A man who has dedicated his life to recording and preserving the history of an entire region of Conception Bay North has completed his most ambitious project to date.

Stan Deering has been working on his Shades of the Past complex of buildings in Flatrocks, Carbonear for the last couple of decades.

He’s added a number of traditional-style buildings over the years, all based on his childhood memories and knowledge passed down from area residents, but it’s his latest project that he’s most proud of—a traditional earth house.

Some of the earliest settlers to the Conception Bay North region first built earth, or sod, houses and while Deering says he never saw one built, he based his construction on information he gleaned from older residents over the years.

He made notes when talking to people about the way in which the houses were built, and in recent years he pulled the notes out and started putting them together.

Deering, who is in his early 70s, says it took a lot of hard work cutting sods, lugging and lifting logs and laying the stones.

Despite the time-consuming nature of the project, he managed to get it done in one year.

Deering’s traditional earth house and his collection of local family history and memorabilia can be seen at the Shades of the Past Museum in Flatrocks above Freshwater, Carbonear.