a love of the water and the outdoors. Often their work environment is in remote coastal areas. Building offshore loading berths, bridges, docks, marinas, ferry terminals and other marine structures requires the piledriver/bridgebuilder to be a multi-skilled tradesperson.
Like other apprenticeable trades, the apprentice acquires work-based hours while working in the trade and must successfully complete the in-school technical training as part of their pathway towards journeyman certification.
The training consists of skills and knowledge involving carpentry, steel fabrication, ironworking, welding, rigging and hoisting and operation of small watercraft. Other specific equipment/safety training certificates required are telehandler, elevated work platform, confined space, fall protection, WHIMIS and CSTS at a minimum.
In today’s ever advancing world some will continue to advance their trade skills and certification through adding a mobile crane red-seal trades certification.
The piledriver and bridgeworker trade has a long and respectable history. Local union 2404, to which a large number of workers belong, as recently as 2020, celebrated their 100th anniversary.
In the past, much of the work was completed with the use of wood. Timber piles, wooden trestles, docks, floating platforms and smaller span bridges were all wooden structures.
Today, wooden constructions have largely been replaced with steel and concrete structures that are highly engineered to withstand immense forces.
The present day piledriver must have knowledge of wooden structures yet also be highly skilled in steel fabrication and welding, understand basic metallurgy, concrete, precast, and be well able to set up rigging and hoisting apparatus to safely lift modular structures weighing hundreds of tons.
While much has changed in the marine construction industry over the past 100 years, a part that remains the same is the nature of the work – it is outdoors, in or around water, and can be situated in some of the prettiest untouched areas of the coast.
Having the skills, knowledge and abilities to put into practice such a great skill set while constructing amazing marine structures in some of the most magnificent areas of the world are just some of the benefits of being a piledriver and bridgeworker.
Lindsay Langill is director of people and strategy with Pacific Pile and Marine Ltd. He holds his Red Seal Certificate of Qualification as a welder and industrial mechanic (millwright), along with a Certificate of Qualification as a fourth-class power engineer. He completed his bachelor, and master’s degree at UBC and his doctorate at the University of Calgary. He is an adjunct professor at UBC in the Faculty of Education. Send Industry Perspectives Op-Ed comments and column ideas to editor@journalofcommerce.com.
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