December’s extremely cold temperatures, with the addition of a number of large snowfalls in the Barriere area contributed to the accumulation of a good depth of snow throughout the area. Unfortunately, the weight of that snow resulted in the partial collapse of a roof at the Smile Cultivation Ltd. business in the Louis Creek Industrial Park.
According to Smile (Yifan Zhang), the proprietor of the company, the roof collapsed the second week of January.
“We saw one of the arches starting to fall down, and by the next day there were four arches in total that had collapsed,” told Smile, who says most English speakers have trouble pronouncing his real name so he just calls himself ‘Smile’.
Asked if the weight of the snow was the cause of the collapse, the proprietor said he couldn’t be sure but thought it was.
“I don’t know for sure, but I did everything the engineer told me to do when it was built, and he says it can hold that much snow. But we both have insurance.”
The damaged building is an extremely large greenhouse where cannabis is grown during the summer months. Fortunately, no crops were growing at the time of the collapse and a new crop will not be planted until next spring.
Smile explained that his new facility is now well underway, growing 2000 to 3000 cannabis plants successfully in the building last summer.
“We are still waiting to get a license from Health Canada to process our product into a fine bud, then it will be packed into a jar and shipped to our distributors,” told Smile, “I have tried so hard to get this going, but you know, sometimes that’s just the way it is.”