This is "The Bunker"

With over 25,000lbs of gear, The Bunker is Okanagan College's fully functional letterpress print shop.

This is "The Bunker"

With over 25,000lbs of gear, The Bunker is Okanagan College's fully functional letterpress print shop.

This is "The Bunker"

With over 25,000lbs of gear, The Bunker is Okanagan College's fully functional letterpress print shop.

The Print Shop

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The Okanagan College print shop houses an impressive collection of letterpress equipment, amounting to more than 25,000lbs of gear. The shop's first machine, a lovely little Pearl No.3, was donated by Canadian poet Gary Geddes, and was restored by students of the Diploma in Writing & Publishing (along with instructor Jason Dewinetz) during the 2010 academic year.

Soon after restoring the Pearl we relocated to "the bunker," a storage area in the basement of the Kalamalka campus, where an arrangement was made for Jason Dewinetz, Writing & Publishing instructor and proprietor of the Greenboathouse Press, to loan a wide range of letterpress equipment for student use.

What's in the Shop?

While the equipment inventory has changed over the past few years, our current arsenal includes a giant 14.5 x 22" Chandler & Price platen press (nicknamed "Mjölnir"), a 12 x 18" C&P ("Hannibal"), the Pearl No. 3, an antique 36" paper trimmer, and all of the other bits & pieces required in a shop, such as leads, slugs, furniture, reglet, slug-cutters, mitre-cutters, etc., etc.

And then there's the type, and there's plenty of it, mostly collected from print-shops & newspapers long shut-down around the Okanagan, but also including a small gathering of newer types put to use on Kalamalka Press books.