Latest / Salish Wolf / #51 Correy Hawk on Project Quiver

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#51 Correy Hawk on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

0:06
Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
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the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
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world's finest traditional bow carvers.
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I'm Todd, the father. Ella is my daughter.
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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
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unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
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the Bow Years workshop. Carve a bow under his guidance,
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photograph his woodcraft in detail and share his story here
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on the Salish Wolf Podcast. The book is called Quiver The
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art of life. Through bow craft and this
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journey, our living story is Project Quiver.
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Corey, welcome to the podcast. It's great to finally meet you.
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Likewise, Todd, thanks for having me.
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You're welcome. So this is as we just mentioned
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before I hit record, this is my 51st episode on Salish Wolf.
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Our project Quiver is being hosted, but this is the first to
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project Quiver. And this is a journey and
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adventure that my daughter and I are going on to interview the
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best Bowyers in the world and create a coffee table book about
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it. And you certainly qualify as one
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of the best in the world. And so really excited to sit
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down with you, have you as our my first guest to be able to
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talk to you about the life of a Bowyer and and your experiences.
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So thank you. Yeah, thanks.
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I'm excited. I appreciate that.
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You seem to be a bit of a celebrity in the bow of your
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world. You have quite a following.
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You've been on a number of shows.
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How did you get into this as a profession?
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So I'll try to keep it as concise as possible, but I've
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been, I'm a lifelong Archer, so it's always, you know, been
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around my parents and uncles and everyone were all die hard bow
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hunters. So it wasn't something that was
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new to me. I had a bow and arrow in my
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hands all throughout my youth. And then I got away from it in
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high school, just interested in sports and cars and all that
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stuff. And then I joined the United
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States Marine Corps and that took me away from archery
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completely for another 4 years. I was very steeped in the Marine
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Corps culture and, and really enjoyed my job.
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So that was pretty much my life day and night for four years.
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And after I got back from the Marine Corps, I just got a wild
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hunch one day to buy a traditional bow.
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And it was, I was kind of looking for a therapeutic or
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artistic outlet of stress at that time.
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And so I bought a traditional bow and I was shooting it every
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day and I was breaking tons of arrows in the first six months
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or so of my my ownership of this new bow.
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And as everybody knows, arrows are extremely expensive.
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So after, you know, several $100 worth of broken arrows, I
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decided I would learn how to make arrows first, which
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historically was a completely separate craft, especially
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during militarized archery periods.
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You would have your professional fletchers and your professional
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bowyers, and you would go to the Fletcher for your arrows and
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your Bowyer for your bows. And of course, that's not
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universal. You know, there are many hunter
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gatherer tribes where everyone makes their own kit.
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But I started with arrows and I focused on that for probably six
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months to a year. And you know, arrows are as
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complicated or more complicated than bow making.
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And so after six months to a year of shooting these primitive
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handmade wooden arrows out of a store bought fiberglass bow, I
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figured I'd better learn how to make a primitive bow.
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So I started with boards, and I built probably a dozen board
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bows before I built my first stave bow.
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And fortunately the very first one from an Osage branch turned
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out fantastic and I was hooked from there.
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So I dedicated myself to staves and it was kind of a like a all
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consuming hobby for a number of years.
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And my parents and friends and everyone were telling me to get
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on the Internet. And at that time I was not on
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social media of any kind. And I decided after much
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pestering that I would start an Instagram profile and a couple
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of the, you know, bigger names in the outdoor survival
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community like Discovery History channel type folks found my page
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and they asked for a bow. And back then I was pretty much
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just giving them away. And so I made a few bows for,
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for some people with large followings and it, it gained a
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lot of traction really quickly. And it got to a point after a
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pretty short amount of time on Instagram that I was getting
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custom orders. And, and after a while of that,
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it got to basically me working a full time job and then coming
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home and filling orders until late into the night.
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And I did that for two years before I started to get burnt
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out. And at that time, the bow making
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had almost replaced my full time income.
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So I had to make a decision because I couldn't continue
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working a full time job and working on bows all night long.
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My my body was definitely deteriorating.
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So I took a leap of faith and I started organic archery in 2018.
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And at that time I had probably built several 100 bows.
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At least I built at least 100, I would say, before I felt truly
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confident in asking money for them.
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And then, yeah, so by 2018, I built Silver 100 and I decided
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to start organic archery. And the rest is history.
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I focused on, I focused on custom orders for the first two
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years. And for me personally, that was
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not sustainable. It it just kind of, it was very
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impersonal. You know, the custom orders come
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in online, you fill them, you send them off.
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You never see or speak to the customers.
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And it was it, it really felt like factory work after a while.
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My books were super backed up and I was in here from sunup to
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sundown seven days a week. And I was single at that time.
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You don't really focus on building my business.
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And so that started to burn me out.
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So we decided to start school. And around that time, I met my
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wife and she helped me, you know, with some of the logistics
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of the school. And she's a, she's a
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professional bakery chef. She used to be a bakery chef.
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Now she's a stay at home mom. But so now she, she cooks for
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the classes and, and that's our main focus, but that's kind of
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the whole evolution in a nutshell.
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We've been running classes for four full years.
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We're in our fifth year now and we've had over 100 students that
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have come through. Amazing.
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What was the time gap between when you bought that first bow
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and when you started actually making?
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Your bows, I would say six months at most probably.
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I had bought the bow and and shot it every day and I realized
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pretty quickly that the arrows were going to get expensive.
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So I focused on those for six months, maybe a year tops and
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and then it was straight into hand making the bows, right.
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Not everyone, especially this being the first episode of
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Project Quiver, is going to understand the terminology of of
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bow making. But a board bow?
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Can you explain what that is? A board bow is one that is
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crafted from dimensional lumber, typically bought from the local
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hardware store, and usually a hardwood like Hickory or oak.
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What was your first one? I started with red Oak, like
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many people. There used to be a forum back
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then or a website called Poor Folk Bows, and it was just about
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making bows from, you know, these pyramid bows, which are
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very wide and they taper to a point and they have a stiff
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handle. And you know that that's the
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design that I started with, OK. And then you went on, you made a
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number of board bows. Were they all successful or did
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you have some failures in that first handful?
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They were all successful in that they shot, but they were
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abominations. They, some of them had so much
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hand shock that it felt like it was going to knock my teeth out.
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Some of them, the handle would pop off, you know, multiple
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times and I would have to reglue it and bind it with cordage.
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So it was, it was a journey. And looking back on the, the
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tiller of those early bows, they, they were pretty rough.
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It's a wonder most of them survived.
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And then you went on to stave. So a stave is what?
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A stave is a bow that is taken from 1/4 log.
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Essentially you fell a tree and then split it out into at least
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quarters, or if it's a larger tree, eights.
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And then that pipe, that 6 foot long pie shaped blank is your
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stave. And.
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Your first was Osage Orange, do you still have it?
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You know, I had it for probably 10 years and I sent it off in a
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Viking funeral one day just because my rack was getting
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completely, it was, there were bows everywhere and I, I just
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had to burn a bunch of them basically.
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I, I, I gave as many of them away as I could to friends and
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family and, you know, people online.
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And the early one was not really, I mean, it was a great
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bow, but it was, it was pretty rough looking.
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So I just burned it in a ceremonial goodbye.
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And after 100 or so, what was the first bow that you sold?
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Do you remember what kind it was?
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The first bow I sold was a Hackberry flat bow, and I sold
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it to Donnie Dust, who some people might recognize from The
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History Channel or he's big on the social media channels as
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well. Yeah, he he bought the very
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first bow that I ever sold for money.
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Nice, so a lot of work goes into bows and anyone who's tried
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making them understands that. How much time do you spend on
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average making a bow? I've never been the type of
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person that keeps track. Each bow is unique and you can
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have one that is tillered. So the tillering process is the
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art, the actual art of bow making.
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That's where you teach wood to bend into an even arc.
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And I forgot the question, sorry, I was on a roll there.
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No? No the the the amount of time
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that goes into. Oh, the amount of time so so
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they can, they can fight you tooth and nail from beginning to
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end, you know, and the tillering process can take 2 full days or
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it can take 2 hours. Sometimes you just establish A
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thickness taper into the limbs and you get an even bend right
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out the gate and, and it's, it's smooth sailing from there.
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And sometimes you struggle and you have to heat it.
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And, and so it could be 40 hours in a bow or it could be 14 hours
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in a bow. It's, it's really hard to tell
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if I was building 1 for speed, which I, I don't typically do, I
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really like to take my time. But if I was building 1 for
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speed, I could probably build one in four hours, not including
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finish work. I mean, I could take a rough
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piece of wood and get it into a rough shooting bow that would
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have a long service life in four to five hours.
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But I would say my average is well over 20 hours maybe and.
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What kind of tools are you using typically?
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I like to stick to the hand tools.
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I do have a band saw and a belt Sander, but those are mostly
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used for arrow making. I just don't like to manage the
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dust and also power tools require a lot of maintenance
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typically when you're running them hard.
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So I stick to my core tools would be a draw knife to for
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major mass reduction, a spoke shave, which I don't use all
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that often, but that is a little bit more of a finer reduction
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tool. It's like a miniature draw knife
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essentially with a depth, with a set depth.
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So it can only remove so much wood.
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And then I use a series of rasps.
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I would say my #1 go to rasp is the barriers rasp which is used
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for shaping horse hooves. That's a very aggressive tool.
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But I also use a Shinto rasp, which is a Japanese sawtooth
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rasp. And then I will usually use a
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card scraper and a couple of different needle files for
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shaping the knocks. And then of course sandpaper and
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and you know all the stuff for finishing.
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Have you developed your own kind of unique style and your your
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favorite type of bow that you like to make?
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I thought that I had developed a favorite style, but it it, it
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just seems to morph. I'll spend a couple of years
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really enjoying making, for example, like a home of Guard
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replica. And I also like the English
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Longbow a lot. I've been making a ton of those
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over the last couple of years and I would say at this time
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that 1 is probably my favorite. Just they're easy to construct,
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which I think is why they took, took us, you know, a deep, they
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grew deep roots in the military culture because you could
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maximize your, your, your tree yield basically because you get
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more bows out of the same tree. But the way that they are laid
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out with the round belly profile and everything, establishing the
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thickness taper is very easy and they just seem to come together
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really quickly are. You making the long bows out of
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yew wood? I'm probably 1500 miles from the
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nearest Yew Tree and everybody knows that has ever tried to buy
14:34
you save that they can be extremely expensive, especially
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one that is suitable for like a war bow for example.
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You're looking at 300 plus U.S. dollars for a premium stave.
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So I use the woods that I have available to me and hackberry
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makes an excellent English Longbow.
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So does Mulberry, white ash and Hickory as well, although some
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of the denser woods, you know, you have to.
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You can't just like apply the design to any wood and have it
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succeed. You have to know how the wood's
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density and relates to its length and things like that so
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that you can scale it down if the wood is very dense.
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So, for example, Osage, of course, makes many great bows,
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but it's so dense that if you apply it to an English Longbow,
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it can't be 7 feet long. It has to be, you know, below 6
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feet long and much narrower than another species of wood.
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It all boils down to the mass. But there are many different
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bows that can make a good English Longbow.
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Yeah, I think you mentioned the therapeutic side of archery when
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you first got into it. How has that impacted your life?
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For me, it's been tremendous and I think that's been probably the
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number one thing that keeps me coming back to it.
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Is that therapeutic, almost well, definitely meditative
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aspect of archery. How's that impact you?
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I found it very beneficial in managing military related post
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traumatic stress. It's it's like a meditation for
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me in a way. It it's sort of a daily
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practice. My wife talks about this all the
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time. She's a yoga teacher and she
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talks about the the practice, you know, the actual discipline
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of doing it every single day, even on the days that you don't
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want to, and finding that, finding that place of peace and
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connectedness to the actual art. Or in this case, I consider
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archery to be a bit of a martial art, which it was considered,
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you know, for thousands of years to be a military or martial art.
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So yeah, for me, it's a, it's a daily meditation.
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It's a practice to go out there and shoot even on the days that
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I don't want to or even on the days that I'm, I'm shooting
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poorly just to clear my head. It's kind of a calm mental space
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because the more clutter you have, the worse you shoot and
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the more you can clear your mind, the better you shoot.
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I want to hear more about the post traumatic stress and how
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the artery is beneficial to it because I, I do something called
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archery therapy, which is not very well known, but I use
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archery to help people heal. I'm also an acupuncturist and I
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got into archery through my practice of Qigong, which is a
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healing art. And so I combine the healing
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arts with the martial arts and I find it tremendously helpful for
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people. But I I would love to hear your
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experience with it in that healing aspect.
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I'm not entirely sure I could put it into words.
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I think more than anything, it's just the it's a mind clearing
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exercise and for, you know, a lot of combat fats.
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The the the mind can be a bit of a trap.
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I suppose you can get into these spirals of thought that, that,
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that take you down old memories or, or negative feedback loops
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or, you know, aggression or irritation or any number of ways
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that that can manifest. For some people it's depression,
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for some people it's aggression. But but yeah, I just consider
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archery my daily mind clearing exercise.
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And if I miss it for too long, I can, I can feel myself building
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up, you know, tension in my body.
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So I'm not really sure what the, you know, what the pathways or
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the mechanics are to the healing process.
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But for me, it's just a mind clearing exercise, which is like
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a meditation, which of course you know, a lot of people know.
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Meditation is is great for calming yourself and just
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general overall healing. Yeah.
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And curious if you're shooting style, do you shoot
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ambidextrously or do you just shoot 1 sided?
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I'm right-handed only OK and Mediterranean draw as well can.
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You explain what that is the Mediterranean draw.
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The Mediterranean draw is the one that is most, you know,
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depicted in movies and and it's the one that you see everybody
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use nowadays. The arrows placed on the left
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side of the bow and it's drawn with it on the right-handed
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Archer. So bow goes in my left hand
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string is drawn with my right and I'm a split finger shooter
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as well, which means one finger above the knock and two fingers
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below. But it's just the style that you
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see in all the movies and and basically everyone uses it with
19:30
with some exception. Right.
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And then that's different from is it called the Asian style?
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I don't know the the right name for but.
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I know different. Styles for sure in Asia where
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they're shooting off the thumb side and pinching the string
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more with a knuckle and the thumb rather than in between the
19:52
fingers. Yeah, I just call those Eastern
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draw styles. I, I don't know the formal name
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for them either, but the Eastern style is to place the arrow on
20:02
the right side of the bow if you're right-handed Archer and
20:05
to draw the string with the thumb.
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And typically, you know, a Mediterranean Archer uses some
20:10
sort of finger protection typically like a tab or a glove.
20:15
And Eastern style Archer uses a thumb ring, right?
20:20
So I asked about shooting on both sides because someone is
20:23
shooting as much as you do and you look like you're quite fit.
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How do you offset that imbalance?
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How do you adjust to that to to accommodate it?
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Or do you? I probably should, but I don't.
20:36
And the, the English, you know, the, the English skeletons that
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were uncovered, for example, with the Merry Rose ship had
20:44
deformed skeletons where the bone density in their left arm
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from holding these heavy bows was 30% denser than their right
20:52
side. And I'm noticing some of that in
20:55
my physique. My left arm is quite noticeably
20:58
larger than my right. And they, they have totally
21:01
different muscle structure. Like my left arm, for example,
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has like really full muscle bellies.
21:06
And then my right arm is long and lean and it's, it's, it's
21:10
slight, but it is noticeable to me.
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And I have some also some noticeable differences in the
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erectors in my spine as well. The one on my left side is much
21:22
more developed than the one on my right and so I probably
21:28
should train to fix that balance.
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But my training is just old school military stuff.
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I still stick to the running, lifting, occasionally pull up,
21:39
lots of pull ups, push ups, body weight squats, body weight
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lunges, type that type of stuff. Yeah.
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So I try to keep myself as well-rounded as I can in my
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fitness routine, but I don't do anything to offset the
21:50
imbalances that are being created by archery.
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And have you ever tried shooting from the other side?
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Yeah, actually we when people come to our classes, we finish
22:04
out the class with a long shooting session on the last day
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and cover the fundamentals of archery.
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And then we do a game that we that I made-up called archery.
22:14
It's like reverse horse basically.
22:16
So you shoot for the letters you and you want to get the letters.
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But anyway, everyone's taking turns picking these wild shots
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and you can, you know, you can pick moving shots or shots from
22:26
the trees or, or offhanded shots.
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So a lot of folks pick offhanded shots.
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And so I get a little bit of practice on my offhand that way.
22:35
How's that feel? Totally foreign.
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It's I I can hit what I'm looking at because I know what
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the archery, I know what the sight picture is supposed to
22:43
look like, but the draw feels totally off.
22:46
It's it's weird for me to reach anchor point with the off arm.
22:49
Yeah, and you mentioned the Mary Rose and these British Archers,
22:54
like they some, in some cases they were pulling bows that were
22:57
over 200 lbs. And this was their job.
22:59
So they were training at this all the time and they were quite
23:03
imbalanced. So when I first got into archery
23:06
and I had a calling to it, I just felt it like I needed to
23:11
find a traditional bow. And I ended up one of my, my
23:13
first teacher, Jamie MacDonald, who's going to be part of the
23:16
book. I ended up finding him.
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He lives, he lived a few hours north of where I was living at
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the time. And I bought a, an English long
23:23
bow from him, one made out of Pacific Ewe.
23:26
And my very first shots, I thought, you know what, I want
23:29
to be able to do this both sides.
23:30
I don't want to be imbalanced. And so I started shooting on my
23:32
off side and I shot probably two or three rounds the first time
23:36
I'd ever shot a bow. And so then I kind of that was
23:39
like, OK, that feels all right. And then I moved to what should
23:41
have been my, my good side. And ever since I've just
23:44
switched back and forth. Any time I go out to shoot, I'll
23:46
do like 100 arrows on either side or whatever it is.
23:49
I always balance it out. And what I've noticed is we're
23:53
all one eye dominant for me, I'm right eye dominant.
23:57
So I'm what would be my good side?
24:00
What I'm looking at is typically what I hit, but with my when I
24:04
shoot on the off side with my left eye being weaker, I have
24:08
quite a bit of ground to make up and what I'm looking at to where
24:11
the arrow goes is quite different.
24:13
But what I've noticed over the years is that distance has
24:15
really decreased and so my aim is now much truer with my left
24:19
eye than it used to be. So I don't know what it's doing
24:23
with the brain and the vision, but I think it's helping and
24:26
certainly I find that it's helping to, to keep the body
24:30
balanced as opposed to, to creating an imbalance with it.
24:33
So I've always loved it. I've I've enjoyed the challenge
24:35
of doing it. I recommend it.
24:37
We'll do it when I come. Nice.
24:39
Yeah, it's probably something that I can should incorporate
24:43
and it it sounds helpful. It's, it's more meditative, I
24:46
find even to switch sides, it's more, it's more complete anyway
24:51
as far as doing both sides. But when I go on what would be
24:55
my off side, there's just that little bit more of like
24:58
attention and focus that's required.
25:01
And now probably not because I've been doing it for so long,
25:04
but I think it really helped with that kind of complete
25:07
holistic meditative package of it.
25:10
Yeah, it sounds like it'd be quite challenging for your brain
25:12
to adjust and you know, if you were practicing like like that
25:15
regularly, yeah, it might be something I I might have to go
25:18
out later today and try a few off end shots.
25:20
Yeah, I teach, when I teach lessons here in my home in Costa
25:23
Rica, I always offer that to people.
25:25
And a lot of people will want to shoot both sides.
25:27
And it's it's always a good challenge.
25:30
And I think sooner they start, the better off if they're going
25:32
to get into archery. Yeah, many of the Middle Eastern
25:36
Archer like warrior cultures, they were required to shoot from
25:40
both sides of the bow. It was part part of their
25:42
mandatory training. I didn't know that.
25:45
Lars Anderson covers some of this that stuff in in a few of
25:48
his, you know, historically based videos.
25:50
Yeah. For like the Saracen archery and
25:52
stuff. You mentioned that your first
25:55
bow was sold to someone from The History Channel, and The History
25:57
Channel reached out to you early on.
25:58
What's your relationship with them now?
26:00
I know you've you've actually done some programming with them,
26:03
is that right? Yeah, I, I mean, I, I wouldn't
26:08
say that we have a long standing relationship or anything.
26:11
You know, we, we did the alone show and you you do your time
26:14
and and that's pretty much it. There's a lot of contact leading
26:16
up to the show and you're very what?
26:19
Is tell. Me about the Alone show.
26:22
For anyone that doesn't know, The Alone Show is a survival
26:24
show that's on The History Channel and it's where 10
26:28
contestants are dropped into the most remote and dangerous
26:32
locations on earth with 10 survival items.
26:35
And it's a last man standing type of deal basically.
26:38
And it's all self filmed. So obviously with the title
26:42
Being Alone, one of the major factors is the mental isolation
26:46
of being alone in the wilderness for an extended period of time.
26:49
And it's all self filmed. And yeah, you try to see how
26:52
long you can last where. Were you?
26:55
I was in the Northwest Territories of Canada in the
26:59
Great Slave Lake area, which is near the near the Arctic Circle.
27:03
How long? How long were?
27:06
You out there? I was out there for 12 days
27:09
because I sustained a left knee injury that took me out.
27:13
I tore my MCL in meniscus on the 3rd or 4th day and I wrote it
27:18
out for about 9 more days before the condition was unsafe.
27:23
I had a large pocket of fluid in the back of my knee and it had
27:28
totally disabled my my ability to to move.
27:32
And I had no lateral stability in my knee, which I later found
27:35
out was from a torn MCL. And there was so much fluid in
27:38
the back of my knee that I was worried that if that SAC
27:41
ruptured, it would cause septic arthritis.
27:44
And we were, we were like 45 minutes QRF quick relief, you
27:48
know, to, to get a helicopter on site and then another several
27:52
hours by Bush plane to the nearest hospital.
27:55
They're of course trained medical personnel on staff.
27:58
But with something like sepsis, I mean, I'm not willing to risk
28:01
my life for a television show. And also I love my life back
28:06
home. We're very active.
28:09
We love camping and hiking and, and, you know, working out and
28:12
running. And so when, when I'm looking
28:16
at, you know, severe knee, lifelong knee damage, it's, it's
28:20
just wasn't worth it to me. So.
28:23
How long were how long was the winner out there for?
28:27
I was on the 100 day challenge which was a special season
28:31
season 7 where they doubled the prize money to $1,000,000 for
28:35
anyone that could last 100 days and Roland Welker made it all
28:39
100 days. So you said you were given
28:43
survival items. Were you given a bow or did you
28:45
have to craft a bow? You have to choose the bow.
28:50
You choose your 10 survival items from a carefully curated
28:56
20 to 30 items that the show allows, and the bow.
29:01
If you choose to take a bow, it comes as an archery kit
29:04
basically. So you get a bow, 9 arrows with
29:08
points of your choosing, A quiver and a shooting glove to
29:13
protect your hand. And so that is your archery kit,
29:17
and that counts as one item I'm. Going to assume you chose an
29:20
archery kit. Absolutely.
29:22
What kind of bow? Was it Anything about it?
29:26
Not really. It was.
29:27
I mean, I made the bow for the show.
29:30
It was a long hackberry flat bow.
29:31
Oh, you. Made it OK.
29:33
Yeah, you can choose to bring a self-made bow or a fiberglass
29:37
laminate, but it has to be traditional.
29:39
They don't allow compounds on the show.
29:43
So other than the injury, well, including the injury, it was
29:45
part of your experience. What was it like for you?
29:49
It was, it was eye opening in a lot of different ways.
29:54
It was very humbling because of course everyone goes out there
29:57
with the mentality that they're going to, you know, show
30:00
northern Canada what's up and they're going to the come out
30:03
the champ and it's all going to go great.
30:06
And it's very humbling when you get out there and see just how
30:08
difficult it is, how challenging the conditions of the
30:11
environment are. And then you add injury on top
30:14
of that. I mean, it's it's incredibly
30:16
challenging just to start with, to survive for 100 days in a
30:20
while with no supplies other than, you know, tools to acquire
30:25
food. And then you can double the
30:28
difficulty by the self filming aspect because not only do I
30:32
have to walk down and get water to bring up to camp to boil, I
30:35
got to walk down, set up my camera, walk back a little ways
30:37
and then pretend I'm walking down to, you know, so everything
30:40
is twice over because you have to set up the cameras and
30:43
capture the shots And and of course, hunting is made many
30:48
times more difficult by cameras. And so you've got, say double
30:53
the difficulty, maybe more by having to sell film the show and
30:57
then and add injury on to that. And it's just exponential.
31:02
And I'm assuming that the filming part must be required.
31:06
Like you can't just be like, fuck it, I'm not going to film
31:09
this. I'm just going to go hunt.
31:10
Oh, no, yeah, no, there's a, there's a contractual
31:14
requirement to film at least the bare minimum is 40 hours a week
31:19
of of footage. So you're filming all day every
31:22
day. If the cameras aren't on, you
31:24
don't get the shots. So you got a camera on on you,
31:27
You got a Gopros, you got a handheld, you got a big, you
31:30
know, production camera that sits on a tripod and you've,
31:33
you've got some kind of camera with you day and night.
31:36
Wow. So that must be like, must be an
31:40
incredible drain on you trying to be out there surviving and
31:44
then dealing with all of that stuff.
31:47
Yeah, they, you know, they try to shift your mentality around
31:50
the cameras to treat it like a, like a personal diary or like a
31:53
Wilson, for example. But they, they're, I don't like
31:58
Wilson very much. It turns out just lugging the
32:01
cameras around is a, is a giant pain.
32:03
But it was an awesome experience for the short amount of time.
32:07
You know, obviously I wish I could have lasted a lot longer.
32:10
I don't feel like I was able to accomplish what I set out to
32:13
with the journey, but I I took a lot home with it and it was very
32:16
humbling, which I suppose was the lesson that I was supposed
32:19
to receive from that. Right.
32:22
And then you were involved in some other media with archery,
32:27
weren't you? You did a marksman show or?
32:30
Yeah, so alone alone came and went, you know, and and of
32:35
course that they've got as soon as your season's over, they
32:38
they're they're prepping for the next season.
32:39
So it's not like you have a long standing relationship with The
32:41
History Channel just because you've been on that show, right?
32:44
And so, you know, life goes on a couple of years past and History
32:49
Channel reached back out. They were running a new they
32:53
were running a pilot for a new show called the Ultimate
32:56
Marksman, where they were going to use well, for our for our
33:00
season, it was tools from the Wild West like first contact,
33:07
like first western contact type situation.
33:10
So primitive bows, flintlock rifles, I believe there was an
33:15
episode on center fire pistols like revolvers and then throwing
33:20
weapons, throwing Tomahawks and throwing knives and things of
33:23
that nature. And so I was an archery episode.
33:27
There were two archery episodes. I think they ended up breaking
33:30
it up. And I'm in season 2 or the
33:32
second running. So yeah, our our episode was
33:36
purely archery. There were very short bows and
33:43
yeah, originally we were going to bring our own bows, but they
33:46
figured there would be some conflict there.
33:47
You know, if it's like, I mean, just in my case, like if a
33:51
professional bow, you're had a bow that was crafted and, and
33:54
someone had a bow that they, you know, they've only made 10 bows
33:58
and, you know, there would be an obvious difference in the
34:00
performance of those bows. So they didn't want that to be a
34:03
factor. So they supplied us with the
34:04
bows in the end. But yeah, we shot unique
34:08
challenges set up to replicate situations in the Wild West.
34:14
So it was for a $10,000 grand prize, and there were three
34:19
challenges total. Let's see.
34:22
The first one was a speed shooting challenge.
34:25
It requires speed and accuracy. So we were shooting at various
34:29
sized discs, anywhere from about the size of AI would say a
34:35
tennis ball to a basketball. That was about the varying sizes
34:40
of the targets. And so we were standing about,
34:43
oh, I would say 1515 yards away, definitely not more than 20.
34:48
They were unknown distances. We, you know, we didn't know the
34:51
distance, but I would estimate it at about 15 yards and the
34:55
host would call out a random number and it was a race to see
34:57
who could put it through that bullseye, however big it was
35:01
first. So that was challenge #1
35:04
challenge number 2 was a river hunting simulation where you're
35:08
using the water as cover and you're moving quickly along the
35:11
shoreline and you're shooting at, some of them were stationary
35:16
and unknown distances, and some of them had a rotating wheel
35:20
with a small hole. So it was a, it was an accuracy
35:22
and a timing shot there. So there were 4 targets in that
35:28
challenge, and the distances were much further in that one.
35:32
I would estimate those distances to be 20 to 25 yards, and the
35:36
targets were quite small, about the size of a dinner plate.
35:40
And then the third challenge was to simulate a Buffalo running
35:44
downhill and you're trying to catch it before it disappeared
35:48
essentially. So it was 3 arrows at a target
35:51
that was rolling down the hill and it had two separate bull's
35:56
eyes painted on it that were, I mean, these were larger targets,
36:00
but you had three arrows and it was kind of like dealer's
36:05
choice. You had to put one in the large
36:08
target in the center, one in the.
36:09
So one of the targets was stationary because it was
36:13
painted on the center of this giant rolling wheel and the
36:15
other one was painted on the outside of the wheel so it
36:17
moved. So there was a timing challenge
36:22
involved with the smaller target, but you had to put 1
36:25
arrow in each of those, and then it was dealer's choice as to
36:28
where you put the third arrow. And if you put the third arrow
36:31
in the moving target, it was double the points.
36:34
So how'd? It work out for you.
36:37
I won that show. Nice.
36:38
Yeah, yeah, Nice. Nice redemption after the whole
36:42
Alone thing, you know? How's your niece?
36:45
It's the alone thing. Going to heal up.
36:48
Yeah, it was a really long recovery because I I chose not
36:51
to do surgery. You know, they weren't
36:53
recommending surgery. It wasn't a total MCL tear.
36:56
There was, it was still hanging on.
36:58
And they said if I just took it easy and did a lot of physical
37:00
therapy, that it would eventually heal.
37:05
And a long time ago in another life, I, I did a short stint as
37:08
an exercise therapist and personal trainer.
37:11
So I, I knew what I needed to do to heal it.
37:14
And it took at least two years, I would say, before it was fully
37:20
right again where I could go back to, you know, 100%
37:23
training. But yeah, it's, it's been a long
37:25
time now. I think I did alone in like
37:27
2019. So it's been, I mean, six years.
37:31
Yeah. So you mentioned you started up
37:35
a school. How's that experience been for
37:38
you? The bow making school has been
37:42
the best decision we've ever made.
37:44
It it it really reignited my passion for the craft.
37:52
Like I said, you know, in in the early years when I was just in
37:55
here building bows by myself from sunup to sundown for years,
37:59
that that was kind of getting old.
38:02
I guess it was taking the joy out of it.
38:05
And after we started bringing people in here and getting to
38:07
meet all these awesome people from all different walks of life
38:10
and all over the US and even some people from other
38:12
countries, that's been fantastic.
38:17
We invite them into our home. We build both together for three
38:20
or four days, depending on which class you choose, because we
38:24
have a beginner and an advanced course.
38:26
And yeah, we share meals. My wife cooks these amazing
38:29
lunches that are just, she goes all out with those.
38:33
And so we share great meals and we build those for several days
38:36
and at night we sit around the fire and, and everyone tells
38:39
stories and it's just good fun and that it's been so enriching
38:45
and I look forward to it every month.
38:48
We we run about one a month, sometimes one every two months.
38:52
Just depends on how the year's scheduling works out.
38:55
But averages out to about 8 classes a year and I look
38:59
forward to every single one. My first experience bow making,
39:03
I had bought my first bow from Jamie McDonald and, and British
39:07
Columbia. And then I was doing men's
39:09
retreats at the time. And so I asked him if I could
39:11
bring a group of men and we would do bow carving in addition
39:16
to stuff that we were doing on a men's retreat.
39:18
And so that was the first time I ever carved a bow.
39:20
I carved in English long bow with him and I did a few rounds
39:23
of that with him before COVID happened.
39:26
But it was just what an amazing experience for the men who had
39:31
never, some of them never worked with wood before, some of them
39:33
never worked with their hands before.
39:36
And we were doing a lot of deep personal transformation during
39:39
the retreat. And then to combine that with
39:41
this, like kind of metaphorical peeling back of the layers of
39:46
the wood, like so many men were having such deep breakthroughs
39:49
and carving the bows because it was so relevant to the
39:52
experiences we were going through.
39:54
We would carve bows for 8 hours a day and then at night time
39:56
we'd go and do a bunch of of men's work stuff.
40:00
And just the, the symmetry between those was amazing.
40:04
And I, I didn't fully appreciate how incredible that was going to
40:07
be until we actually got there and started carving these bows
40:10
and seeing how just carving the bow itself is therapeutic.
40:15
And I don't think anyone who hasn't done that or hasn't
40:18
worked with their hands or hasn't shaped a piece of wood
40:21
into something, I don't think they can understand that.
40:23
But it's it's so easy, as you said, you would spend sunlight
40:28
to sundown, you know, carving bows.
40:31
It's so easy to get immersed in it because it's just like this
40:34
purely meditative pursuit and peeling back the layers of this
40:39
wood. And really I'm still I've I've
40:42
only probably carved 30 or 40 bows and definitely not all
40:45
successful, but it's so exciting, I find to like take a
40:49
stave and not really know what weights inside of it.
40:52
You know, that's, I know that there's, there is bow potential
40:55
there, but to actually peel back those layers and actually have
40:58
this thing take shape that's not just a beautiful piece of wood
41:02
because it is, but something that's fully functional and it's
41:06
basically able to be tested to it's near breaking point and
41:09
then perform time and time and time again.
41:12
It's it's incredible. I mean, that's sorry, it's my
41:16
romantic outlook on bow carving, but I absolutely love it and it
41:20
it brings me great joy. Like when people like you who
41:23
have so much passion for it are then able to share that with
41:26
other people. It's that's awesome.
41:28
And I see that every day just with people I'm giving lessons
41:31
to. But I know I haven't taught
41:33
anyone bow carving. So that's, I know that's a whole
41:36
nother layer of appreciation for it.
41:40
Yeah, I love that outlook. We we often joke that we're
41:43
doing a lot more than making bows here.
41:45
People come and they have this experience that pushes them
41:50
mentally. I would say half the people that
41:53
attend our classes have no prior archery or woodworking
41:57
experience. So it's very fulfilling to them
42:01
to achieve something that is incredibly difficult over the
42:05
course of several grueling days. It's, it's definitely an
42:09
exercise in endurance and the reward is so great because they,
42:13
they get to leave with this handcrafted bow that, you know,
42:17
we've, we've never had one that is left here that didn't perform
42:21
excellently. And you don't have a lot of the
42:23
signs of like a, a bow that's going to treat them well for
42:25
many years. But it's long days of stand on
42:32
the concrete, you know, pulling with pulling hand tools through
42:36
hardwoods, which as anyone who's done it knows, is no easy task.
42:40
And if you've never done anything like that before, it
42:43
can definitely leave you exhausted at the end of the day.
42:46
So we have a couple of really exhausting days that push
42:48
people's mental and physical limits.
42:51
And on the third day, we've got it.
42:53
We've got it. Or third or fourth day, of
42:54
course, depending on which class you take.
42:56
We've got it crafted so that that's just the just let off the
42:59
steam and enjoy the beauty of the finished product.
43:02
Day where they get to craft bow strings.
43:05
And it's been the whole day shooting these bows that they
43:08
have essentially suffered, you know, blisters, often times
43:11
blood and plenty of sweat. And yeah, it's just, it's so
43:17
rewarding to see people light up when they watch that first arrow
43:22
leave these bows, you know, with a nice flat trajectory and
43:26
smacking the target. It's, it's very fulfilling for
43:29
me as an instructor. Yeah.
43:30
And that is how Project Quiver came about.
43:35
And I just wanted to carve bows under a number of different
43:39
teachers. I've had two teachers who
43:41
mentioned Jamie and McDonald and and Pete Woodland, who are both
43:44
going to be featured in the book.
43:46
But I wanted to expand. I wanted to carve under a number
43:50
of different people. And so that's how this whole
43:52
idea came about. I was like, well, it's going to
43:55
be a great journey. I'll just travel the world
43:56
carving bows under the best in the world.
43:59
And then I gradually morphed into a book idea.
44:01
And my daughter loves photography and is, is she
44:06
homeschools? And we're like, well, let's,
44:08
let's use this as part of your homeschooling and let's go
44:11
around the world and carve bows and, and record that.
44:14
And so bow carving is just like, I don't think I'll ever go get
44:19
tired of it. I think I love carving bows
44:21
potentially more than I love archery itself.
44:24
And I love archery a whole lot. But the, the meditative aspect
44:28
of carving bows just takes me to another place.
44:32
I think you said that you got an archery from your family, right?
44:37
Yeah, I come from a long line of outdoorsmen and bow hunters.
44:41
Yeah, for some of the people, and it's maybe a hard question
44:44
to answer, but for some of the people that come to your class
44:46
who have never even done archery, what are some of the
44:50
the reasons why they show up to make a bow when they haven't
44:53
even done archery before? Any standouts?
45:01
I think archery, especially primitive or traditional archery
45:05
is, you know, it's got a, it's having a huge comeback in pop
45:12
culture. So you're seeing it in lots of
45:15
movies. It's just popping up everywhere
45:18
from the Predator movies to the, to the medieval movies to The
45:21
Hunger Games, like you name it, it's in hero show like Marvel
45:26
movies and stuff and on and on and on.
45:28
So pop culture has really taken on to the traditional bow.
45:32
It's not often that you see a compound bow in a movie.
45:37
And so I think that might have something to do with it.
45:43
Most people talk, you know, we have plenty of Archers that are
45:48
lifelong Archers or that have been doing it for many years.
45:50
And they're, they're more just regressing their equipment.
45:55
Like they picked up a compound right away, decided, you know,
45:59
for whatever reason, this isn't for me, whether it's all the,
46:03
the technology involved or the fact that you can't repair them
46:07
yourselves in any way. You know, if you're shooting a
46:10
compound, you, you're basically relying on somebody with a bow
46:13
press even to change your bowstrings.
46:16
And there's a lot of things that can go wrong with them that you
46:19
don't really have the ability to fix.
46:22
And they become obsolete so quickly that the, the guarantee
46:26
that you're even going to be able to get parts for them in
46:28
five or ten years is, is, is hit or miss.
46:32
So maybe they shoot a compound for a short period of time,
46:35
decide for whatever reason, whether they're just not drawn
46:38
to the technology or they feel like it's not quite challenging
46:40
enough. They move to a traditional bow,
46:42
often times like a fiberglass recurve.
46:45
And then for one reason or another, they decide that the
46:48
obvious next step for them is to go to primitive archery and make
46:52
their own equipment. And once you have made your own
46:57
bow and arrows, it it just to me, it opens up the
47:02
possibilities in archery because from this point forward, you can
47:05
essentially for free or for a small investment in tools,
47:10
outfit yourself with bows and arrows that you can not only
47:15
build, but repair or replace, you know, in the in any instance
47:20
that they become damaged. So it's kind of a
47:23
self-sufficiency thing, I suppose, which is also, you
47:27
know, gaining a lot of traction right now.
47:29
I think COVID-19 probably had a lot to do with that.
47:34
People getting interested in homesteading and gardening and
47:37
raising chickens And, and I mean, hunting is a, a big facet
47:43
of self-reliance. So bit of a resurgence in
47:47
self-reliance culture I think has a lot to do with it as well.
47:49
Do. You hunt.
47:51
I do, I'm a die hard whitetail hunter.
47:54
Do you use? A bow I have haunted exclusively
47:58
with handmade primitive archery equipment for at least 13 years.
48:03
Wow. Yeah.
48:05
How's that experience? I've never haunted.
48:07
It's something that I've been like, I grew up in a family
48:10
where hunting was not something that was done.
48:12
And now that I'm into archery, I get asked that a lot.
48:14
I'm like, I think I could. I'm not sure if I could.
48:17
I think I could, but how is it? Like you've been a hunter your
48:21
whole life, but how's the how does it compare to hunting with
48:23
your own handmade primitive tools?
48:28
I mean, in my opinion, as far as archery is concerned, it it's
48:31
just the ultimate challenge. I've always been drawn to the
48:36
most challenging thing that I can do.
48:39
For example, you can join any branch of the military, but I
48:41
was determined to join the Marine Corps, which has a
48:43
reputation for being extremely difficult.
48:47
And with primitive archery, it just seemed like the biggest
48:52
challenge to me, like the most rewarding path to choose.
48:57
I'm I don't have anything negative to say about anyone who
49:01
hunts with any equipment. I'm just happy that people are
49:03
out there hunting and modern equipment has a big place.
49:07
And it's an important place as well because not everyone has
49:10
the the ability to train every single day or to, you know,
49:15
shoot for months leading up to the season.
49:19
So where modern archery comes into play is you can pick up,
49:23
say a compound bow and train with it a few days on and off
49:26
for a couple of weeks and get get all the sights and
49:28
everything dialed in. And you can still be an
49:30
effective hunter and provide clean, fresh meat for your
49:33
family. So I do believe that all of that
49:36
has a place. And I would say that that's
49:38
probably the best route for the masses, especially if they don't
49:42
have the time. But for me, it was just
49:45
regressing that, regressing my progression, I suppose, until I
49:51
reached the ultimate challenge, which was a stick bow with a
49:54
string and no aids of any kind. And then the handmade arrows, of
50:00
course, which it shifts the hunting from the equipment
50:08
because the hunting industry has become sort of, in my opinion,
50:14
bastardized by innovation. Compound bows, camouflage sites,
50:22
arrows, you name it, they're obsolete.
50:23
The very next year, it's like it's, it's almost like the
50:26
iPhone, you've got the iPhone 15 and then six months later the
50:30
iPhone 16 comes out and everything about your iPhone 15
50:32
is obsolete even though it worked fine.
50:35
You know, a compound bow will come out.
50:36
That's one foot per second faster and you're supposed to
50:40
spend $3000 on the upgrade. So I think, I think people are,
50:46
are, are kind of sick of the innovation and the sort of the,
50:54
the, the technology overtaking of, of everything, including
50:57
hunting. So you're seeing a big
51:00
resurgence in the traditional archery, which is moving the
51:02
focus away from the equipment and the gear to the woodsmanship
51:08
aspect to the actual challenge of getting into the woods and
51:11
putting in time day after day, unsuccessfully, to learn animal
51:16
behavior and to study their patterns and to learn how to
51:20
track and to read sign and to learn how to read wind and the
51:24
list goes on and on. Learn how to learn about cover
51:28
and concealment and all the things that go into a successful
51:31
hunt on a difficult animal or a highly alert animal like a white
51:35
tailed deer. So there's a lot of, there's a
51:41
lot of time spent without bringing anything home.
51:45
Some years I kill 3 or 4 deer. Some some years I kill one.
51:51
And, and, and that's not for lack of trying either.
51:55
So it's, it's humbling and it forces you to really pay
52:00
attention to the animals. I would say that I'm, I'm, I'm a
52:04
devout student of the white tailed deer and people often
52:08
have difficulty understanding hunters because we, we kill
52:12
these animals. But what they what they miss is
52:15
that I love them dearly and I, I respect them and I, I think
52:21
about them all day long. You know, they become an all and
52:24
they've become an all consuming obsession leading up to deer
52:27
season. And yeah, I just, I really
52:30
respect them and, and it's sort of a, a wit versus wit challenge
52:35
and a a new connection to my food because I, I know that
52:39
animal, often times I've been following it for weeks or
52:42
sometimes even years. I see the same animals over and
52:44
over. So you build a relationship with
52:47
these animals. And yes, it's just the, you
52:51
know, people have no problem. People have no problem eating
52:55
beef and pigs and chickens so long as it doesn't look like a
52:59
cow, a pig or a chicken. So this is, it's the same thing.
53:03
It's just the circle of life. You, you, you don't get to avoid
53:07
it unless you want to be a, a committed vegan.
53:12
But and even then, we we don't even have to get into the
53:14
logistics of that. It's obvious that the commercial
53:18
farming kills many pigs. I have an I have an organic farm
53:23
in British Columbia and the amount of critters that have to
53:26
die to grow anything, it's phenomenal.
53:29
Like you can't. Avoid it and I don't think
53:30
people understand that you take the tractor out to mow down the
53:34
weeds while you're killing a bunch of little ground critters,
53:37
killing birds nests. It's inevitable that's the
53:40
thing. And I think what you said about
53:41
the connection to the food so important because yeah, people
53:46
will go into the grocery store 0 relationship to their food and
53:50
where it came from. They'll buy some meat packaged
53:52
in plastic and that's OK to them.
53:55
But for you, like you said, it's such a, a deeper thing than
53:58
that. And you're getting, quite
54:00
frankly, the meat you're getting is significantly healthier too,
54:04
but. You have.
54:05
Experience you have that relationship and it's I think
54:07
it's so much more important. And I didn't learn that,
54:09
although I'm not a hunter, I've farmed enough with animals that
54:12
I had to process and I had to had a slaughter and process to
54:15
recognize that it's hard and it's it's hard to do, especially
54:18
the very in the first few times like Wow, I have to take this
54:21
life or I'm choosing to and to honor that I want to I want to
54:26
use everything that's here and not just go to the grocery store
54:30
and buy something packaged in plastic that was lived a
54:34
horrible life. Yeah, I, I really believe that
54:38
you, no matter which path you choose, unless you're going to,
54:41
you know, be a one of the people that pretend to survive on water
54:45
and air or whatever, you're not going to be able to remove
54:49
yourself from the cycle of life. You only get to choose how
54:51
you're going to participate in it.
54:53
So you're going to let somebody else do The Dirty work to give
54:55
you the beautifully packaged, cellophane wrapped faceless
55:00
piece of meat? Or are you going to build a
55:03
relationship with that animal? A loving relationship where you
55:06
know what it eats, you know what it drinks, you follow it and you
55:10
care about it. And you tend the land to make
55:13
their life better, you know, to make it more likely that they're
55:17
going to reproduce and that they're going to live a healthy
55:18
life and they're going to make it through the winter.
55:20
You're tending your land to to to make sure that the deer are
55:23
well taken care of. And we, you know, we don't do
55:26
food plots or anything, but on, on the small pieces of family
55:30
land that we have that are multi generational, like we were
55:33
definitely taking care of it and tending to it to make sure that
55:36
the deer have what they need. And yeah, it's just, it's, it's,
55:43
it's a totally different way of life.
55:46
What's the experience for you, that moment of actually taking
55:50
the animal's life some an animal that you like I said you
55:53
intimately know it and its patterns.
55:57
Complete and utter release if I make a good shot.
56:01
Yeah. If I, if I put an arrow right
56:04
through both lungs or right into the heart, all the only the it's
56:07
just a complete tidal wave of relief.
56:11
And I just, I thank the Lord for giving me the ability to put the
56:14
arrow exactly where I wanted it. People think that it's gruesome
56:20
somehow. A lot of times it's
56:21
misconstrued, but I've had deer that had no idea that they were
56:26
hit. I don't, I don't even think, I
56:28
think once the adrenaline kicks in, as far as they're concerned,
56:30
it might be a bee sting, Maybe they got pricked by a stick or
56:34
something. But I I don't think it's
56:35
incredibly painful for them. I've never seen a deer that was
56:38
hit well exhibit any sort of like extreme agony.
56:45
Most of the I've even had deer that have been hit with an arrow
56:47
in a perfectly placed shot and they had no idea what was going
56:50
on and they just went back to eating the grass right there in
56:52
the spot that they were hit and then they fall over.
56:55
So I think it's it's very fast. People don't realize that when
56:58
it's well placed, I mean, a matter of seconds, 20 to 40
57:02
yards on a perfect shot and they're they're falling over,
57:05
especially if they're on a dead run.
57:07
But yeah, it's complete and utter relief for me at the
57:11
moment that I make a good shot. And then of course, I wait.
57:14
I want to make sure that the animal goes down quickly and
57:17
humanely. And then I'll have my moment of
57:19
reverence with that animal while I'm standing over it.
57:21
Just thank it, you know? Thank you.
57:24
Thank you, dear. Thank you, Lord.
57:26
Thank you. Land is kind of my prayer.
57:28
I just say that. And I spent a moment of silence
57:30
with the animal, just checking it out, looking it over, just
57:34
appreciating it. And then the hard work starts
57:39
then. You do the processing.
57:41
I do. We do all of our own processing,
57:43
yeah. And do you use any of the the
57:46
skin or anything in the the bow making process?
57:49
We use pretty much everything. This.
57:53
The hides I turn into rawhide for backing bows.
57:57
I've got a big hide stretcher so they get first they get fleshed
58:02
and then de haired and then I stretch and dry them and those
58:05
hides become bow backing. The sinew from the Achilles
58:10
tendons in the legs is used for either sinew backed Native
58:14
American bows or for arrow making.
58:18
And the bones my wife turns into broth.
58:21
We're big fans of broth. We make all kinds of broths, so
58:25
she makes bone broth out of those, and then we package every
58:29
morsel of meat that we can save. How do you make the arrows from
58:33
sinew? The sinew is just used as a
58:36
binder to attach the feathers and to reinforce the knocks,
58:43
because self-made knocks on a wooden arrow will split from the
58:47
pressure of the bowstring unless they're reinforced directly
58:49
below the knock. So there's a small bit of space
58:53
directly below the knock that's reinforced.
58:55
And then usually the front of the feather is reinforced as
58:58
well to create a smooth transition for shooting off the
59:00
knuckles. Because if you don't have a
59:02
shelf of any kind on your bow, which I, I don't carve shelves
59:05
into any bow that I make. In fact, I don't think I've ever
59:08
carved a shelf. I I love that.
59:11
That was one of our biggest criteria and we were choosing
59:13
who to to reach out to for this book project.
59:16
I would when we would find their work and like there's a shelf, I
59:20
don't know, let's come back to that one.
59:22
Anyone who didn't have a shelf, it was like, there we go.
59:24
Let's see where this one goes. So I really appreciate that.
59:27
I don't know what it is too. I just, I think for me, because
59:29
I shoot ambidextrously, I don't want a shelf.
59:32
I couldn't have a shelf on a bow that I shoot both ways.
59:34
But it's beyond that too. There's something about it that
59:37
I just, you know, it doesn't feel right to me.
59:40
Yeah, I'd like to be connected to the arrow.
59:42
I like to feel where it's at, you know, on my hand.
59:45
And I like to be able to feel the point and everything so that
59:47
I know where I'm at my draw cycle.
59:49
And it just makes me feel more connected to the equipment to be
59:54
able to feel the bow and the arrow.
59:55
Yeah, I don't know. I don't really have any poetic
59:58
reason. I just feel like I I shoot
1:00:00
better that way and I like the way they look.
1:00:03
I think I I think that the carved in shelf, and this is of
1:00:06
course just personal opinion and and and personal aesthetic
1:00:10
preference, but I think that a lot of times the carved in
1:00:13
shelves are a little too reminiscent of the modern
1:00:17
fiberglass riser. I think a lot of people make
1:00:21
these primitive bows or self bows from a single piece of wood
1:00:24
and then they carve this big. Fiberglass riser into it and I
1:00:29
just like the traditional way which I mean cross across all
1:00:32
cultures and most of humanity was snow shelf.
1:00:36
Doesn't matter where at in the world or what style of bow was
1:00:38
being used, it was almost always off the knuckles.
1:00:42
So what's next for you other than I'm coming to see you soon,
1:00:46
but that's probably not that exciting.
1:00:49
But what's what's? What's big and upcoming?
1:00:52
Yeah, we'll be seeing you in what, a month?
1:00:54
A little over a month I'm. In June, yeah.
1:00:56
Nice you. Are number #2 on the world tour
1:01:01
So far we have 14 bow years and awesome, you're #2 on the list.
1:01:05
We're going to hopefully get up to 18.
1:01:07
There's a few we're trying to get who aren't returning our
1:01:09
calls, but we're going to keep trying.
1:01:11
Who's stopped #1? Waylon Waylon Olive in North
1:01:15
Carolina. Nice.
1:01:17
Waylon will set the standard high.
1:01:19
Yeah, and. Then after you, we go to Salt
1:01:21
Lake City for Chuck Leffler. I don't know how to pronounce
1:01:25
his last name properly, but awesome.
1:01:26
I know Chuck's work. He's a master of historical
1:01:29
reproductions. Yeah.
1:01:31
We're what we're trying to do is each bow that I carve, we wanted
1:01:35
to each of them to be unique. I don't want to just carve 14 or
1:01:39
18 English Longbow. So we're trying to select people
1:01:42
who are not only the best but also have their own kind of
1:01:45
niche and their own special craftsmanship.
1:01:47
So they seems to be working out nicely that way.
1:01:52
Awesome. What's next for us?
1:01:55
I would say one big thing is we've started remote classes.
1:01:59
I don't know what that looks like exactly, but we've ran
1:02:02
several. And so that's just me going out
1:02:05
to other people's facilities that have the space to handle
1:02:10
multiple people. And we, we run sort of like
1:02:15
impromptu, like shoot from the hip classes out there because
1:02:18
here we have all the specialized equipment.
1:02:20
You know, I've got stations set up for the students so that they
1:02:23
have everything that they need and they don't have to fuss with
1:02:26
the work piece a lot. But when we're doing it remote,
1:02:30
we never know where we're going to be at or what the equipment's
1:02:32
going to look like. So a lot of times we're working
1:02:34
on our laps or using hatchets to rough out and stuff like that.
1:02:39
So that's something that we're exploring and yeah, we'll see
1:02:42
how that goes. I've done a couple already and
1:02:45
they've been great, fortunately. So we'll, we'll keep running
1:02:49
those and, and see how that turns out.
1:02:51
But otherwise we're just running our normal course schedule this
1:02:53
year. I think we've got at least four
1:02:57
more classes left this year, maybe more.
1:03:00
I'd have to check my schedule, but so we'll keep doing that.
1:03:04
And yeah, I'll keep churning to burning the wood shop take.
1:03:09
I'd take occasional custom orders.
1:03:13
I just don't let my books run away anymore.
1:03:15
It's more like people who are genuinely interested can contact
1:03:18
me and I will take a custom order.
1:03:21
And I do all types of bows from the English Longbow to the short
1:03:24
Native American horse bow and everything in between.
1:03:26
So if it's something that I'm, if someone's really interested
1:03:29
and it's something that sounds like a fun build to me, I take,
1:03:31
I still take customs. So a lot of times I'm in the bow
1:03:34
shop working when we're not running classes.
1:03:37
And aside from that, I'm just, I'm focused on my family.
1:03:41
I've got a wife that stays at home and we've got a son who is
1:03:45
1 1/2 and we've got a thank you. He's great.
1:03:50
So I'm, I'm really spending a lot of time with my son right
1:03:53
now and, and, you know, focus on his early development.
1:03:56
And we've got a small homestead here with chickens and a garden
1:03:59
and gardening season and in full swing right now.
1:04:02
So we're just trying to find balance.
1:04:05
At what at what age does your son get his first bow?
1:04:09
He has a little plastic one right now that that one of our
1:04:13
family members gifted him. It's the one with the little
1:04:15
suction cup arrows, which happens to be the very first bow
1:04:18
that I ever got when I was 3. They're still around the same
1:04:22
exact 1. And so one of our relatives
1:04:26
gifted that to him recently and he's just now starting to
1:04:29
understand the mechanics to where he can get arrows to fly.
1:04:31
But I think his first real bow will be more like 3.
1:04:35
Probably. They just don't quite understand
1:04:37
how to make it work before then. Yeah, and one of my early men's
1:04:41
retreats, I wanted to carve a bow for my son, who at the time
1:04:44
was probably 5 maybe. And so I was at Jamie McDonald's
1:04:50
place in, in British Columbia, and he had a, a little stave of
1:04:54
U Wood. So I started carving it.
1:04:57
And then I had all the men who were at the retreat help out.
1:05:00
So we each took turns carving a little bit of my son's bow and
1:05:03
made this beautiful little English long bow for him.
1:05:06
And I still have. And I was trying to think of a
1:05:08
name that was appropriate for it.
1:05:10
And I told Jamie I wanted it to be something about like people
1:05:14
working together. And it turned out that where he
1:05:17
lives in Powell River, BC, the native name for this area is
1:05:23
called Cothet, which literally means people working together.
1:05:26
So. It's like, that's crazy.
1:05:27
That's. Perfect.
1:05:28
So he got his first bow named Cothet, and he loved it.
1:05:31
He shot that thing for a number of years and I still have it.
1:05:35
I mean, I still use it in my teaching if I have a really,
1:05:38
really tiny person come in who wants to shoot.
1:05:41
That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.
1:05:44
Tell the listeners where they can find out more about you.
1:05:48
Check out your bows, maybe buy a bow, do some classes.
1:05:52
You can find everything you need about the classes and all my
1:05:56
contact information to reach out for a custom order on
1:05:59
organicarchery.com and my full course schedule for all of our
1:06:06
both our beginner advanced and remote classes will always be
1:06:09
live on there. With that, it shows all the
1:06:11
available spots and everything. And then my emails and stuff,
1:06:15
we're listed on there. And then we're also on Instagram
1:06:18
at Organic Period Archer and I'm also on YouTube at Organic
1:06:25
Archery. And YouTube's something I've
1:06:27
really been putting a lot of energy into lately.
1:06:30
So we've got everything from step by step tutorials to just
1:06:36
therapeutic crafting videos. Silent silent bowl, making
1:06:40
videos, historical reproductions.
1:06:42
I'm working on building a library.
1:06:44
I go through phases where I get almost addicted to those silent
1:06:47
bow making videos. Yeah, like they're just so
1:06:50
therapeutic just to sit and or the the ones where there's no
1:06:54
talking, but you can hear the wood being chipped away at with
1:06:56
the hand box or something. It's like, oh, I love that it's.
1:07:00
ASMR style. Yeah, I'm amazed at how many
1:07:02
people watch bow making on YouTube.
1:07:05
It's definitely there's a lot of people who want to learn how to
1:07:08
make bows. It's shocking to me.
1:07:10
But now it's less shocking. But when I first got into it, I
1:07:12
was like, wow, there's hundreds of thousands of people watching
1:07:15
foe making. Yeah, I I was really surprised
1:07:21
at that, at that as well. But I think that the SMR silent
1:07:24
videos of all types are really popular right now.
1:07:26
Like sometimes there's definitely a demographic for
1:07:29
people that want the step by step tutorials and all the
1:07:32
information, the detailed breakdowns.
1:07:34
And then there's people that just want to watch people make
1:07:36
cool stuff in the evenings chilling on their couch, like
1:07:41
just, I don't know, I, I like the restoration videos of old
1:07:45
things like vehicle restorations, bow making, wood
1:07:48
carving, you name it. Just like totally silent
1:07:51
watching people build something really cool.
1:07:54
And a lot of times you can learn just as much from the silent
1:07:57
videos as you do from the step by step tutorials.
1:08:01
So we're trying to find that balance right now.
1:08:03
I try to do a good mix of detailed tutorials and silent
1:08:08
videos. Well, thank you so much, Ron.
1:08:13
I really appreciate you taking the time today and this
1:08:15
opportunity to get to know you a bit before I come and see you in
1:08:18
six weeks. I appreciate you having me on
1:08:20
and we'll look forward to see you in a few weeks all.
1:08:23
Right. Thanks, Corey.
1:08:24
Later, Todd. Thanks for listening to Project
1:08:36
Quiver on Salish Wolf. Follow our journey on Instagram
1:08:39
at Project Quiver as we seek out the world's most extraordinary
1:08:42
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1:08:49
The Art of Life through Bow Craft, arrives in 2026.
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We are honored to share with you the beauty, history, and magic
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