Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Mar 12/99) - Larry Shattler's clients are lucky he uses plastic.

More than once, the professional painter and 18-year Inuvik resident has gone in to paint a client's home and found someone asleep in the middle of the room.

"If somebody's asleep on the couch, in order to paint the place you've got to throw the plastic over them," says the owner of Shattler Painting Inc.

"The best thing about this job is just the difference in it. Every day you're not going to go to the same place and doing the same thing."

He laughs after saying that his favourite part of the job, as a contractor, is at the end when he gets the money. He does not really have a least favourite part.

As well as painting, Shattler also contracts as a sand blaster.

But his enthusiasm is saved for his weekends when he gets a chance to go out to his cabin.

"It sounds extravagant but we're putting a spiral staircase into it. It's a two-storey thing I got down there," he says of an 990 square metre cabin that started out as an old trailer and is almost finished being converted by Shattler and friends into a sprawling place.

The road to the cabin ends about 25 kilometres from it, so the only way Shattler can get out there with heavy loads, such as the welding equipment he is using to build a spiral staircase, is by a Bombardier tracking machine he owns with Mike Baxter.

Originally the machine cost $83,000 but because Shattler bought it second-hand, it cost less.

"We rent it out for jobs," he says.

He enjoys the cabin, not only because he is out on the land, giving him easy hunting access, but he also gets to practise another hobby -- bird watching.

He also gets to meet people he's never met before as they pass each other in their travels on the Mackenzie.