It’s pretty easy for Valjawan (Val) Deer to remember his palmetto thatching licence number.It’s ‘one’.That is because he was the first palmetto thatchist to be licensed in the United States, by the state of Florida Construction Licensing Board.Mr Deer, from Philadelphia, Mississippi, has been a professional palmetto thatchist for over 60 years. He runs ACE Thatch & Bamboo, and was recently hired to thatch an authentic 17th century dwelling outside Carter House in St David’s.The little building with a frame of Virginia Cedar and a palmetto thatched roof is being built to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Plough which bought the first permanent settlers to Bermuda in 1612.“Thatched roofing was in my family,” said Mr Deer. “I am Native American from the Choctaw Nation. I grew up in a little thatched house. Not this type but one with a grass roof. I worked for my grandfather and father who were thatchers. From there I have made thatching a career. It is the only job I have ever had.”Roof thatching is a common practice among Native American nations, particularly the Seminole and Miccosukee of Florida. The Miccosukee traditionally lived in thatched houses called ‘chickees’.“Today almost every family has one for some use whether it is just a shade structure or summer kitchen, or something in the back garden,” said Mr Deer.A thatched structure has some advantages. It is waterproof, and the palmetto thatch absorbs heat, making the house about ten to 15 degrees cooler compared to a more modern roofing system.“This is green roofing at its best,” said Mr Deer. “We are using all renewable resources. We have been building green structures before the word ‘green’ became popular.”Each individual palmetto leaf is hand-selected and each palmetto will yield about ten leaves. The structure outside Carter House required around 750 palm leaves. Each leaf has to be green and a certain width and length. It does not damage the tree and the tree will regrow all its leaves within two years.“The hardest thing about it is the monotony,” he said. “Tying in [architectural structures like] valleys and hips is the most difficult part, but this structure doesn’t have valleys or hips. Valleys are where two roofs join together. The hips would be the corners, if it had four sides.”Thatching is not only a job for Mr Deer, it is his passion and he has been all over the world to learn different types.“The most difficult type of thatch to learn is the African grass thatch which is where the roofs are sewn on,” he said. “They are hand stitched. The second most difficult would be the thatching with reeds, done in Europe.”Mr Deer actually authored the requirements for the inspection of thatched roof and log construction in the southern United States. Those inspection guidelines were adopted by Florida and remain unchanged today. He thought there were probably around 20 to 25 people in the United States who could palmetto thatch, and only five or six who do it commercially.He not only thatches, but also builds the structures, which he said could be rough work.“We often use cypress wood for the structures,” he said. “We have to wade in the swamp, sometimes in waist-deep water, to cut the trees. They are debarked using an old tool known as a ‘draw blade’ or ‘drawn knife’.”Hazards include poisonous snakes, wasps and leeches. He has never been bitten by a snake although he has had near misses. He has, however, felt the joys of leeches in his boots.“I use thigh-high boots when I am out in the water,” he said. “Water always gets into them. At first, the leeches feel like sand an uncomfortable feeling. You remove your boot and you have all these leeches.”He said Bermuda, without these little treasures, is a joy to work in. This was his first trip to Bermuda, but he said it was, by far, one of the finest islands he has ever seen.“It is very clean,” he said.He has thatched structures all over the world, as many expensive resorts like to have thatched cabanas or beach bars for their guests to enjoy. Thatching backyard structures is also becoming popular with many Americans. While in Bermuda, Mr Deer shared his skills and expertise with Bermudian craftsmen so that they could complete work on the St David’s structure.Useful website: www.acethatch.com/about/aceteam.php.