The Invisible Structure

Written By Rachel Rae

Leland Jackman was terrified of heights when he started scaffolding. He did not even know what the job was. Now he builds the structures that let everything else get built. Then he takes them down before anyone notices.

Infrasound Podcast | reVerb Communications

When Leland Jackman got off the plane to his first scaffolding job, he had no idea what scaffolding was. That is how green he was. His general foreman looked at him, looked up and said: "Just look up."

Jackman looked up. He was terrified.

He joined us from ONEX River Inc., a 100% Indigenous-owned construction company based out of Sturgeon County. Robera started the interview with the only question that scaffolding really comes down to: can you be a scaffolder if you are scared of heights?

Yes. In fact, it might make you better. A healthy fear of heights is how you stay safe up there. You have to conquer it. But you never lose the respect for it.

Spiderwebs and Musical Notes

Last year, walking back to the office at the Beatty Lofts, Glenn passed the Coast Plaza Hotel job on 105th Street. Scaffolding was going up. He stopped.

It looked like a spiderweb. It looked like braces on a child's teeth. Workers were moving across it, and you could hear them. It sounded like musical notes on a building.

That is not usually how people describe scaffolding. It is also not usually what scaffolding feels like from the inside. Jackman did not pretend otherwise. It is a lot of work. It is labour-intensive. But with a good crew and the right attitude, the day moves. Jackman staffs his crews the way a hockey coach sets lines. You tinker. You figure out who works well together, who keeps the energy up, who stays productive. Because if there is one thing scaffolders do, it is talk. All day. Nonstop. Other trades look over and beg them to stop.

They do not stop.

Half a Million Pounds of Jealousy

In December 2022, Commonwealth Stadium hosted the first-ever FIS Snowboard Big Air World Cup held inside a stadium. The athletes did switch backside triple cork 1440 Japan grabs. The crowd watched the aerobatics. Jackman watched the scaffolding.

Half a million pounds of it. Thirty to forty thousand pounds of material moved vertically every day during the build. Eighty to a hundred thousand dollars in plywood just to cover the surface. Every person in the chain touching every piece of material on its way up.

His first reaction: jealousy that it was not his project.

That is what Jackman's brain does. You show him a snowboard jump and he sees the tonnage, the cost, the physics. He goes to sleep thinking about right angles. He told us that. A blessing and a curse.

The Math That Keeps People Alive

Scaffolding is not a Red Seal trade in Alberta. Jackman called it a soft trade. Nothing about it is soft.

Every scaffold is an equation. Dead load, live load, weight per jack, weight per leg. Jackman walked us through the math on a 180-foot build and what it comes down to is this: there is a narrow window of allowable weight at every point in the structure, and someone has to calculate that window before a single tube goes up.

And it all starts at the ground. If your base is out by half an inch, the error compounds as the scaffold goes vertical. Two hundred feet later, the pre-engineered pieces will not fit. Jackman put it plainly: basing out is one of the most important things you will ever teach an apprentice. Get that wrong and the whole system fights you on the way up.

Tube and Clamp, Ring Lock and Bamboo

Jackman walked us through the primary scaffolding systems used in Western Canada.

Tube and clamp is his favourite. Lighter, more versatile, able to fit into tight spaces where pre-engineered systems cannot go. The tradeoff is speed and skill. It takes longer and demands a scaffolder who can see the finished structure in their head before the first clamp goes on.

Ring lock is faster. Pre-engineered lengths mean quicker assembly, which makes it the default for building envelopes. But it is heavier and less forgiving when the job site gets complicated.

Then there is bamboo. Used across Southeast Asia for commercial construction, lashed together with bamboo strips dipped in lacquer. Jackman has never used it. He would love to explore whether it could work here. He gave a shoutout to a colleague named Derek at Covert Engineering and suggested they pick his brain on the feasibility.

The consensus in the room: probably not at minus 40.

Four Feet Off the Ground

We asked Jackman about his favourite project. The answer was not what we expected.

It was not high. It was four feet off the ground. A pipe run up north, sitting on piles above muskeg. (He calls it Canadian quicksand. It looks solid underneath and you sink.)

He needed to reach the centre of a pipe between two supports. Nothing could touch the ground. He had to shoot 20 feet out from his support point with only a couple of inches of allowable bounce. The solution was a massive tube-and-clamp girder he engineered himself, counterweighted on the back side to hold the cantilevered front.

A geometrical creation that was four feet off the ground. And one of the most challenging things he has ever built.

He was a newer journeyman at the time. Still seeking validation from the people who taught him. He spitballed the idea off his peers. Their response: there are not too many people who could have done that differently or better. It was the height of his career in a build that had almost no height at all.

The Invisible Defenseman

Robera brought a book: The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt. A recurring idea in the book is that overlooked systems require immense skill and intention. We do not see them because good design is meant to disappear. Our brains are wired for efficiency. We focus on what is new and take for granted what is stable.

Scaffolding fits that pattern, but it also breaks it. Unlike a sewer line or an electrical grid, scaffolding is right there. You can see it. You can hear the scaffolders working on it (they never stop talking, remember). And yet it stays invisible.

Jackman compared it to a hockey defenseman. If Darnell Nurse plays an invisible game, that is a good game. Nobody is talking about him because he did not make a mistake. No highlight reel. No controversy. Just the job done well.

Same with scaffolding. If you do not hear about the scaffolders on a project, they did their job. The structure went up, the other trades did their work safely and the scaffold came down. You cannot drive your kids past it and say "I built that" because it is already gone.

It is one of the oldest construction technologies that civilization has produced. Medieval cathedrals went up on scaffolding. There is one in Germany that has been under construction for 800 years. Scaffolding has been around it for generations. The concept has not changed. The materials and the codes have

Before You Stack That Ladder

The episode ended where it should: with the rest of us.

Robera asked whether there is an entry-level scaffold for people at home. The chandelier that is just out of reach. The picture that goes higher than expected. The moment where you find yourself stacking a stool on a bench and thinking "this is probably fine."

It is not fine.

Jackman's recommendation: a Baker scaffold. Twenty-four inches by five feet. You can go ten feet high. You can rent one. Lock the casters so it does not roll. And it will cost you maybe $500 instead of a hospital trip and two weeks off work.

That might be the most practical thing anyone has ever said on this podcast.

Referenced in this episode:

Infrasound is produced byreVerb Communications. We tell the stories behind the infrastructure that shapes how communities live, move and grow.

Rachel Rae
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