Latest / Salish Wolf / #68 Stuart Livings on Project Quiver

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#68 Stuart Livings on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:06
  Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
• 0:09
  the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
• 0:12
  world's finest traditional bow carvers.
• 0:14
  I'm Todd, the father. Ella is my daughter.
• 0:17
  Together we're on a mission to create a stunning coffee table
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  book that profiles more than a dozen master bow years and their
• 0:23
  unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
• 0:26
  the Bow Years workshop. Carve a bow under his guidance,
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  photograph his woodcraft in detail and share his story here
• 0:32
  on the Salish Wolf Podcast. The book is called Quiver the
• 0:36
  Art of Life. Through Bow Craft and this
• 0:38
  journey, our living story is Project Quiver.
• 0:48
  Stuart, it's nice to meet you. Yeah, it's nice to meet you too,
• 0:50
  mate. Thanks for coming on the show.
• 0:53
  Yeah, thanks for inviting me on here.
• 0:54
  It's great. Of course, Yeah.
• 0:55
  You reached out to me several months ago.
• 0:58
  Yeah, and you're somewhere in Canada, right?
• 1:03
  Yeah, I'm in Northern California right now, but I I'm working in
• 1:07
  Canada, Yeah, working on various projects up in Canada and then
• 1:13
  coming back and back and forth between here and the USA.
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  And then you're from the UK. I'm from the UK originally,
• 1:19
  yeah. Exactly.
• 1:21
  Yeah. What are the?
• 1:22
  What are the projects you're working on?
• 1:25
  I'm working on like a First Nations project up with the
• 1:28
  Chilcotin people. Yeah, They're working on ways
• 1:33
  that they can give back their or their elders can pass on their
• 1:38
  traditions to the, to the younger generation in order to
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  keep hold of their rights to their land.
• 1:45
  It's quite an interesting. The Chilcotin tribe has done a
• 1:48
  lot to, you know, protect itself over the decades and centuries,
• 1:53
  basically. So we've been building a like a
• 1:58
  large workshop where the elders are going to be processing
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  animal hides and teaching that to the younger generation.
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  When you say they're doing it to protect their their claim to the
• 2:10
  land, what does that mean? Well, they, they need a right to
• 2:15
  be there, right? They need, they need a reason to
• 2:17
  be there. And they are, yeah.
• 2:21
  It's not just enough that they live there.
• 2:24
  Not really, no. No, you need to.
• 2:26
  Canada, I guess. Well, you need to be, yeah,
• 2:30
  using the land and, you know, have a reason to be there, as in
• 2:34
  farming or whether it's tanning, animal hides or whatever it is,
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  you know, they want to keep their traditional traditions
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  alive for all of the reasons you'd want to do that, you know.
• 2:45
  OK. But it's got an interesting
• 2:47
  project, something I'm, yeah, pretty keen about.
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  And I don't just I've done, I've done about a month there so far
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  and I'm going like. A large sort of thing that
• 2:57
  you're building. It's a large a large workshop a.
• 3:01
  Large workshop, yeah. Yeah, just a big open space.
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  Obviously they get super cold temperatures there, so they can
• 3:07
  work, you know, in the colder months.
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  And yeah, it's a fully insulated big open plan workshop.
• 3:14
  And is that all timber sort of construction?
• 3:19
  It's all timber frame, yeah, just stick built.
• 3:21
  So I do, well, you've probably seen from my Instagram page that
• 3:26
  I do a lot of timber framing and, you know, traditional
• 3:29
  joinery. This is more like a stick frame
• 3:32
  build. So everything that's going to go
• 3:36
  on inside it will be kind of like primitive, you know, it
• 3:38
  will be brain tanning hides, Buffalo hides, wolf hides,
• 3:42
  anything. But the actual construction of
• 3:48
  the workshop is is more traditional, as in stick frame,
• 3:51
  timber frame. OK, what is there a difference
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  between stick frame and timber frame?
• 3:56
  Yeah, stick frame is just like your four by two, six by two,
• 4:00
  you know, nailed together. Whereas like for me, timber
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  frame or post and beam that you probably call it in North
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  America is more like mortise and Tenon joints held together with
• 4:09
  like wooden pegs. OK, Yeah.
• 4:12
  So this is all right. So this you're using nails and
• 4:15
  screws and standard. Yeah, totally.
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  The actual build itself is more yeah, traditional.
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  Or would you call it traditional?
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  No, you'd call it contemporary. Yeah, right.
• 4:27
  Yeah. There's probably a crossover, I
• 4:29
  don't know, but yeah, yeah. And how are you getting
• 4:33
  contracts in Canada? What's your connection there?
• 4:37
  So I met the guy that's running the job through the Workaway
• 4:41
  app. So I was actually getting my
• 4:44
  truck repaired in the middle of nowhere and I had no, I live in
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  my truck, I've got the camera on the back of my truck.
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  So I was kind of just on the road for a week or 10 days
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  whilst my truck was getting repaired.
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  So I was looking for opportunities and I thought, you
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  know what, I'll just give the work away thing a try and spoke
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  to the guy. And then the job was much more
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  sort of complex and what I first thought, you know, and I was
• 5:11
  like, look, well, I've got a lot of experience in carpentry.
• 5:13
  I could come up and give you a hand.
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  And now it's actually turned into like a paid position rather
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  than like a voluntary thing. So that was kind of how that
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  ended up. But other than that, I'm an
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  entrepreneur and I do my own thing, you know, work for
• 5:24
  myself. So yeah, so I make my own work.
• 5:29
  Yeah. What is your own thing?
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  I know it's all with wood, right?
• 5:33
  No, no, no. It's, it's partly wood, partly
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  ski wear. So I'm in the ski industry
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  working with a company called Snow Shepherd.
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  I'm pioneering their brand out here with them, alongside them.
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  But I'm kind of like the Rep on the ground doing it.
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  And we're in the process of setting up the company over over
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  here. And then the other side of what
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  I do is is woodworking, obviously, which you see on
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  Instagram, which is, yeah, exploring sort of traditional
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  ways of working, whether it's bow making, whether it's timber
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  framing, really keen on making a Birch bark canoe.
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  That's one thing that I'm really eager about that, you know, it's
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  just a, a lengthy, costly thing that's going to, you know,
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  consume two or three months of my life.
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  So eventually I'll get round to that.
• 6:18
  Yeah. Yeah.
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  But yeah, a bit of a bit of carpentry in any way I can, you
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  know, always like keep my toe in basically.
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  I, I never want to, I love business and I love, you know,
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  making networking and travelling and doing business.
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  Whether it's ski wear or seaweed farming, which I was doing
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  before in Scotland, I always keep my toe in with the woodwork
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  in because it keeps me grounded. And you probably understand that
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  from like, you know, making bows and stuff.
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  It just keeps you connected. And I just want to have a, an
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  antique draw knife in my hand and I want to have a, a bit of
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  wood, you know, and I want to be shaving it up and shaping it up.
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  And that keeps me alive, I find, you know.
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  Yeah, yeah. Before we get into the wood too
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  much, how did you get involved with Snow Shepherd?
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  My buddy, actually, his father set up the company and then he's
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  him and his father are now running it.
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  He sort of runs it himself more than his father does now.
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  So we were friends back when we were kids.
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  And then we've obviously gone in our different directions in life
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  and then we've come sort of back together.
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  So yeah, I was coming out to Canada, he was looking to expand
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  into North America. And I just said, look, I'm going
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  out there. Why don't we, you know, see how
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  it goes? And now we've got, you know,
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  some good, yeah, some good relationships going on with
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  businesses in Canada and, and sales are growing.
• 7:41
  Yeah, for sure. Nice.
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  So that's, yeah, it's, it's been a good, good thing so far.
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  Is there an intention of opening up a store or multiple stores or
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  get in with existing retailers? Just just B to B, sort of, yeah.
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  In existing retailers would certainly in the future, yeah,
• 7:56
  might be interested in doing something like that.
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  Why not? You know, it depends, doesn't
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  it? You know, you've got to have the
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  volume, you've got big volume if you're going to open a store.
• 8:04
  Yeah. How's how's the brand doing in
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  the UK? Is it a well known brand?
• 8:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, really well known in the UK.
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  So the one competitions for or rewards for like the, you know,
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  most innovative ski brand in the UK and a few others, but mainly
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  in the French Alps is where, where Snow Shepherd is, is, is
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  mostly well known just because of the, you know, vastness of
• 8:29
  the ski in there. You know, there's just many,
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  many patrols And we, so we stock lots of different ski patrols
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  and professionals in France and a few other neighboring
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  countries to France as well. Nice.
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  And then are you going to be doing that on the slopes in the
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  States and Canada? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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  Yeah, yeah. I'll be going back.
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  I'm doing a a wilderness first responder course this January
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  down here and then I'm going up, back up to, to Canada mid
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  January to, to hit up the rest of the season there.
• 9:02
  All right, the whole season, yeah, try and draw up some
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  business and we do lots of different shows, trade shows and
• 9:07
  stuff all across the Alberta and BC, OK, yeah.
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  Now did you say you live in your van or part time?
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  I live in it, yeah, most of the time, like in the, in the warmer
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  months, in the I'm yet, well, I have had it plugged in in the
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  winter time, but obviously in BC near Banff and those sorts of
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  areas. I was in Golden mostly.
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  You know, it gets pretty, you know -20 and beyond Celsius.
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  So, you know, it's not exactly pleasant and all your water's
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  frozen and everything. It's just a nightmare.
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  So I've just fitted out a new, I've just put in new gas heater
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  just so it's reliant on propane only.
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  So yeah. And I'm insulating all the
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  windows from the inside now as well.
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  So it's not just like, you know, an igloo.
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  Did you build the the entire living part of it?
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  Not at all no I have done that in the past.
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  I've renovated. I've made renovated about 7 or 8
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  vehicles from heads from from big start to end in UK.
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  But here I just bought an old Bigfoot truck camper that sits
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  on the back of you 4 before. Yeah, I've done some, yeah, I've
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  done quite a lot of modifications to it and probably
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  about 3 weeks work on it, you know, putting solar, new battery
• 10:26
  system, heater and then various other shelving and stuff like
• 10:30
  that. Yeah, but it's a show.
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  It's a it was a finished thing when I bought it.
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  Yeah, yeah. How long you been doing that,
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  living on the road? Living on the road, So what?
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  What? 2025, 2008, Nearly seven years,
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  I think. That you don't know what year it
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  is, Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:50
  Well, I'm just trying to think. Yeah, 2000 beginning.
• 10:53
  No, 2018, I went to New Zealand. I had a work, a carpentry
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  workshop in the UK that I closed down just because it was
• 11:02
  stressing me out a lot. And that's where the Bowmay can
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  come in as well. Was it kind of like cut the neck
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  of what I was doing? Because I was doing everything
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  with plywood, MDF and you know, doing a little bit of real wood
• 11:15
  stuff, but mainly just sort of mass produced stuff.
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  And I, I made a bow. A buddy of mine was making bows
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  and he, he showed me the way, you know, he's like had this
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  limb of a tree. And I was like, oh God, you know
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  what, you just draw a knife in the bark off.
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  And I was like, God, this is beautiful.
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  You know, such a therapeutic process rather than getting a,
• 11:36
  something off the shelf and, you know, running it through the
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  table. So.
• 11:39
  Yeah. Yeah, so and I was like, it just
• 11:42
  made, it was a a wake up call, you know.
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  So I made the bow and it worked. The first one worked.
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  It was like a false sense of security because as you know,
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  bow making's like unforgiving. So I made the first one was
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  amazing. I've got it with me now.
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  It's like my best one. All the ones after that have
• 11:59
  been. So now it's made out of Elm.
• 12:01
  OK. Yeah, but all the bows after
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  that have been, you know, really tricky.
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  Other than one, I made a really nice one out of bamboo, but with
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  some help and guidance on that one.
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  Bamboo only or a laminate with bamboo and some.
• 12:14
  Laminate bamboo, Yeah. So it's not really my, my total
• 12:19
  vibe, you know, lamination and bringing in chemicals and stuff.
• 12:22
  But it was an opportunity in New Zealand.
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  So I'll get, Yeah. Back to what I was saying on
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  that. In New Zealand, I met a guy who
• 12:29
  was making like replica English longbows and Genghis kombos.
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  I mean, the guy was incredible. You know, he just, he was just.
• 12:36
  Not sure who it is. Yeah, his name was, oh God,
• 12:41
  Charlie Officer, his name was, and he's, I've got some
• 12:45
  photographs. I don't know if you do overlays
• 12:47
  on your podcasts and stuff. I've got some photographs.
• 12:50
  I haven't yet of that. Of that time, OK, but he was an
• 12:54
  older guy doesn't do Instagram like that.
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  He was probably like maybe mid 70s, maybe early 80s, I don't
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  know. But I got past his, his details,
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  his contact details via, I don't know, four or five different
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  people eventually on earth. This guy living in the middle of
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  nowhere in, in rural, rural Canterbury in New Zealand.
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  And yeah, he just showed me many, many different things that
• 13:22
  blew my mind, you know, bamboo bows, Genghis, Kambos, and yeah,
• 13:27
  English long bows. He had everything had it.
• 13:29
  He'd sort of had a go at every sort of bow there was, but he
• 13:34
  was just a quiet dude. And I just went and knocked on
• 13:35
  the door. I got his, his landline
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  initially rang up and his wife was like, oh, well, you know,
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  Charlie's here. If you want to come and see him,
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  just come and knock on the door. And I was like, right, OK, So I
• 13:46
  went and knocked on the door. And then she goes, she was like
• 13:49
  a bit confused as English man stood there.
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  And I was like, oh, I'm here to see Charlie about the bows.
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  And I'd driven hundreds of miles for this.
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  I just drove, yeah, 2300 miles out of my way to go and see this
• 14:02
  guy. And I was like, this guy's the
• 14:03
  guy I need to see anyway, I'm in the in the lounge and it with
• 14:06
  tea and biscuits come out and we sat around chatting and, you
• 14:09
  know, and he's like, well, you better.
• 14:10
  Do you want to come and see the bows?
• 14:11
  I was like, yeah, for sure, man. I didn't know what I was going
• 14:14
  to say. And anyway, this looks like this
• 14:16
  museum. You know how it is when someone
• 14:17
  gets into bows, they're like, you know, they've been doing it
• 14:20
  decades. It just it's like going into a
• 14:22
  different world. You're like, well, I'm going
• 14:24
  back in time here, you know, And then we're out shooting in the
• 14:27
  garden. And I just said to him, I was
• 14:28
  like, look, I don't want to use lots of your time up and, you
• 14:31
  know, but would you, would you make a bow of me?
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  You know what I mean? Would you show me how to make
• 14:36
  one of those bamboo bows? So yeah, we ended up making this
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  bamboo bow over the course about 3 or 4 days.
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  And yeah, he really helped me and guided me through it and it
• 14:45
  was fantastic. Yeah, that's amazing.
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  It. Was it was, yeah.
• 14:50
  It was a really, really beautiful thing.
• 14:53
  And he it it, he loved it as well.
• 14:55
  You know, it was great for him too.
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  Like he was kind of sitting there at loose end, I think a
• 14:59
  little bit, you know, kind of like he hadn't made a bow for a
• 15:03
  few years and he kind of lost his way with it, I think a
• 15:06
  little bit, you know, that's what I said anyway.
• 15:08
  He kind of like everything was a bit dusty and hadn't been
• 15:10
  touched for a while. And it was kind of like a, a
• 15:12
  lift for him to get it all out and start, you know, and I took
• 15:15
  loads of notes and, you know, it's quite a bond by the end of
• 15:18
  it, you know, I was like, really, how long?
• 15:20
  Ago was this. That was must have been 2019.
• 15:25
  OK, so that's back to what your question was about the how long
• 15:28
  have I been on the road? So I left the UK, landed in New
• 15:32
  Zealand, got a working holiday visa in New Zealand and bought a
• 15:35
  truck the next day that I got there and then renovated it a
• 15:38
  little bit and then was on the road for a year in New Zealand.
• 15:44
  Basically with this new passion for bow making.
• 15:47
  And obviously the bow hunting out there is is super accessible
• 15:52
  because of their that, you know, the ecosystem there is under
• 15:56
  threat from European and European invasive mammals.
• 16:00
  Basically, you know, it's only birds that populate, populate
• 16:03
  New Zealand's indigenous birds. So there's quite a relaxation
• 16:07
  around hunting. You know, it's kind of like, you
• 16:10
  know, necessity to keep the levels down.
• 16:13
  So yeah, I kind of like thought I should have brought my bow
• 16:16
  when I when I got out there, I was like, why didn't I bring my
• 16:17
  bow? I left my elbow at home and I
• 16:20
  was like, right, I've got to make a make one out here.
• 16:24
  So then I made the bow in the end.
• 16:26
  Well, I made one before the bamboo one.
• 16:28
  And then I was out stalking animals and in the new in the
• 16:31
  New Zealand wilderness, which was awesome.
• 16:33
  Yeah. Which is a really.
• 16:35
  Yeah, great experience for me. You know, it was kind of like
• 16:38
  accessing some sort of primitive part of my brain that I didn't
• 16:42
  know existed, you know, I was very zoned in, you know, and
• 16:45
  not, not concerned about anything else other than the
• 16:48
  sound of the sound my feet were making on the forest floor, that
• 16:51
  type of thing. Which really for me, it was
• 16:54
  like, you know, the relief, the first relief I'd had from like
• 16:57
  stress, you know, for, I don't know, quite a few years.
• 17:02
  Is that your first time? Hunting, yeah.
• 17:04
  Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I'm trying to think.
• 17:06
  I've always, always been interested in sort of stalking
• 17:11
  animals and being out in the in, in nature, in the forest and
• 17:14
  stuff and looking for animals, particularly mammals.
• 17:17
  I'm not, not that interested in birds for some reason, but more
• 17:22
  just mammals. I'm just kind of obsessed by
• 17:24
  mammals and tracking and stuff. But I've only ever done it at
• 17:28
  like a very low level thing. Like in the UK there's not
• 17:32
  really any access to that sort of stuff.
• 17:36
  You know, it's, it's very fractured the, the, the
• 17:40
  landscape, the, the countryside in the UK, you know, sort of
• 17:43
  pockets of woodland and stuff. Not like the US where you can go
• 17:45
  out or Canada where you can go out and, you know, get lost in
• 17:49
  the Bush, you know, or New Zealand.
• 17:52
  So yeah, yeah, yeah. First time properly hunting.
• 17:56
  Yeah. Were you hunting?
• 17:57
  Alone I. Haunted on my own and with
• 18:00
  another guy. It's important to note as well,
• 18:03
  I never actually took an animal. I had plenty of opportunities,
• 18:07
  but I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it.
• 18:11
  And it was, it was a respond that that come down to
• 18:13
  responsibility aspects of it. And the fact I had nowhere to
• 18:16
  put any, any meat afterwards, You know, I was like, well, if I
• 18:19
  kill this thing, I have to smoke it all and to do it justice, I
• 18:23
  just couldn't do it justice. But I can certainly send you
• 18:26
  some photographs of, of me close up to animals because you know,
• 18:30
  yourself. It's like it takes ages to be
• 18:33
  able to get up near animals, you know, And I'm, I've lost that
• 18:37
  sort of, I spent months doing it in New Zealand.
• 18:39
  I got better and better and better.
• 18:40
  And now I try and get near a deer in the woods or something.
• 18:43
  It's very difficult, you know, but in New Zealand, I, I don't
• 18:49
  know, felt like I had got in the zone with that, you know, but I
• 18:52
  just couldn't put a handmade arrow into it.
• 18:56
  It just didn't sit right with me at the time.
• 18:58
  And I had the option. I had the thing pulled at full
• 19:00
  draw and I just couldn't do it, you know, I was like, there's no
• 19:03
  way I can go through with this. But yeah, I felt like I got the
• 19:06
  experience, you know, I definitely, you know, yeah.
• 19:11
  You got the therapy out of it. What kind of bow was that that
• 19:13
  you made? That wasn't AU, that was made
• 19:16
  out of Irish U. OK, so presumably brought from
• 19:21
  Irish settlers to New Zealand, but it was grown in New Zealand.
• 19:27
  I got that off of another bow bow maker called Glenn Thurston,
• 19:31
  I think his name was. He makes like really nice
• 19:32
  laminated recurve bows. So he gave me had a bunch of
• 19:36
  staves sat there and and he gave me one just as a gift and I made
• 19:42
  a bow out of that and then used that to to go out in the in the
• 19:48
  Bush in New Zealand. And also the bamboo bow later on
• 19:51
  I took that out because it was more powerful and more reliable
• 19:54
  was. That a English Longbow for the
• 19:55
  U-1 or a flat bow? It was kind of a mix between the
• 19:59
  two somehow. It was a really crude thing it
• 20:03
  it, I was always super happy with it though.
• 20:05
  It was really cool thing, but it was kind of like in between a
• 20:08
  flat bow and a Longbow. If you I just sort of hacked
• 20:11
  away at it and just made something around the knots.
• 20:13
  It was kind of like a, you know? It was a a feature bit of wood,
• 20:18
  you know, it wasn't just a nice straight grains, you know, sort
• 20:22
  of Yeah. What you'd expect the English
• 20:25
  Longbow makers would have used centuries ago.
• 20:27
  It was just a gnarly Yeah. Stick have have you?
• 20:31
  Continued with bow making since those few bows.
• 20:36
  No, I haven't done well. I've actually started doing a
• 20:39
  flat bow here. I've got my original elbow that
• 20:43
  I, the first one I made with me too, but I wanted to get into
• 20:47
  flat bow making just getting aboard from the timber merchants
• 20:51
  and stuff, just because, just out of convenience.
• 20:53
  And I was quite interested, you know, it was quite fun actually,
• 20:56
  just looking around the timber merchants, just trying to find a
• 21:00
  straight and I was like, this is great actually.
• 21:01
  You know, it's kiln dried, it's beautiful.
• 21:04
  It's ready to rumble. There's no messing around.
• 21:07
  What is it? I've got Hickory.
• 21:10
  Yeah, but I've got 70% of the way through.
• 21:13
  But the I'm trying to floor tiller it and then I've got like
• 21:17
  a tillering stick I've made. I'm pulling it down on that and
• 21:19
  it's just I'm not, I'm good at shaping the bow and pulling the
• 21:24
  string lines and make it during that bit.
• 21:25
  But the tillering side, I'm a beginner, like total beginner.
• 21:29
  I find it. That's the art of bow.
• 21:32
  Making, I mean, the tiller is so challenging.
• 21:34
  It's yeah, other than the tiller, it's it's kind of like
• 21:37
  furniture making or. But as soon as you got to teach
• 21:41
  that wood to bend and push it to its limits without breaking it,
• 21:46
  yeah, that's a that's a whole different thing.
• 21:48
  Oh, for. Sure.
• 21:49
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you have, yeah, you have
• 21:53
  loads of experience working with wood, Yeah.
• 21:55
  How does bow making compare or contrast with other type of
• 22:01
  woodwork that you do? And you can talk about it from
• 22:06
  different contexts. Like I know there's for a lot of
• 22:09
  Bowyers, there's the therapeutic context, there's an artistic
• 22:12
  context, there's a functional context.
• 22:14
  So whatever, whatever you want to go.
• 22:17
  Yeah, well, but, but I don't know, it's a good question.
• 22:19
  It's it's vast, isn't it? I know bow making is like a
• 22:21
  gateway to gateway to many, you know, different things, you
• 22:25
  know, like it just gives me like a great connection to like the
• 22:28
  land going out and getting a stave, that type of thing.
• 22:32
  But it's like the investment of time versus what you get back in
• 22:35
  like results. Like, I don't know, it's like
• 22:41
  comparing it to furniture making.
• 22:43
  It's just, it's just unforgiving, isn't it?
• 22:44
  Like you just, you know, you get punished for any small mistake
• 22:48
  and that's that. You know, I think that's a
• 22:49
  really great thing for like your own discipline and, you know,
• 22:52
  learning patience and stuff like that.
• 22:54
  And this is what, you know, what human beings have lost a lot, a
• 22:58
  lot, a lot of the way, you know, is, is patience and willing to
• 23:01
  persevere with something over and over again.
• 23:03
  I feel like furniture making's done that to me as well, but bow
• 23:07
  making's like a step further. It's like, wow, you know, what
• 23:11
  am I? What am I doing to myself here?
• 23:12
  You know, I've spent, I've been on this for two days.
• 23:14
  It's just a stick. You know, other people are
• 23:16
  looking at you thinking, you know, you're obsessed by.
• 23:18
  It's all you can think about. It is an.
• 23:20
  Obsession. Yeah, it is.
• 23:21
  Yeah. It's everybody's the same who
• 23:23
  gets into Bowmake and seems to be exactly the same, like if you
• 23:26
  get into. Everyone becomes an obsession.
• 23:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I think for me, yeah, therapy
• 23:32
  too, yeah. But for me, I think the whole
• 23:35
  thing like I'm not really into archery, right?
• 23:38
  I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm into shooting at a target, but I, I
• 23:40
  might, I might throw 1020 arrows and I'm like, oh, I'm done with
• 23:43
  it. I'm more about like the, but
• 23:46
  then, then again, if you're going to hunt, then you need to
• 23:48
  hone your skill for sure. But like without the hunting,
• 23:53
  you know, I'm kind of like, what's the point in what I'm
• 23:55
  doing here? You know, if, if I'm going to
• 23:56
  get meat on the table or something, then it's, it seems,
• 23:59
  you know, a worthwhile pursuit. So at the moment I'm kind of not
• 24:01
  doing it out of is there any reason for me to be doing this,
• 24:05
  you know? But then it's like a martial
• 24:08
  art, isn't it? It's kind of like, it's like, I
• 24:10
  mean, it was known as a martial art, wasn't it?
• 24:12
  Yeah, it is a martial. Art Yeah, it is a martial.
• 24:14
  Art yeah. And just like a meditation and
• 24:17
  things. So like when I've got this, I
• 24:18
  think it just comes down to space for me.
• 24:21
  And like, you know, I can't just be, you know, when I'm living in
• 24:23
  the truck, I can't just be like getting out some car park and
• 24:25
  setting up the targets, you know, and just, you know, I need
• 24:28
  a bit of land again. And you know, eventually I will
• 24:32
  get, I will make more bows once I've got a workshop back and all
• 24:36
  that stuff and a dedicated space to it.
• 24:39
  The one thing I always, my workshop always was overcome by
• 24:42
  other projects. And I'm kind of like, I guess
• 24:44
  ADHD or some, you know, just absolute like someone lit a
• 24:48
  grenade and just Chuck it in there, you know, just like 1
• 24:51
  project turns into like, you know, 5.
• 24:56
  And it's just having a dedicated space to make bows, you know,
• 25:00
  like this is where I'm, you know, shaving it up.
• 25:02
  This is where I'm tailoring it, you know, and this is where I'm,
• 25:05
  you know, trying it out for the first time or something.
• 25:07
  I just need those sort of, you know, steps in place with a
• 25:11
  clean slate and then enough space to do it.
• 25:14
  So do you have? Like a mobile workshop in your
• 25:16
  truck? Or is this something that you
• 25:18
  when you make stuff, you're set up somewhere?
• 25:20
  Yeah, well, I'm at the. I've had multiple workshops in
• 25:23
  my life and I've also borrowed other people's workshops or
• 25:28
  people I've worked. I was working in Golden for a
• 25:30
  little while, used, they had a big workshop there and then
• 25:34
  various other workshops people I've worked alongside.
• 25:36
  But now I'm just mobile, got the tools in the truck and yeah, if
• 25:43
  there's space to do it, there's space to do it.
• 25:44
  If not, there's always space. You'll always find somewhere to
• 25:48
  get something done, you know, even if it means getting wet,
• 25:51
  you know, I don't care. Like, just like, whatever.
• 25:54
  Yeah, just do it. Yeah.
• 25:56
  So. So your moniker on Instagram is
• 25:58
  Spoon Man? Where does that come from?
• 26:02
  My, yeah, well, I used to make used to make a lot of spoons.
• 26:07
  It was kind of like, I'd say guess that.
• 26:10
  Yeah. Well, there's always that.
• 26:11
  That's like the gateway drug, isn't it?
• 26:13
  To like, you know, spoon, everyone makes it.
• 26:14
  They make a spoon 1st and they eventually learn about the world
• 26:18
  of green woodworking. OK, so I was not aware.
• 26:22
  Of that but oh. Right.
• 26:23
  Well, in the UK it's kind of like, yeah, like spoon, spoon
• 26:26
  carving. Like people start making a spoon
• 26:28
  and then like, I think I made a spoon first, then I'd made a
• 26:30
  bow, you know, OK, the spoon sort of like, anyway, I used to
• 26:34
  make a lot of spoons just As for like a the therapy of it, you
• 26:37
  know, it used to help me just relax basically.
• 26:43
  And so my girlfriend is from the US and she came to the Scotland
• 26:50
  to visit me and we did some videos of a cabin that I built.
• 26:56
  She come and did an interview with me.
• 26:57
  And we just, you know, we're just playing with social media.
• 26:59
  Like, you know, how can we, you know, make this interesting for
• 27:02
  people and make it, you know, and then her audience, which is
• 27:06
  a lot bigger than mine, name me, nickname me Spoon man, because I
• 27:11
  made a spoon with her on video. So yeah.
• 27:15
  So it's kind of like, yeah, yeah.
• 27:17
  A bit tongue in cheek, you know, You know, sounds a bit, you
• 27:20
  know, bit naughty or in a way, I guess so I just.
• 27:25
  Interviewed and about to release an interview with Blaine from
• 27:28
  Haidegua in in Western Canada and he went from making bows and
• 27:32
  arrows to now making spoons, right?
• 27:35
  OK. He went the other direction.
• 27:37
  OK, Yeah, yeah, I. Mean, I can understand it either
• 27:41
  way really. I mean, spoons are just really
• 27:43
  nice. Bow making's just such a
• 27:45
  pursuit, isn't it? It's such an involved thing and
• 27:49
  making a spoon is you can do it sat there on the sofa, you know,
• 27:54
  and, and just sweep up and you could be watching the
• 27:55
  television. Do you know what I mean?
• 27:56
  Or whatever you're doing and just.
• 27:59
  He said. He said he was looking for
• 28:00
  something he could do with his family because he spent so much
• 28:02
  time in his workshop making bows and arrows solo.
• 28:05
  And so with young kids, he said making spoons was a nice
• 28:09
  transition. Now he can sit down with his
• 28:10
  kids and he can, yeah, pull out a spoon and a knife and whittle
• 28:14
  away that. Makes perfect sense, yeah.
• 28:17
  And I find yeah, like the whole workshop thing, you know, is, is
• 28:21
  extremely isolating thing sometimes, especially if you're
• 28:23
  running a furniture making business obvious up there with
• 28:27
  one of the most, you know, my mental health has been terrible.
• 28:30
  You know, times when I've yeah, I've Christ, yeah, yeah, really
• 28:33
  bad, but great as well. I've always, I've always had a
• 28:36
  love hate relationship with, with furniture making and, and
• 28:40
  the business aspects, you know, the customers and the, you know,
• 28:43
  all the issues that come with it and the obsession and the OCD
• 28:46
  and you know, the working with timber crates.
• 28:50
  You know what I mean? Because it's such a you have to
• 28:52
  be dialled with it or it it will, it will, it'll expand, it
• 28:55
  will crack, it will twist, it will do something, you know, So
• 28:59
  what have. You found in your own
• 29:00
  experiences the unhealthy aspect of it.
• 29:03
  Well, like you just said, the isolation, you know, like a guy
• 29:05
  was talking about, you know, his separation from his family,
• 29:08
  which was, you know, a reason for, you know, slowing down with
• 29:12
  it. I think just, yeah, just
• 29:18
  constant isolation really. And then the, the, the, the slow
• 29:22
  build up of stress of running a, a furniture business is and, you
• 29:27
  know, and it's, there's not a lot of money in it either, you
• 29:28
  know, like, unless you're like really got your social media
• 29:31
  dialled in and you're, or you're expanding, you know, with a few
• 29:35
  guys and you've really, but I'm not like that.
• 29:37
  I want to be making things. I'm, I'm an artist really, you
• 29:39
  know, a heart and I want to be involved in every project, you
• 29:44
  know, to the point of, you know, 100%, you know, so my business
• 29:48
  mind doesn't really work in that business.
• 29:52
  You know, my business mind is better with what other things
• 29:55
  that I was doing, networking and you know, like seaweed farming
• 29:59
  and the ski wear that I'm doing now.
• 30:02
  So my, I'm better off splitting too, you know, business is
• 30:05
  business, woodwork is woodwork. And I want woodworking to be a
• 30:08
  hobby, you know, a hobby business.
• 30:12
  You know, I'd still make things for people, Commission and
• 30:14
  stuff, but then you know, I'm not going to push anything.
• 30:16
  You know, it'd just be like, what is your?
• 30:19
  Specialty. What do you mean?
• 30:22
  What in woodwork it within woodwork, Yeah.
• 30:25
  Is there a certain? Type of furniture I know I think
• 30:28
  on your Instagram it says living live edge.
• 30:31
  Yeah. What's my specialty?
• 30:34
  I don't know. I mean, in all honesty, like,
• 30:36
  you know, I'm a bit of a Jack of all trades within carpentry.
• 30:40
  So I'm not like a specialist in any of it.
• 30:42
  Like timber framing. Like, you know, I'm not nowhere
• 30:45
  near, have nowhere near the experience to call myself a
• 30:48
  timber framer like post and beam.
• 30:50
  I always find myself, yeah, a bit slower than people are doing
• 30:55
  it all the time, of course. And then I've got all right.
• 30:57
  I mean, you know, need to remind myself of the best tool for this
• 31:00
  and the best tool for that, you know, whether it's a shoulder
• 31:03
  plane or whatever it might be, you know, but I guess specialty,
• 31:09
  I don't know. I don't have one.
• 31:11
  I really don't. Fair enough.
• 31:13
  Yeah. And I don't ever just do one
• 31:15
  thing Like I get if I make one thing, I never want to make it
• 31:18
  again. Do you know what I mean?
• 31:19
  That's my attitude. I'm like bow making is different
• 31:22
  because it's like, oh, I can make something out of this wood
• 31:24
  that time that's going to behave totally different.
• 31:27
  So it's always different, but you mentioned, so the isolation
• 31:30
  was our part about furniture making, which for a lot of Bow
• 31:33
  years, it's the isolation in the workshop with the Bow that
• 31:38
  becomes so therapeutic. Yeah.
• 31:42
  So how is there? Have you found there's a
• 31:44
  difference in being in the workshop making furniture versus
• 31:46
  being in the workshop making bows?
• 31:48
  Yeah. Well, I think the the point
• 31:50
  would be would be if you were making if you were doing bow
• 31:53
  making as a for a living and it was your business and you were
• 31:56
  just in the workshop Monday to Friday, the the the passion
• 32:00
  would be sucked out of it. I would say for me anyway, I
• 32:03
  couldn't do that. Yeah, you know, and I'm sure
• 32:05
  other people who have like made a bow making business.
• 32:08
  And I think that goes for the same same for that's the same
• 32:10
  for all businesses. You know, if you make your
• 32:12
  passion, your business, you're you're going to sacrifice a lot
• 32:17
  of that love. I'm I'm damn sure, like maybe
• 32:19
  that's me, me being grumpy or something, but I don't know.
• 32:22
  It it no as well. I mean, I feel that like that,
• 32:25
  you know, and I've always got been excited in the past about,
• 32:27
  oh, I'm going to make this, going to do this and, you know,
• 32:29
  and it's going to be great. And then you've you're a year
• 32:32
  into it and you're thinking cries.
• 32:33
  I I never want to see another yeah milking stool again or
• 32:36
  whatever it is. You know what I mean?
• 32:38
  It's sort of like and. A lot of the Boyers who I've
• 32:40
  worked with and interviewed, I was, I'm just writing, just
• 32:43
  finished writing the chapter on Phil Rothouser in Austria.
• 32:46
  And same thing. He said my hobby is bow making.
• 32:49
  And at one point in time he thought about making it his
• 32:52
  profession. But he's like, if I make it my
• 32:53
  profession, then I got to find another hobby because, yeah,
• 32:56
  everyone needs that hobby. And so he, he kept his
• 32:59
  profession, which is more time on the computer doing coding and
• 33:03
  stuff, but then he gets to go in his workshop and have that
• 33:06
  therapeutic outlet of making bows.
• 33:08
  Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
• 33:10
  That's great. I mean that that's where it
• 33:12
  comes into its own for sure. And you're getting that, like I
• 33:15
  said to you at the start, it's getting that connection back to,
• 33:19
  you know, it really, it really connects you to the land.
• 33:21
  You know, you're going out, finding the the stave and then
• 33:26
  waiting for it to, you know, roughing it out and then letting
• 33:30
  it stand. Then you've got then you've got
• 33:31
  to be patient and wait for it, you know.
• 33:34
  So I did a really interesting project for the for in the film
• 33:38
  industry for a film called Harvest in Scotland and it had
• 33:44
  Caleb Landry Jones as the lead actor.
• 33:46
  He was in a couple of big films like get Out and he's, he was,
• 33:50
  he's Dracula in the new Dracula film recently as well.
• 33:54
  But we, I, me and me and a guy who I got together with in
• 33:57
  Scotland making bows, made bows for that film.
• 34:00
  They had, they needed him in like 2 weeks.
• 34:02
  So we, you know, went out half sit the the staves, roughed them
• 34:06
  out, then dried them out over a fire like a long fire pit.
• 34:10
  And I was like, this is, you know, this is amazing, you know,
• 34:12
  like if you were in a survival situation trying to do this, you
• 34:15
  know, it just sparked me up. You know, it was great.
• 34:18
  And we made me and him both made a bow each and then we gave them
• 34:21
  to the film to film. It's on, it's out now the film
• 34:24
  and you know the bows are in it and and were.
• 34:26
  These sapling bows. It it was, we made it out of
• 34:29
  Willow, but which is which, you know, which is a terrible bow
• 34:33
  word, but the reason was we were going to make it out of common
• 34:37
  wood. We were going to make it out of
• 34:37
  ash initially, but they needed to drive, they needed to dry
• 34:41
  fire the bows, which they get put on us last minute.
• 34:45
  So they need to pull the the, you know, the string back
• 34:48
  without an arrow in it. And we were like, look, the
• 34:51
  energy needs to transfer the arrow, otherwise it transfer
• 34:54
  through the limbs. And actually it's contradictory.
• 34:56
  It's going to be, you know, more unsafe to fire without the arrow
• 35:00
  in the oh, we'll just put the arrow in with CGR.
• 35:02
  It's like, yeah, well, what you don't understand is the if
• 35:05
  you've got a, you know, a high power bow, it could split and it
• 35:10
  could, it could shatter, you know, and go in your actor's
• 35:13
  eye, you know, they couldn't understand it anyway.
• 35:15
  So in the end, we just said, all right, fair enough.
• 35:17
  So we made these sort of like gimmicky.
• 35:21
  We did it all the process the right way, you know, and they
• 35:24
  still had a bit of, you know, temporary power, but they were
• 35:27
  going to go floppy within. If you were using it for a week,
• 35:30
  it would have just been, you know, useless.
• 35:34
  Yeah, it was. But it was, it was regardless of
• 35:37
  whether the bow was like a a proper bow or not in terms of
• 35:41
  poundage, it was. It was just that I was just like
• 35:43
  going out into the woods, finding the right staves and
• 35:47
  firing over the pit, the tillering, everything.
• 35:49
  We did it all like quite fiercely, you know, And it gave
• 35:52
  me that reminder that it's just just a great way of getting out
• 35:57
  there, you know? Yeah.
• 35:59
  In all. Ways and then it gives you
• 36:00
  access to hunting as well. If you haven't made a proper
• 36:01
  bow, you've then got this reason to go out and you know, source
• 36:05
  protein from the forest and stuff.
• 36:07
  It's just such a all-encompassing hobby, you
• 36:10
  know, if you, if you go in that, if you go in that way, you know?
• 36:14
  And of all the woodworking you've done, would you say bowl
• 36:18
  making is easy, hard, somewhere in between, comparative to
• 36:23
  everything else? Super hard.
• 36:26
  I would say because of my personality type.
• 36:30
  I feel like people who are more, you know, I don't know, like
• 36:35
  just patient basically. You know, it really it really, I
• 36:39
  have to really stop, slow myself down and my expectations need to
• 36:43
  really lower to, you know, to to achieve a bow.
• 36:47
  You know, at every point it's just one slip of it and that's
• 36:50
  it. So I would say out of all, all
• 36:52
  woodworking, yeah, bow making's by far the hardest for me.
• 36:56
  Yeah, easily. It's the one that I sort of look
• 36:58
  at in or, you know, there's a couple of bow makers I think
• 37:02
  that you've you like, is it Pete Woodland heritage bows and yeah,
• 37:06
  Pete's amazing. Corey Hawk organic archery
• 37:10
  amazing. It's the way I love both those
• 37:12
  guys approach. And there's another guy from
• 37:14
  Swiftwood bows. His bows are just exquisite
• 37:17
  looking, all those freer. Oh, sorry, no, Swiss board is
• 37:21
  Waylon Olive. Sorry, that's the guy.
• 37:23
  Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Eric Strikesbeer.
• 37:24
  Sparrow bows, who also does amazing.
• 37:27
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 37:28
  That those guys, Yeah, amazing. Absolutely.
• 37:32
  You know, but when I look at the way the bows they're making, I'm
• 37:36
  just like, OK, that that's a very calm, very wise individual
• 37:40
  that's come to come to that. And I'm like, when I'm doing it,
• 37:43
  I'm like, you know, beavering away then then getting
• 37:47
  distracted and then, you know, I'm just like, Stu, you need to
• 37:50
  just home hone in on this job and just not think about
• 37:53
  anything but this bow. And that's the Do you think you
• 37:56
  would? Develop more patience if you
• 37:58
  were doing it more regularly. Yeah, that that's why I made the
• 38:02
  point I would need, I would need the dedicated spots for it.
• 38:06
  Yeah, I could never ever my entire bow making life has been
• 38:12
  always had. I've always had loads of things
• 38:15
  in the background distracting me from it and a lot of stress, you
• 38:17
  know, in the background pulling me away from it.
• 38:22
  I just feel like it's something I'm going to eventually when
• 38:25
  it's perfectly right. All the, you know, all these,
• 38:31
  all the different parts of it are in place.
• 38:33
  They're not going to come back to bow making in a proper way,
• 38:36
  you know, with a calm mindset. Yeah, for me.
• 38:39
  It's kind of, it's kind of like writing.
• 38:40
  I find that if I don't dedicate time to writing, and every time
• 38:45
  I sit down to write, I got to kind of go back and pick up the
• 38:48
  vibe of what I was writing before I left off.
• 38:51
  The same with bow making. I can't go and work on a bow for
• 38:54
  20 minutes and then leave it and come back the next day for
• 38:57
  another 20 minutes. It feels like I need to get in a
• 39:00
  rhythm with it, really kind of fall in with the wood and fall
• 39:03
  out of everything else, just like immersed into it.
• 39:06
  So it's definitely a time consuming labor of love,
• 39:09
  hopefully. Yeah.
• 39:10
  Yeah. And it's cool because all the
• 39:12
  guys that you just mentioned, Corey Whalen, Pete, amazing
• 39:16
  Bowers, some of the best out there.
• 39:18
  And yet they all have such different styles and different
• 39:20
  ways of carving these primitive bows.
• 39:22
  Like you look at a bow and you know that's a Wayland olive bow.
• 39:25
  Are you? Yeah, I know.
• 39:26
  Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really.
• 39:28
  I love how. Yeah.
• 39:29
  It is but like. Special thank you to those guys
• 39:32
  like particularly Pete and Corey, both those guys have like
• 39:37
  answered so many messages from me and have really helped me.
• 39:41
  And that's the other thing is about bow making I want to say
• 39:45
  is and about Charlie Officer out in New Zealand and Glen Glenn
• 39:49
  Thurston and all the other guys I've mentioned and Dave Dore
• 39:53
  actually, more importantly, the first guy ever showed me.
• 39:56
  He's a musician from Devon in the South of the UK.
• 40:00
  He cut his teeth out in the mountains of Switzerland making
• 40:03
  primitive bows years ago. So he's a really important guy
• 40:06
  for me to mention as well. But every one of those has
• 40:08
  shared one thing in common, and it's like that, sort of.
• 40:13
  Willingness to pass on the, you know, that's the real primitive
• 40:18
  sort of tribal thing. You know, I mean, for me, I'm
• 40:19
  just like, God, this is, this is real, you know, this is real.
• 40:22
  It's not. These guys aren't looking at me
• 40:23
  like they're going to make a bit of money or, you know, or
• 40:26
  whatever it is. A tremendous.
• 40:28
  Charity and sharing of knowledge and experience in the world of
• 40:32
  voyeurs. I I just my daughter and I just
• 40:34
  traveled around the world meeting with 14 of them who
• 40:37
  welcomed us into their homes and their workshops.
• 40:39
  And they showed us how to carve a bow and their their style,
• 40:42
  their tradition. Yeah.
• 40:43
  And like, no secrets, like, yeah, take photos, write the
• 40:47
  story. It's like that was our whole
• 40:48
  purpose of our journey is to capture their legacy.
• 40:50
  And all of them share very similar experiences with their
• 40:54
  teachers. Yeah.
• 40:55
  Yeah. Showed up at this guy's house
• 40:56
  and he showed me how to make a bow or I called him up and yeah,
• 40:59
  it's just yeah. Yeah.
• 41:01
  It's something that, yeah, it's an incredible community.
• 41:04
  And like you said, it's and it's not about competition.
• 41:07
  I mean, we're we're primitive bow years.
• 41:09
  We're using techniques that have been around for thousands of
• 41:12
  years. And so it's not about making the
• 41:15
  perfect bow and then keeping it to yourself so no one else can
• 41:18
  replicate it. It's yeah, that's kind of
• 41:20
  counterintuitive. Well.
• 41:22
  That's the beauty of primitive bow maker as well, is that the
• 41:25
  parts are unpatentable. If that's a word you know, which
• 41:30
  is the key thing you know, and as soon as you start patenting
• 41:33
  things, you know, that's when you start losing connection to
• 41:36
  nature and community like it's bloody obvious, isn't it?
• 41:40
  And and if you're. Doing a primitive, if you're
• 41:42
  doing a primitive self bow, there's no way to hide what's in
• 41:45
  it. It's a piece of wood.
• 41:48
  You can see it's right there. It's a little different for
• 41:50
  laminates, but you know, even that it's still pretty.
• 41:54
  People are pretty generous with their knowledge of that.
• 41:56
  But for primitive self, both, yeah, it's it's all there.
• 41:58
  It's all there to see. So no point in hiding it.
• 42:02
  Yeah. That yeah, for me, that's just
• 42:04
  the beautiful, the beauty of it, you know, and then any, anything
• 42:07
  else, you know, whether it's, you know, a primitive forge or,
• 42:10
  you know, or, you know, any other green woodworking,
• 42:13
  whatever it is, you know, you're always going to have that
• 42:16
  relationship with your mentors and, and, you know, and, and
• 42:20
  there's going to be like this community thing around it, you
• 42:22
  know, because it it, you know, there's lack of ownership really
• 42:26
  on those on the, on the part, so.
• 42:30
  Yeah, yeah. So you've grown quite an
• 42:33
  audience on your Instagram. How did you manage that through
• 42:36
  your woodworking? Yeah.
• 42:39
  How does it manage that? Well, I'll be totally honest,
• 42:43
  like I tried to be at all times is I was I was making a, a video
• 42:49
  on my phone in like an old, like an old man really, you know,
• 42:54
  sort of like it's just harping on about something, making it
• 42:58
  too long, you know, and then, like I showed my girlfriend
• 43:00
  who's, you know, she's got a good handle on social media.
• 43:03
  She, you know, knows what she's doing and knows how to trigger
• 43:06
  the algorithm. All that I said, I'll just what
• 43:08
  do you think to this, this video, She goes, Oh, it's never
• 43:10
  going to work, go and it's not going to work.
• 43:12
  You know, it's great. She goes, it's nice, but it's
• 43:14
  not going to if you want it to do anything, it's not going to
• 43:16
  go. So she tweaked it all and then
• 43:18
  she put a trending sound over it, which I would never have.
• 43:23
  I didn't know what trending sound meant.
• 43:24
  Do you know what I mean? I thought that was the birds in
• 43:26
  the forest or something, you know, I didn't know what she
• 43:28
  meant trending sound was like. So she put the sound on it and
• 43:33
  it and it just went bananas. Like we went to sleep.
• 43:37
  It was really exciting. It was like, because I was never
• 43:39
  that fussed about. So I kind of liked sharing on
• 43:42
  social media, but I was never that like, oh, I really want
• 43:44
  this to take off. I could have deleted it any at
• 43:46
  any point, but then we went to sleep anyway, posted it in the
• 43:49
  morning. It was like it got like 10,000
• 43:51
  views and I was like, all right, it's pretty good for one of
• 43:53
  mine. I usually only get 200.
• 43:55
  And then like later on the day it was like, oh, you've had 100
• 43:58
  followers today. I was like, Jesus, what's going
• 44:00
  on here? And then it, it just snowballed,
• 44:03
  you know. And then every day I woke up and
• 44:05
  looked at my phone in the morning when my coffee and I was
• 44:08
  like, yeah, I've had like, and it was like going off in
• 44:10
  different parts of the world. So like, it would be whilst I
• 44:13
  was asleep and then it would, you know, it was like in Europe
• 44:16
  or something and like, yeah. And it just went crazy.
• 44:19
  So since then I, I sort of like was like, you know, I just
• 44:23
  learnt how to trigger the algorithm.
• 44:25
  And so now I do it on my own, you know, with what she's shown
• 44:27
  me and what I've seen that works and I've had that sort of
• 44:30
  reward, you know, because I am a recluse and I am introverted.
• 44:35
  But I do like, you know, people liking it and commenting and the
• 44:40
  nice comments, you know, I get fucking loads of bad ones, you
• 44:43
  know, I get some real. But then they're fun as well
• 44:45
  because you think, well, this person's just a little bit
• 44:46
  unhappy. Like, it's fine.
• 44:48
  You can just, you can just tail your response, you know?
• 44:51
  Yeah, accordingly. But what was the?
• 44:54
  Video about the. First one yeah it it was about
• 44:58
  green woodworking. So it was about splitting a
• 45:00
  making AI made a really nice rocking chair.
• 45:02
  I've never filmed it. I filmed little like I had like
• 45:06
  15 seconds of footage of me. This is before I would really
• 45:09
  documented stuff and I had I'd I'd started, I had a little
• 45:13
  tripod at the time or maybe made a little tripod in the workshop
• 45:16
  and and I took a few films of me making this chair.
• 45:19
  But none of that I all none of like the, you know, the whole
• 45:22
  process. No, not at all.
• 45:24
  Just a little bit of splitting the word and then one of me
• 45:27
  pushing it and smiling at the camera at the end.
• 45:31
  But and then it made it clear to me, I was like, fuck, you don't
• 45:33
  really need all this fancy gimmicky stuff.
• 45:36
  I've done it on like an old broken phone.
• 45:38
  It's all blurry. And I was like, right, You don't
• 45:41
  really need. It's all about the tweaks, you
• 45:43
  know, it's all about tweaking it and getting the right sound on
• 45:47
  there and just making it, you know, digestible for somebody in
• 45:50
  a, in a small pocket who just wants essentially wants to be
• 45:52
  distracted, you know, just for a second from their from their own
• 45:56
  life, you know, whatever. That's what social media is,
• 45:58
  isn't it? It's like they're just looking
• 45:59
  for distraction. And yeah, so I was like, and
• 46:04
  then there's you can put more involved stuff and you can put a
• 46:07
  minute long video or two minutes long or a whole YouTube video
• 46:10
  for people who want to go more into it.
• 46:11
  But 99% of people who are on those apps are just wanting to,
• 46:15
  they want a bite sized thing that's just going to give them
• 46:18
  some of the information, get out just of what's going on and then
• 46:20
  move on to the next one. You know what I mean?
• 46:22
  Yeah. And I've used that to my
• 46:25
  advantage basically. Yeah, That's funny.
• 46:28
  Yeah. The poor health of of modern
• 46:31
  humans, yeah. Yeah, Bow making is healthy.
• 46:35
  Social media not so healthy. Yeah, we, we wouldn't be on it
• 46:39
  at all if it wasn't for this project that we're doing.
• 46:41
  And it was, we had naivety going into it.
• 46:43
  I think this is a great idea. It's going to be a great
• 46:45
  project. We'll start out with some posts.
• 46:46
  We'll get thousands of followers.
• 46:48
  And it's like it just doesn't. It's not snowballing.
• 46:51
  Every every few days my daughter's like we're going to
• 46:54
  snowball from here and watch. Like, no, we haven't snowballed,
• 46:59
  but we'll not know. Well, on that note, I think,
• 47:02
  like, I think it's just the most important thing with the social
• 47:06
  media is to be doing it authentically and which you are
• 47:08
  doing like it. That's why I got in touch with
• 47:10
  you initially. You know, where I don't know
• 47:12
  what it was like months ago, two months ago.
• 47:16
  Yeah. And yeah, I was like, you know,
• 47:20
  it rubbed off on me, you know what I mean?
• 47:21
  I was like this guy. I don't understood that, you
• 47:23
  know, this is a very niche thing and I was like, you must be
• 47:28
  super passionate about it because it's not, you know,
• 47:30
  it's, you know, you're putting money and time and everything
• 47:32
  into it and travelling and doing it all.
• 47:34
  It takes a, there's loads of effort in all that, you know.
• 47:37
  Oh yeah. And I was like, this is great.
• 47:38
  You know, I want to, well, I think I'd put in my first
• 47:41
  message. Look, I'm not a, I'm not a
• 47:43
  professional burrier. So don't, don't think I'm here
• 47:45
  trying to, you know, be, be the big burrier because I'm not.
• 47:49
  You know, it's, you know, these other guys have mentioned are
• 47:52
  I'm just, I'm just in love with the whole thing, you know,
• 47:55
  that's, you know, yeah, it's, it's a gateway for, you know,
• 47:58
  all sorts of things for me. So.
• 47:59
  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a full on
• 48:02
  passion project that we're doing.
• 48:03
  And the first Bowyer we worked with was Waylon, all of it
• 48:09
  Swiftwood bows. And remember, I just finished my
• 48:11
  bow and I went out to shoot it and my daughter's like, all
• 48:13
  right, you're going to talk to the camera about your bow.
• 48:15
  I'm like, what, What am I going to do?
• 48:18
  No, I don't want to be on social media.
• 48:21
  Like you can take photos of the the journey and the bows, but I
• 48:24
  don't want to be on there. But they say, no, you got to do
• 48:26
  this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could in
• 48:29
  I'm. Like, you know, you're just
• 48:30
  right for it. It's fine.
• 48:31
  I got more comfortable. With it what time It's hard
• 48:33
  though. It's hard, yeah, but then do
• 48:36
  people really care? Do you know what I mean?
• 48:37
  It's not, you know, it's kind of like for me, it's like an ego
• 48:39
  thing for me, you know what I mean?
• 48:40
  I'm like, I have to like strip my ego back before, you know,
• 48:42
  I'm like, look, people don't care.
• 48:43
  You're not that important, mate. That's what I say to certainly.
• 48:45
  Come on, like, come on. Just just going to talk in
• 48:48
  there, like do a video of me talking about something I like.
• 48:50
  I hate that. I fucking hate that, you know,
• 48:52
  like I can't listen to that. And then I'm like, I look at it,
• 48:55
  you know, see it again a month later and I'm like, oh, this is
• 48:57
  fine. Like why did I?
• 48:59
  Why was I and who? Gives a shit so critical.
• 49:01
  No, yeah, because I'm that person not giving a shit then
• 49:03
  because I'm worrying about something else, you know?
• 49:05
  And I see it through the lens of the person that's actually going
• 49:07
  to see it. So yeah, I don't know.
• 49:11
  Yeah, but. Yeah, it's been an absolute
• 49:13
  passion project. It's been a a total blast and
• 49:16
  like a dream come true for us so but I feel like.
• 49:18
  I want to ask you some questions, but I don't know how
• 49:20
  far cars really work. Yeah, like, you know, you're in
• 49:22
  Costa Rica. Yeah.
• 49:24
  What was, how did you get into bow making?
• 49:25
  Are you from Are you from Vancouver Island as well?
• 49:29
  Yes and no. So I grew up on the East Coast
• 49:31
  of the States. I grew up in West Virginia and
• 49:33
  Maryland and I was there until I was about 1718 when I went off
• 49:39
  to university. I started traveling around.
• 49:40
  I went to like 7 different colleges and universities and
• 49:43
  then I ended up going to Sri Lanka to study traditional
• 49:48
  Chinese medicine. I went to Sri Lanka and China
• 49:51
  and that became a major passion of mine.
• 49:53
  I was studying my undergrad, I did in medicine and the States
• 49:57
  and it was just not not resonating with me enough.
• 50:01
  And then as soon as I had a experience with acupuncture,
• 50:04
  changed my life, found out about this guru and Sri Lanka and I
• 50:07
  was like, that's it, I'm going there, you know, forget grad
• 50:10
  school, I'm going to Sri Lanka. So I did and it was a life
• 50:12
  changing experience. I just fell head over heels in
• 50:15
  love with with the medicine. And part of that medicine is
• 50:20
  it's multifaceted. It's not just acupuncture.
• 50:23
  Traditional Chinese medicine also includes diet therapy and
• 50:26
  herbal medicine and Qigong and Qigong and Tai chi Tai chi is a
• 50:30
  form of Qigong, but they're arguably the original martial
• 50:33
  art. And so some people have heard of
• 50:36
  like Shaolin Qigong, which is what the Shaolin monks will use
• 50:39
  in their their training. And it's basically meditative
• 50:42
  movement with breath and a lot of fight stances, but without
• 50:46
  weapons and without contact and without the speed.
• 50:49
  It's all very slow, very slow and controlled.
• 50:52
  And so I've been doing a Qigong routine for an hour every
• 50:56
  morning for 1520 years. I don't know how long.
• 51:00
  It's just been a part of my life.
• 51:01
  I wake up here, I wake up at 4:20 in the morning.
• 51:04
  It's just when I wake up and I do an hour of Qigong and I do it
• 51:07
  every day and about, I don't know, it's probably 2014,
• 51:15
  fifteen, I don't know. I was doing it on my farm.
• 51:17
  So I, when I was around 21, I moved to Vancouver Island, I
• 51:22
  moved to Victoria and British Columbia and that's when I, I
• 51:27
  did that originally to start study the herbal medicine aspect
• 51:30
  of Chinese medicine. And then I started a college
• 51:33
  there that taught traditional Chinese medicine and ran that
• 51:36
  for years during that phase, during my Qigong, there's some
• 51:40
  of the routines that I do or in the routine that I do, it's the
• 51:43
  same routine every morning. There are some archery related
• 51:47
  stances. And I just felt so like of all
• 51:50
  the things that I did in my Qigong, when I got into those
• 51:52
  archery stances, I was like, this feels so grounded and and
• 51:55
  right. And so I just thought I should
• 51:57
  get a bow. Nothing about archery.
• 51:59
  I don't even know if I'd ever shot a bow other than maybe a
• 52:01
  toy bow. But I knew I wanted something,
• 52:05
  which now I can describe as a primitive bow.
• 52:07
  At that point in time, I knew nothing.
• 52:08
  I just knew I didn't want a bow with carbon fiber and pulleys
• 52:13
  and metal and scopes and all this shit that can go on a bow.
• 52:15
  I was like, no, it's not the type of bow that I want.
• 52:18
  That's such a great thing because there's only a certain
• 52:20
  percentage of people that will a lot of people don't pay
• 52:23
  attention to that, you know, and I feel it makes me, I'm not like
• 52:26
  a purist or, you know, you know, or a snob, but like, it's, you
• 52:32
  know, something really turns me off.
• 52:33
  You know, as soon as it's got like, you know, a factory, a
• 52:36
  factory made aspect to it, I'm just like, God, this is, this is
• 52:39
  everything I'm trying to move away from, you know, like a big
• 52:41
  compound bow, pulleys and, or even like a recurve bow, like
• 52:45
  say with like carbon fibre in it or something, or whatever it is.
• 52:48
  I'm just like, get that thing as far away from me as possible.
• 52:51
  Do you know what I mean? You know, and I kind.
• 52:53
  Of liken it to you, if you're into cycling, well, you're not
• 52:56
  necessarily into racing street bikes like 2 entirely different
• 53:01
  things. You know, one's a bicycle, one's
• 53:03
  a souped up motorbike. And that's kind of the way it is
• 53:04
  with for me with archery. I love the primitive aspect of
• 53:07
  it. So I looked around, I didn't
• 53:09
  know anything about buying a bow, but I just started looking
• 53:11
  online, figuring out where am I going to get a bow.
• 53:13
  And I ended up coming across eventually Jamie MacDonald of
• 53:17
  Ravenbeak bows and he's in British Columbia and he makes
• 53:20
  some of the best English longest.
• 53:21
  Is he quite? A young guy.
• 53:24
  He's Jamie's probably in his early 40s.
• 53:28
  There's a. Guy, there's a young guy, he's
• 53:30
  probably like his 20s, but he's making some incredible bows
• 53:32
  while we've Sturgeon backed and stuff like that.
• 53:34
  And I'm just like. Jamie doesn't normally back as
• 53:38
  he normally just does traditional English, long bows,
• 53:40
  beautiful out of the best Pacific you would in the world.
• 53:44
  So anyway, I bought one. Yeah, I bought one.
• 53:46
  He's going to be in our book. Yeah.
• 53:48
  I, I bought one of his bows and started shooting.
• 53:52
  And I was like, this, this is it.
• 53:54
  This is amazing. I still have it, like a dozen
• 53:56
  years later. I still had steel shoots.
• 53:59
  But then at the time, I was leading men's retreats for,
• 54:02
  like, personal development, growth stuff.
• 54:03
  And I thought, well, this would be a cool therapeutic aspect to
• 54:07
  tie into a men's retreat. So I reached out to him and I
• 54:10
  said, can I bring a group of men to you?
• 54:11
  We'll carve some bows and he did we, he, he agreed to that and
• 54:15
  did that a number of times. So I made a, a variety of bows
• 54:17
  with him and just that's how I started in the bow making.
• 54:22
  And then Pete Woodland of heritage bows.
• 54:27
  Turns out he's my neighbor on my farm and, and British Columbia
• 54:30
  on Vancouver Island. He literally lives like a less
• 54:33
  than a kilometer down the road from me.
• 54:35
  Quite serendipitous. Yeah.
• 54:37
  And I had seen his. He makes axes too, and I'd seen
• 54:40
  his axes in a boutique store. And then somehow I found out
• 54:43
  that maybe he made bows. I don't quite remember it.
• 54:46
  I think maybe Jamie and McDonald told me there was a Bowyer in my
• 54:48
  neighborhood because Jamie had taught Pete a few times.
• 54:51
  Anyway, he showed up on my farm one day because my wife invited
• 54:54
  his wife and him over as neighbors to come and visit.
• 54:57
  And we got to chat, started chatting and I found out he's
• 55:00
  the guy who makes bows. So I've been trying to track
• 55:01
  down. So we hit it off.
• 55:03
  And so he's taught me a lot about bow making.
• 55:05
  And then those two were big inspirations in this, in this
• 55:09
  project, project Quipper, because I kind of felt like, all
• 55:12
  right, I've studied under these two mentors, these two amazing
• 55:16
  master bow years. I want to study under more.
• 55:18
  And so that's kind of that was the seed.
• 55:20
  I was like, all right, I'm going to travel and I'm going to study
• 55:22
  under bow years. And then that slowly kind of
• 55:24
  morphed into, well, I should write about it because I love
• 55:27
  writing. And then, well, it's not going
• 55:28
  to be great without photos, but I don't do photos.
• 55:31
  And my daughter wanted to study photography.
• 55:33
  So I was like, yeah, what do you think?
• 55:34
  Should we do this thing? And we were talking about it
• 55:36
  yesterday. It's crazy because we just
• 55:37
  signed with the publisher yesterday and I was like, how
• 55:41
  long have we been working on this?
• 55:43
  And she's like that it's been less than a year.
• 55:44
  Like we started in December of last year, like kind of
• 55:47
  planning. And I was like, no shit.
• 55:49
  Are you kidding me? So it's been, like talking about
• 55:51
  a snowball. This one's been a snowball has
• 55:53
  just been like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:55
  It took off. We started emailing people, I
• 55:57
  think in January, inviting them to be part of the project, not
• 56:00
  knowing what would happen. We got crickets from a lot of
• 56:03
  them. We got good responses from quite
• 56:05
  a few of them. And so we just felt like, for
• 56:07
  me, I felt like, well, if we make this commitment to even one
• 56:11
  that we're coming and we're going to make a book, then
• 56:14
  that's all we need. Like we just need to make that
• 56:16
  commitment. And so that was it.
• 56:17
  I was like, as soon as we start emailing people, as soon as
• 56:19
  anyone agrees, like we're committed, we're doing this.
• 56:23
  And sure enough, we started to just, we selected it as, as, as
• 56:27
  carefully as we could through looking at people's websites and
• 56:30
  social media and through referrals.
• 56:32
  And then invited got originally I think we had maybe 15 or 16
• 56:40
  who came along, but for various reasons, a couple of them
• 56:43
  couldn't do it. And we ended up with 14 for, for
• 56:47
  this project and this book. But we're thinking about doing
• 56:49
  another one. So it's where we got to, We got
• 56:52
  to get this book to market 1st. So, so that'll come out.
• 56:55
  Of the woodwork as well. There's loads of people doing
• 56:56
  this sort of thing in the background and, and always the,
• 56:58
  the people that aren't, you know, shouting about it, you
• 57:01
  know, they're the best, you know, that they'll be.
• 57:05
  And beyond that, there'll be more, you know, there's, you
• 57:07
  know, yeah. But it's quite interesting what
• 57:09
  you're saying there because we've got a very big thing in
• 57:11
  common. Because I, when I first started
• 57:15
  making bows, I did a big, the whole thing I wanted to do was
• 57:18
  men's mental health. And I set up a community
• 57:20
  interest company, which is a, a social enterprise in the UK
• 57:24
  called Woodism. And the whole plan at the
• 57:28
  beginning was it wasn't a big business plan to make a lot of
• 57:31
  money. It was more of a hobby business
• 57:32
  where I could attract funding and stuff like that and, and,
• 57:37
  and do interesting projects that would benefit the community and
• 57:39
  nature basically. And then men, men's mental
• 57:42
  health was one of the main sort of things I wanted to do.
• 57:44
  And bow making, when I first made my bow, it had such an
• 57:46
  effect on me. It made me felt feel, you know,
• 57:50
  it gave it, it, it relieved me of, of, of, of so many things,
• 57:54
  you know, stress, anxiety and stuff.
• 57:56
  I just thought it was so important, you know, and I was
• 57:58
  like, that's what I wanted to do.
• 58:01
  So when I got back from New Zealand, I spent this year in
• 58:03
  New Zealand, you know, doing my own thing, recovering from, you
• 58:07
  know, a lot of stuff that I've been going through.
• 58:10
  And when I got back, I was like, this is what I want to do.
• 58:12
  I want to bring this all together.
• 58:15
  So I found a site and set it all up and we agreed to go ahead
• 58:19
  with it. And then COVID hit just right on
• 58:21
  the right on the nose of it. And then it obviously the whole
• 58:25
  thing of COVID was to split everybody up and like I was
• 58:28
  trying to bring everyone together and it, it became very
• 58:30
  difficult and I ended up escaping up to Scotland in the
• 58:33
  end. This was in the South of
• 58:34
  England. I was doing this.
• 58:35
  And then I, as soon as this COVID thing hit, I drove away to
• 58:39
  Scotland to get out, get into space, basically, Rightly or
• 58:43
  wrongly, I didn't, I didn't really care at the time.
• 58:45
  You know, I was like, you know, I just did space around me.
• 58:47
  I'm not, I'm not sitting in a house, you know, for the next
• 58:50
  three months was, you know, watching the news or something.
• 58:52
  I'm going to be in, you know, need to be swimming in nature
• 58:54
  and in a forest or something. Yeah, and that's what put a stop
• 58:57
  to the workshops are the retreats I was doing with Jamie
• 59:01
  at Raven. Oh, there you go.
• 59:02
  Exactly same thing. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:03
  A couple of them were cancelled. For COVID and I'm like, this is
• 59:05
  ridiculous. And then, yeah, we didn't want
• 59:08
  to raise our kids in a place where you couldn't see other
• 59:11
  people. So we're like, let's let's go to
• 59:13
  Costa Rica. So that's how we ended up here.
• 59:15
  So great manoeuvre. Well, look, that's such a, you
• 59:17
  know, similar thing, but, you know, smaller scale of mine.
• 59:19
  I just drove to Scotland. Yeah, you know, but it gave me
• 59:22
  what I needed, you know, and I had a great, you know, few years
• 59:26
  in Scotland and I gave away that, Well, I didn't give it
• 59:30
  away. So I just, I just sort of
• 59:31
  stopped the, the momentum was dragged out of it through COVID
• 59:35
  and I then I ended up going to seaweed farming of all things.
• 59:37
  And I did that for like two or three years.
• 59:39
  How'd you get into? That was like.
• 59:42
  A guy I knew was, was getting into it and I would been reading
• 59:45
  up on it and one of my best buddies who he's now lives in
• 59:48
  New Zealand on a boat. He's, he's really into his
• 59:51
  marine biology and stuff. And he was talking to me about
• 59:53
  seaweed and how seaweed farming could, you know, you know, save
• 59:58
  the planet, basically. Maybe, you know, maybe that's a
• 1:00:00
  bit far fetched, but in the future maybe, you know, and I
• 1:00:04
  got into it and I was like, wow, this is really interesting.
• 1:00:06
  Seaweed's really interesting. And it makes sense, you know,
• 1:00:09
  because it's ancient and it's everything that's in the world
• 1:00:13
  is derived from algae, basically.
• 1:00:16
  And I started looking into it more and more, and the right
• 1:00:18
  people sort of started appearing as I became obsessed with
• 1:00:21
  seaweed, you know, I was out foraging.
• 1:00:23
  On the coastline and stuff and trying to understand bits.
• 1:00:26
  And then eventually I got involved with a guy who wanted
• 1:00:29
  to, he had contracts for a farm and then we ended up managing
• 1:00:33
  the largest seaweed farm in the UK for two years.
• 1:00:38
  Part of it we didn't actually do the whole farm, but we did like
• 1:00:40
  2/3 of it, which was a big area in the Atlantic Ocean, you know,
• 1:00:44
  rope grown kelp. And then we developed a, we
• 1:00:47
  built a drying machine as well, mobile drying machine to be able
• 1:00:50
  to go to all of the little islands and, and little nooks
• 1:00:54
  and crannies of the Scottish Highlands where seaweed farms
• 1:00:57
  were popping up. And we won an award for it in
• 1:01:00
  Norway, won, won some quite a big amount of money for the, for
• 1:01:05
  the, the innovation and the, the prototype that we built.
• 1:01:10
  Yeah, it was, it was, it was a big thing.
• 1:01:12
  It was a big thing to take on. And, and eventually it it, you
• 1:01:16
  know, fractures appeared between, you know, people had
• 1:01:19
  different ideas of how long it should take to become
• 1:01:22
  successful. I was quite patient and happy
• 1:01:23
  with with it taking a number, you know, 5-6 years.
• 1:01:26
  But other people wanted instant returns.
• 1:01:28
  And that happened a lot around Scotland.
• 1:01:30
  So yeah, seaweed farm is a whole different tangent that like, you
• 1:01:33
  know, people went crazy for it, you know, like they do bow
• 1:01:37
  making or anything else, you know, what was it a?
• 1:01:38
  Market for it? Like was it health or the market
• 1:01:42
  for the seaweed farming? What was like?
• 1:01:43
  What were you growing the kelp for?
• 1:01:45
  Well, we were growing it for the sake of growing it and drawing
• 1:01:48
  primary, processing it and then giving that to people a lot,
• 1:01:53
  giving a lot to science, you know, for scientists, we're
• 1:01:55
  asking for it for experiments and stuff.
• 1:01:58
  But we were also had our own little food brand.
• 1:02:00
  So, and I developed a lot of that.
• 1:02:02
  Like that was kind of like my, my part of it was made, you
• 1:02:06
  know, mainly the drying machine and the, and the, and the food
• 1:02:09
  market. So we had a little brand route
• 1:02:10
  to market just so we could understand what was happening,
• 1:02:14
  because it was a very new industry, you know, the oldest
• 1:02:18
  thing on the earth, algae pretty much, but the newest thing in
• 1:02:20
  terms of like business, you know, like people were just
• 1:02:23
  like, oh, well, I haven't really thought about seaweed.
• 1:02:25
  You know, we're like, well, yeah, it's, it's old, you know,
• 1:02:28
  but like Royce, that was on my sales pitch, you know, was, was
• 1:02:32
  actually based around that, you know, the age of algae and the
• 1:02:34
  fact that everything's derived from algae, you know what I
• 1:02:36
  mean? I was like, you know, it's
• 1:02:37
  pretty cool. And then we used to get into
• 1:02:39
  loads of shops nationwide, you know, and we, we did a lot, you
• 1:02:42
  know, But yeah, it was, it was a, a crazy venture, you know,
• 1:02:47
  and everything was against us, you know, and obviously like,
• 1:02:50
  it's, there's, it's right. It's trying to compete with like
• 1:02:54
  oil and stuff, you know, they want to make biofuel from
• 1:02:57
  seaweed and stuff. And then there was funding was
• 1:02:59
  like drying up or like being placed in like the wrong areas
• 1:03:02
  and stuff. And it was all kind of felt a
• 1:03:04
  bit manipulated and we got pretty stressed out of it in the
• 1:03:07
  end, you know what I mean? Working with social enterprises
• 1:03:10
  and stuff that we didn't, we weren't sure, you know, you
• 1:03:14
  know, we weren't sure where the money was going really.
• 1:03:17
  And, you know, and we were really just wanting to solve the
• 1:03:20
  bottlenecks of the industry and get into it.
• 1:03:22
  That's what we were interested in at the heart.
• 1:03:24
  And then if there was money at the end of that, then great.
• 1:03:26
  But at the in for me anyway, you know, it was definitely solving
• 1:03:29
  that. And the interesting part of, you
• 1:03:31
  know, setting the standards in an industry, you never get a
• 1:03:34
  chance to do that in your life, you know.
• 1:03:35
  So that was. Yeah, that was what we were up
• 1:03:37
  to. Yeah.
• 1:03:40
  But the lot of the customers and stuff were they were making like
• 1:03:42
  buyer stimulant and plastics, bio plastics and stuff we had we
• 1:03:47
  were in conversations with a lot of those people, you know, but
• 1:03:50
  we never made any massive like wholesale orders to those sorts
• 1:03:54
  of people, you know, but it was kind of getting there, you know,
• 1:03:56
  we were just proving that we could do the volume and then the
• 1:03:59
  next season would have but yeah, would have would have there
• 1:04:03
  would have been profit and stuff after that.
• 1:04:04
  But yeah, sounds. Like an interesting journey.
• 1:04:09
  Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was it, but it got me
• 1:04:11
  out of the UK in the end. It was enough.
• 1:04:12
  Yeah. I was like, no, I'll come over
• 1:04:14
  here. I was like, I'd get out of the
• 1:04:16
  UK for a few years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:20
  But yeah, very cool. Stuart, thank you for sharing
• 1:04:24
  your story. Yeah, yeah, it's been great.
• 1:04:27
  Chatting you have anything? Else you want to ask or add and
• 1:04:31
  I also want you to mention to the listeners where they can
• 1:04:34
  learn more about you. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of coming
• 1:04:38
  back to my social media eventually and, you know, but
• 1:04:41
  yeah, by all means, go on my Instagram page, Living Edge
• 1:04:45
  Carpenter and being your followers or whatever, and
• 1:04:50
  you'll be linked, you know, on this podcast.
• 1:04:53
  But yeah, yeah, just connect with me and whatever, you know,
• 1:04:56
  give us a follow and I'll, you know, if you're another
• 1:04:58
  craftsperson, I'll always try and follow other craftspeople
• 1:05:00
  back and support. And you know, I'm, I'm really
• 1:05:03
  open as well to like, like, like I've said on this chat, like,
• 1:05:07
  you know, the community aspect, I've always been really
• 1:05:09
  appreciative of appreciative of, you know, of like Pete and Corey
• 1:05:14
  and Dave Dore in the beginning and Charlie officer, all those
• 1:05:16
  people we've answered questions has been so given with their
• 1:05:19
  time and I'm the same. And I I believe in passing that
• 1:05:22
  back. So I'm always open to, you know,
• 1:05:24
  if someone's got, if you're curious, that's enough, you
• 1:05:26
  know, just be willing, you know, I'm happy to take on people's
• 1:05:29
  curiosities if, if, if someone wants to get involved in it, you
• 1:05:34
  know, and then. Where can I find out more about
• 1:05:36
  Snow Shepherd? They're on snow Shepherd are on
• 1:05:42
  Instagram snow shepherd gloves. They're a their website is snow
• 1:05:46
  shepherd.co.uk next this season, but next year ski season we
• 1:05:54
  should have a Canadian company set up as well.
• 1:05:57
  Hopefully the Canadian aspect of the company we're yeah, looking
• 1:06:01
  at looking at branching to Canada more now and yeah, maybe
• 1:06:04
  the US in the future. Yeah, I also.
• 1:06:08
  Noticed on your link tree you have a link to some tools.
• 1:06:12
  Oh, yeah. Like is it Beavercraft?
• 1:06:15
  Yeah, it is Beavercraft. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:20
  Are these good tours? I'm looking at buying some tools
• 1:06:22
  so I just can't I like. I've only used the, the ads.
• 1:06:27
  Yeah, they sent me an ads and I liked it, but, you know, I
• 1:06:30
  don't. I mean the, the, the, the, the,
• 1:06:32
  the kept an edge, the blade, you know, the blade kept sharp.
• 1:06:35
  I processed a seat with it. A a seasoned bit of Elm for a, a
• 1:06:41
  like a what are they called? Oh, I've forgotten the name.
• 1:06:48
  I've forgotten the name of the the chairs.
• 1:06:51
  Windsor Chair, a Windsor chair. I processed A seasoned bit of
• 1:06:55
  album, a huge slab of it, and then it kept its edge the whole
• 1:06:58
  time, was razor sharp by the end.
• 1:06:59
  So I was pretty, pretty impressed with that.
• 1:07:02
  But yeah, no, seems like decent stuff.
• 1:07:04
  I'm unsure where it comes from. I think it might come from
• 1:07:09
  Romania or some an East Eastern European.
• 1:07:11
  No Ukraine I think actually. Really.
• 1:07:14
  Yeah, I think. It's Ukraine, I think, You know,
• 1:07:17
  I don't know. I can't remember, but yeah.
• 1:07:18
  But, you know, things tend to be of pretty decent quality, you
• 1:07:22
  know, in those sorts of areas, so.
• 1:07:26
  Right on. Well, thank you.
• 1:07:28
  Yeah. And next time you're passing
• 1:07:32
  through Vancouver Island area, reach out, Maybe I'll be around.
• 1:07:36
  Yeah. And I can show you the workshop
• 1:07:38
  and the Boas that are there. Wow.
• 1:07:40
  So you're. Back in Vancouver, a little
• 1:07:41
  fair, but then I'm in. Costa Rica right now, Yeah, all
• 1:07:43
  the time. But you don't.
• 1:07:44
  You do go back, go back. I'm going back next week
• 1:07:46
  actually, for for Christmas. Yeah, we had all the bills that
• 1:07:50
  we made on our journey. We shipped those to Canada and
• 1:07:54
  that's we need to put them in our studio and photograph them
• 1:07:57
  all for the book. I wasn't, I wasn't going to risk
• 1:07:59
  shipping them to Costa Rica because things don't necessarily
• 1:08:02
  arrive here. So.
• 1:08:04
  So we shipped everything to Canada.
• 1:08:05
  So my daughter and I have to go back and do a bunch of photos
• 1:08:08
  and make sure we wrap up everything we need for the book,
• 1:08:12
  right? OK, yeah, I'll definitely, yeah,
• 1:08:14
  definitely come up there. And I'd, you know, I'd love to
• 1:08:17
  go and visit Pete Woodland one day as well.
• 1:08:19
  He's down the road, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:21
  I don't don't. Hassle him too much though.
• 1:08:23
  Oh, he's. He's awesome.
• 1:08:24
  I'm sure I'd enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:27
  But Costa Rica too, is on my list.
• 1:08:28
  I really want to go to Costa Rica as well.
• 1:08:30
  So I mean, I'll, I'll stay in touch, man.
• 1:08:32
  I'll definitely, yeah, I'm, I need to, I'm due a backpacking
• 1:08:34
  trip. That's my one of my biggest
• 1:08:37
  passions. So yeah, coming down there would
• 1:08:38
  be yeah. Amazing, awesome.
• 1:08:41
  Beneficial to me. Yeah.
• 1:08:43
  Well, thanks for. Doing this, I really appreciate
• 1:08:44
  it. No, no thanks.
• 1:08:45
  For doing. Sorry, yeah, it was a bit of a
• 1:08:47
  wait. I just had a few things to do
• 1:08:48
  over the last few weeks and yeah, I just needed fresh, fresh
• 1:08:51
  head to do it. And yeah, it's perfect, thank
• 1:08:53
  you plainly. And yeah, yeah, it's been.
• 1:08:56
  Great. Thank you.
• 1:09:06
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• 1:09:08
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• 1:09:12
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• 1:09:15
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• 1:09:19
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• 1:09:22
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