One of the most remote communities in B.C. now has a modern pool that serves as a critical hub for water safety training and seasonal programs for the roughly 2,100 residents.
Completed in 2025, the Bella Coola Centennial Pool is a new stainless-steel facility which replaced an outdated and deteriorated 1967-era facility. Chandos Construction completed the project one month ahead of schedule, overcoming significant logistical hurdles.
Set deep within a coastal fjord and reachable only by long winding roads, ferry connections, or small aircraft, Bella Coola presented construction challenges far beyond typical project conditions. The project required demolition of the aging Centennial Pool, which had deteriorated significantly after a heavy rainfall event several years earlier. Community members, along with CCRD, rallied to secure funding to replace the essential facility.
“The old pool was in very poor condition,” said Graham Pirie, senior superintendent at Chandos Construction. “The community and the regional district came together and raised the money to replace it.”
To overcome the region’s limited supply chains and long transportation timelines, Chandos worked with Carscadden Architecture to shift from traditional cast-in-place concrete construction to a prefabricated stainless-steel pool system manufactured by Berndorf Baderbau in Czechia. This approach allowed the basin to be fabricated overseas while site preparation was underway in Bella Coola, significantly reducing schedule and logistical risks.
“Because of the remoteness, getting materials on site is extremely challenging,” said Dominic Ries, director of technical solutions, Pre-Construction at Chandos. “While we were digging the foundations, the pool was being manufactured in Europe and shipped across the Atlantic. It saved a considerable amount of time.”
Beyond its logistical benefits, the stainless-steel system was selected for its performance in Bella Coola’s unique environmental conditions. Located within a 200-year floodplain, the region experiences periodic groundwater surges that create challenges for traditional concrete construction.
“Pools are designed to hold water, but here, we also had to manage water pushing in from the backside,” said Ries. “Stainless steel eliminated permeability concerns and offered far better long-term resilience against groundwater saturation and against traditional damp-proofing on concrete swimming pool tanks.”
The durability of the stainless-steel material and the ease of basin maintenance were also important requirements for the community. The sometimes unpredictable short schedule of the spring start-up and fall shutdown for the community was also a major consideration for the stainless-steel swimming pool selection.
This alternative construction method delivered significant sustainability improvements. Compared with a conventional concrete pool, the installation was measured in weeks rather than the months required with a conventional concrete swimming pool pour schedule. The added benefit is that the stainless-steel basin achieved a 68 per cent reduction in embodied CO₂e and prevented the consumption of more than 20,000 litres of diesel that would otherwise have been required for winter heating and hoarding.
With mobilization windows of 14 to 21 days required for any equipment or materials, extensive planning and collaboration were essential. Flat packing the stainless-steel pool into sea containers and trucking it along the steep and winding road into the Bella Coola Valley required careful orchestration between Chandos, trade partners, and logistics teams.
“We knew logistics were going to be a challenge,” said Pirie. “We had to look weeks ahead for every piece of equipment and every delivery to keep production going.”
