Latest / Salish Wolf / #78 Jared Parkinson on Project Quiver

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#78 Jared Parkinson 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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  Thanks for doing this, Derek. Yeah, absolutely.
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  I want to say right off the bat, because I keep having these
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  recordings where I end record and then the conversation
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  continues for a while and I don't get it recorded.
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  So if you have any questions for me today, feel free to ask away.
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  I'm happy for this to be a two way conversation.
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  So again, thanks for jumping on the show with me and remind me I
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  I really don't remember where you're located.
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  Port towns in Washington. OK, cool.
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  So that's not far from where are my places on Vancouver Island.
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  Nice. How long you been carving bows?
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  This. Will be my 4th year.
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  What got you into it, Grandpa? Or how so see a Carver Bowyer.
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  He's not a Bowyer and he's not really a Carver either.
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  But like from a really young age, he got me involved with
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  primitive skills. I remember being 7-8 years old
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  and being out on the Teton Canyon where I grew up in Idaho,
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  and he was teaching me how to nap arrowheads.
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  And he taught me how to make Adel Addles when I was about
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  that same age. And then got into archery a
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  little bit as like a preteen and then lost my way a little
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  through the teenage years. And then he gifted me a Longbow
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  when I was 18. And that I just, like, ignited
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  all of it. When that bow broke, that's when
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  I decided to go and make my first bow with Corey.
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  Corey Hawk. Yeah.
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  When was that? That was June of 22.
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  OK, where did he, where did your grandfather get the long bow?
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  A friend of his made it for him some years back and it was just
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  like a pretty simple board bow with like a piece glued onto the
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  handle. Pulled 45 at 28 and I just
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  thought it was the coolest thing ever.
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  So you shot it regularly once you got it?
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  Yeah. I mean, for the first couple
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  years I had it, few years I had it, I didn't really shoot it all
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  that much. And then probably more so when I
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  was like 25, I really, really started shooting it more
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  regularly. Yeah, and is that something
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  you're still doing regularly? No archery.
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  Oh yeah, absolutely. For the past four years, I've
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  shot at least, you know, once or twice a week for the most part.
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  And there's been a couple periods in there where I've shot
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  every day and I'm getting back in the shooting every day for,
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  you know, 20 minutes or so. Yeah, why?
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  What does it bring to you? Just like the most profound
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  sense of peace that I've been able to find really anywhere.
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  OK. That's understandable.
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  Yeah, Yeah. So it's there's a bit of
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  therapeutic aspect to it. Oh yeah, for sure.
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  Do you shoot with others or are you typically just shoot alone?
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  So right now I shoot alone during the week and then I'm
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  just now like established like a every Sunday me and some friends
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  get together and shoot for, you know, an hour or two over at my
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  workshop so. Are you shooting your bows when
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  your friends get together or do they have their own?
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  Couple of my friends have their own and then I also supply bows
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  and arrows for people to use and.
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  And are all your bows basically primitive bows?
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  I do have a laminate Longbow and then I do have like a, you know,
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  pretty standard like recurve. The recurve pulls like 25 lbs.
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  So that's more so like if one of my friends brings their ladies
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  or something, like I have something for her to shoot.
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  Do you have a couple primitive long bows that pull light
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  weights as well? And then the laminate Longbow I
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  have pulls 55 to 28. So that was the bow that I
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  bought right after I broke my bow before I went and made that
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  first one with Quarry because I just like I wanted to have a bow
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  that I could continue to shoot every day.
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  So. So you're not shooting any
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  compound bows or any modern fiberglass bows?
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  OK, All wooden laminates herself bows.
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  Cool. And why is that?
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  Have you shot with the other types of bows before?
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  Yeah. So when I was a preteen, I had
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  like a 40 LB compound and like, you know, it was fun, but I
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  always gravitated towards like the instinctual shooting side of
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  things. Yeah, just like less equipment,
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  bare bones, like the more simple it is, like the less that can go
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  wrong and the more that's like on me.
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  Yeah, to have my accuracy and my precision where it needs to be.
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  Are you, do you find that deeper sense of peace when you're
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  shooting with a perimeter bow or a self bow then with a compound
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  bow? Completely.
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  And what do you think that is? It's more specifically even with
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  the self bow, like the laminate long bow doesn't even bring me
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  like the same sense of peace as a self bow.
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  It's just a very unique way that I have been shown to connect
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  with nature. And so yeah, specifically the
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  self bows, they shoot differently than the laminates.
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  And yeah, that sense of peace, like, runs deeper with just the
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  way that a self bow feels in your hand and the connection
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  that you have with it. Because the only self bows that
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  I've ever shot are ones that I've made myself.
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  And that's, you know, another relationship that I have with
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  that as well. Yeah.
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  I've never shot a compound bow, fiberglass bow, anything modern,
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  And I don't want to like I've never felt any sort of resonance
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  with that. And I'll shoot primitive bows
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  probably until the day I can no longer shoot.
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  But I don't think I would ever pick up a more modern bow for
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  it. So I don't quite know what that
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  is. But like you, I it's, there's a
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  deep connection and I think it's the the more primitive, the
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  deeper it goes. So it's, there's something
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  there. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So what are you making mostly as
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  far as Bose? Do you have any particular types
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  that you're making? I really like making like the
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  Eastern Woodlands been through the handle style bow.
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  That's probably like my favorite build to do right now.
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  I just took a road trip last month and picked up quite the
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  hall of bow staves. And within those bow staves,
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  there's pretty much a a stave for kind of any design that I
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  want to want to build. So I'm just about to start like
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  really diving into some different designs and I'm
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  excited for that. Really want to make a paddle
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  bow. I'm currently working on a
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  Comanche style horse bow and I'm just getting into making arrows
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  as well. How did you get these days?
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  Are these just staves that you are cutting as you are doing a
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  road trip? No.
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  I I went and actually took another class from Corey last
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  month. Your second, third.
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  Third, OK. Yeah, so the first class I did
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  with him, he was doing the Neolithic flat bow in the One O
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  1 class. And then I went to the advanced
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  class, made Osage Eastern woodland style flat bow.
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  And then on this last trip I made the Archer tall Longbow
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  Hackberry. Yeah.
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  And so while I was over there, I bought a good number of staves
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  from him, along with a few blanks, some bamboo and river
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  cane air shafts. And then from a friend in South
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  Dakota, I bought a bunch more hackberry staves.
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  So I've got hackberry, Mulberry, black locust, Osage, orange,
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  white ash, Siberian Elm, and maybe one or two other species
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  that I know Hickory. Very cool.
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  Have you ever carved with Mulberry?
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  I've never used Mulberry, not yet, and only got 1 stave, but
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  I'm really excited because I've heard it makes a great bow.
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  Yeah, it's I've, I've, I haven't really heard anything about it,
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  but I know it's the same family as Osage.
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  But I don't, I don't think I'm talk to anyone about carving
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  Mulberry bows. So you have to keep me posted
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  how it goes, OK? Because I know they're all over
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  Corey's place And in Oklahoma. Sorry.
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  In Nebraska. Nebraska, Nebraska.
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  Yeah. And my daughter and I were
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  walking around. We just kept walking under
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  Mulberry trees. And my feet were, I like to go
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  barefooted. So my feet were staying purple
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  half the time right there because it was it was Mulberry
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  season. So we were eating the
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  mulberries, but they were all over the ground.
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  But I didn't see if he had any Mulberry staves in his, in his
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  workshop. And at the time, I wasn't really
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  a very. I wasn't familiar with Mulberry
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  as a Bowen. Yeah, actually I had AI want to
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  back up to archery because I thought of something as as I was
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  leaving that topic. So it's something that's really
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  important to you and brings you deep inner peace.
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  You love shooting with the primitive bows.
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  Is there a particular kind of practice that you're doing with
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  archery? Are you treating it as like a
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  martial art, more of a a spiritual sort of thing with any
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  sort of routine? Like what's it look like for you
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  when you go out to do some archery?
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  Target shooting, 3D range, moving through the woods, dump
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  shooting. Mostly just target shooting And
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  it's not like a regimented practice where I take like X
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  amount of shots from this place, this place, this place.
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  It's I kind of like enter this flow state, if you will, where
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  like the first couple rounds of arrows I send off, I'm like
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  tuning out the world and kind of shutting my mind off and like
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  bringing my focus to to the task at hand.
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  And I would love to do stump shooting, but in the Northwest
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  that's kind of a recipe for losing arrows just because the
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  underbrush is so thick. But I really like walking all
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  over the place, shooting from different distances, doing
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  walking shot, you know, I'll send one arrow at 5 yards and
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  then back up and like 15 and 25. So I'm just trying to become
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  really proficient. Guessing the yardage, kind of
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  like you do in stump shooting. Yeah, just entering that flow
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  state of like, how creative can I get with my shots and like
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  what obstacles can I use to make the shots harder and make me get
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  better at what I want to be good at?
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  What about your breath? Very focused, like specifically
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  my breath comes into play like around like the 1820 yard mark
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  and, and further it's like very, very controlled and you get a
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  big inhale on the draw and you exhale just a little bit and
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  release and. And why only at the the further
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  distances? Why not closer?
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  Because I'm a little bit more proficient the closer I get, so
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  it takes less focus to produce the results I want.
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  OK, All right. Yeah, I was just curious.
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  I I love archery and I find it to be so meditative.
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  And I know everyone has a different practice, different
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  routine with it. What's it like in Port Townsend
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  as far as your ability to go out?
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  And I know you said stump shooting's a recipe for losing
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  arrows, but can you just go out and wander through the forest
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  with a bow? Do you hunt?
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  Yeah. Yeah, you can.
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  A lot of private land around here so you kind of have to find
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  like, you know, the right property owner.
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  But I've got 3 or 4 really good private hunting spots and then
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  the public land. I think I've ran into maybe two
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  people out on public land during hunting season, during archery
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  season and I've only ever harvested 1 deer with a self
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  bow. It's the Osage one that I made
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  in Corey's class couple of years ago and we can get into that in
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  a minute. But yeah, there's there's
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  adequate hunting land here and it's all black tailed deer and
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  it's a real challenge to to spot and stock.
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  I've tried a little bit of spot and stock, but for the most part
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  it's just finding the right tree to shimmy up.
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  And then just really be impatient and focusing on the
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  breaths and tuning into all the sounds of the forest so that you
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  can really just be as dialed as possible to know, you know, when
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  you might get that opportunity. Do you hunt with a gun as well?
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  I don't, I, I did harvest 1 deer with a gun when I was 13 in
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  Idaho and that was with my dad. And it was a rather irreverent
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  experience. And so to be able to harvest one
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  with a self bow, I was kind of striving to like rewrite that
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  script for myself and I definitely got that job done.
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  It was a much more intimate experience and I put in a lot of
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  time before I was actually able to harvest my first year with a
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  self bow. And you hear those stories about
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  how like the animal almost like offers itself to you because
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  everything just works out so beautifully that there's really
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  no other explanation for it. And that's kind of how it felt
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  like I'd put in probably close to 100 and 8200 hours over the
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  course of two seasons. Late season was just about to
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  end and I went over to a friend's property that I'd never
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  haunted before and walked out and I kind of knew the property.
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  So I walked out found a tree she need up it and like within 15
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  minutes I was able to take the shot and I was I was like
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  dumbfounded because of all the hours that I had spent And then
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  it just like all came together within like 15 minutes of
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  sitting in this tree in this particular spot at this time.
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  And that shot was probably 5 yards or less really steep angle
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  beautiful dough walked right in. I thought my heartbeat was going
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  to like give me away because it was pounding so hard.
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  And that's I was really, really grateful for practicing my
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  breath while target shooting because that muscle memory of
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  practicing my breath while shooting really came into play
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  to keep my nerves calm enough to, to make a good clean,
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  ethical shot. It was a really steep ankle and
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  I was able to make a a double lung shot and she ran about 50
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  yards. And, and the wave of emotions
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  that followed after that we're we're definitely much different
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  and much stronger, much more grounding than the experience I
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  had when I haunted with a gun. And I'm not really in a position
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  to have to like want for meat like I do OK for myself.
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  And so hunting for me is like a, a way to both, yes, fill the
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  freezer, but also to challenge myself and not being dependent
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  on harvesting a deer allows me to to put in the time that I
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  need to get the experience that I want out of it.
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  Is your dad or grandfather a hunter?
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  My grandfather for sure, his whole life growing up, him and
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  all of his brothers, they were really big into hunting and that
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  was pretty much a necessity for them with how they were raised
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  and everything to be able to eat meat year round.
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  And then my dad has harvested a handful of animals.
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  But you know, it was never like a passion and something that he
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  wanted to go and do. Was your grandfather a bow
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  hunter? No, he got into archery later on
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  in life more seriously. And then probably about a decade
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  ago, his shoulders kind of went out.
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  And, you know, everybody talked to him like you should get him.
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  You should get him replaced. You can keep doing the things
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  that you love and you never did and probably won't ever.
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  But I remember shooting long bows with him.
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  We used to just like shoot blown up balloons at Target.
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  And he did a little bit of hunting with the Longbow, but he
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  never did harvest anything with it.
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  OK, And anyone else in your family, Hunter or yeah, Archer?
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  My little brother Joe, he hunts with compounds and rifles and
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  actually just dropped to hackberry staves off for him on
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  my way back to Washington. He's made a couple out of
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  mountain Maple. OK, I'm.
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  Excited to get him a nice bow wood that he can make a a good
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  hunting bow with because I really wanted to get into
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  hunting with the self bow. And then my brother-in-law also
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  hunts with compounds and rifles and they've both harvested deer
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  and elk with compounds and rifles.
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  So I know that they can like get in close and like they know
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  where the animals are and I'm really trying to get them into
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  self bow hunting and. What do they think about what
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  you're doing? What do they think about like
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  bow making and the bows that you have?
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  My little brother's really excited about it.
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  He's also into blacksmithing and kind of, you know, his approach
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  to primitive skills is because of my grandfather and then my
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  brother-in-law. He thinks it's cool, but he also
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  like, recognizes how hard it is. And I don't know if he's as keen
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  to take a, a piece of wood out into the, the forest to try and
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  fill his freezer because he, he does like really hunt for the
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  meat. He's got, you know, three boys
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  and my sister and he provides for all them.
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  And then he also just, like, really, really enjoys hunting.
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  Yeah. Yeah, what do you have in the
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  background behind you? I see like 3 quivers and at
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  least three bows. Are you in your workshop right
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  now? No, I'm actually in my bedroom.
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  OK, so I have my whole arsenal right by my bedside, which I
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  love. This one is the Eastern woodland
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  style of sage flap that I made with Corey.
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  This is the one I just finished in March with him.
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  This is another Osage bow that actually Corey started.
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  It was a blank. I finished it a few months ago.
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  This one is kind of fun. This is a Ocean Spray kids bow.
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  This pulls like 15 lbs at like a 16 inch straw.
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  That's a fun little one. And then I have a kids quiver
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  here. This is my quiver that Corey
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  made me. This I actually, we did like a
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  craft trade for this one. This is actually this quiver is
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  kind of cool. So this is actually like the
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  oldest thing that I still have in my possession that I made.
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  So I made this quiver when I was 14 with my grandpa.
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  Cool. And I, I worked in wilderness
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  therapy when I was like 24 and 25 and I carried my fire kit in
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  this quiver. And I've haunted with this
• 23:39
  quiver like this. This has seen quite a lot.
• 23:44
  Yeah. What's done?
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  Go ahead. Then these two over here just
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  Hickory board bows and then this is an agave quiver that I made.
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  Agave, what is that? Like the type of it or?
• 24:04
  It's the material. So I have a friend down in
• 24:10
  Arizona, some private property, and I was able to harvest like
• 24:14
  an agave stock off of it. So with that you just like split
• 24:18
  the whole stock in half and then you carve out the inside except
• 24:23
  for the bottom chunk and then you can glue it back together or
• 24:28
  lash it back together. Cool, is it so?
• 24:32
  Is that kind of like a bamboo or sugar cane?
• 24:39
  Not really. It's like a it's like the whole
• 24:42
  inside of the stock is like super pity.
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  You know what Yucca is? So Yucca, it's kind of the same
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  thing as Yucca, but Agave produces like a much larger
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  stock. You can make injury dues out of
• 24:58
  it and all sorts of stuff. And that's where the sweetener
• 25:01
  agave comes from, I presume. I believe yeah.
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  Don't work me on. That don't know.
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  OK, cool. All right.
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  I had a question for you. Hang on.
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  What were we just talking about? The quiver you made.
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  You can hang. You can hang it up.
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  I just, it reminded me of something.
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  I'm just trying to. Oh, yeah, You said wilderness
• 25:25
  therapy. Can you talk a bit about that?
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  Yeah, that's kind of a big part of my story.
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  I kind of mentioned like I got into archery as a preteen and
• 25:38
  then kind of lost my way and then circled back around to it.
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  So when I was 20 years old, I didn't really have any direction
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  in life. I was kind of going nowhere
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  fast. And I was presented with the
• 25:56
  opportunity to go to wilderness therapy and I attended a program
• 26:02
  in southern Utah that's now closed.
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  It just, in short, changed my life in every way it needed to
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  be changed. Gave me my direction back.
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  Stopped using substances as a crutch to numb out and run away
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  from life experiences and got me back in touch with what my
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  grandfather had started with me at such a young age of of making
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  things in my hands, which is a huge meditation for me, brings
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  me a lot of peace. And how I found Port Townsend is
• 26:38
  when I left that wilderness therapy program.
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  I came to a men's adventure inpatient in Port Townsend.
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  It's now changed ownership and everything, but it was called
• 26:50
  Gray Wolf Ranch and I was in wilderness for three months and
• 26:54
  in Gray Wolf Ranch for six months and got to see a lot of
• 27:01
  Washington Backcountry on these adventures that we would go on.
• 27:06
  And in wilderness therapy, I was on the Grand Staircase Escalante
• 27:11
  for 85 days straight from November to February, so through
• 27:15
  the winter and. And what is it?
• 27:20
  What were you on? I was on the Grand Staircase
• 27:23
  Escalante National Monument, OK? It's a National Monument just
• 27:28
  outside of Kanab, Utah, OK. Yeah, really close to the
• 27:33
  Arizona border. And it's really, really
• 27:35
  beautiful. And how long were you there?
• 27:40
  I was in wilderness for 85 days. So that means out like out in
• 27:45
  the Bush for 85 straight days. Yeah, so they they supply food
• 27:50
  drops to you twice a week. You make shelters with tarps,
• 27:55
  have a sleeping bag, everything fits in your backpack.
• 27:58
  It's a nomadic style or it was a nomadic style program where you
• 28:04
  just hike from campsite to campsite and therapy once a
• 28:08
  week, a group therapy once a week.
• 28:12
  So that's kind of like my my journey of self-awareness really
• 28:17
  started. And are you doing that at the
• 28:19
  same time as other people? Yeah, yeah.
• 28:22
  So I was in a. Are you, are you, are you
• 28:25
  meeting those people? Other than that groups therapy
• 28:28
  session? Like when you're out in the
• 28:29
  wilderness, are you bumping into other people?
• 28:32
  Yeah. So there was like 7 or eight
• 28:34
  groups out there. And I was in the adult group.
• 28:38
  And so in the adult group, there was anywhere between like 4 and
• 28:45
  like 8 or nine of us at a time. So you were always with your
• 28:48
  group. And then there was anywhere
• 28:50
  between like 2 and three, like, staff members, trail walkers
• 28:55
  that were like with you basically like glorified
• 28:59
  babysitters. Every day you're with these
• 29:01
  people. Yeah.
• 29:03
  OK, so you're not solo wilderness.
• 29:07
  Yeah, tracking. OK, wow, that's pretty cool.
• 29:14
  So there's a destination and in each day you have a place, a
• 29:17
  target where you're trying to get to.
• 29:19
  There's food waiting for you there.
• 29:24
  And then when I was 24, I went back and I worked at that same
• 29:30
  program in southern Utah and worked there for about a year.
• 29:36
  And that was like a completely different kind of experience
• 29:41
  because I was like responsible for people and I wasn't just out
• 29:43
  there for me. But it was just a great
• 29:47
  opportunity to to give back and kind of pass forward what I was
• 29:51
  given as I was a student there. And I got to teach a lot of kids
• 29:57
  how to make a lot of cool things.
• 29:59
  And I love that. Does that mean you had to be
• 30:02
  trained in like wilderness first aid?
• 30:04
  And were you, did you have a weapon with you for safety?
• 30:10
  We had nines, I was like the only weapons we had and did have
• 30:17
  a wilderness first responder certificate and that's about it.
• 30:24
  Do you ever have any? Ever have any pretty intense
• 30:26
  moments? Yeah, for sure.
• 30:30
  Not like anything with like wildlife or anything, but some
• 30:35
  of the kids that went through that program, we're suffering a
• 30:39
  lot and definitely brought about some intense moments of
• 30:45
  emotional processing. And it's really challenging to
• 30:53
  care for people as much as I do and do that job without becoming
• 30:59
  like invested in someone's outcome.
• 31:02
  It's it was just hard for me to remain objective and be out
• 31:08
  there and do a job because I like really, I knew what that
• 31:12
  program could do for someone because it did so much for me.
• 31:17
  So I got more emotionally invested than I probably should
• 31:20
  have. But for that reason, maybe I
• 31:23
  changed more lives than I wouldn't have.
• 31:26
  I don't know. I it's possible.
• 31:28
  I didn't change anyone's life, but I know it's, I know it was
• 31:34
  hard, but I'm really grateful that I got to be able to do
• 31:37
  that. Were you building fires every
• 31:41
  night and everyone hanging out around the fire and sharing?
• 31:44
  Yeah. You know, everybody was
• 31:46
  responsible for like cooking their own meals.
• 31:48
  But yeah, every fire that we had out there was a friction fire.
• 31:52
  So we would teach bow drill and hand drill and we would like
• 31:58
  turn it into competitions. And it was a lot of fun to just
• 32:04
  sit around the fire and talk about life and cook food and
• 32:09
  share our stories with one another.
• 32:11
  And that alone is life changing. Like we just, we need more of
• 32:14
  that just like that simple sitting around the fire that
• 32:17
  you've built with fellow people who are just trying to be the
• 32:21
  best versions of themselves in nature talking.
• 32:24
  I mean, that's, that's, that's what we're huge, hugely lacking
• 32:29
  in today's world. Like most kids, they don't even
• 32:32
  get to sit around the fire, let alone learn how to build 1 and
• 32:35
  share. Yeah.
• 32:38
  So we had this couple years ago here in, in Costa Rica, a bunch
• 32:42
  of dads got together. We had, we did it twice.
• 32:45
  We did it for our daughters and we did it for our sons.
• 32:47
  We all had kids that were kind of the same age and we did two
• 32:51
  different things. But I think we went to the same
• 32:54
  beach location both times. So we took the boys and just had
• 32:58
  like a three hour bonding with our they were probably like 8 to
• 33:02
  12 year old boys build a fire had a share circle sitting
• 33:06
  around the fire and really just opened up the conversation.
• 33:09
  And I think we had three questions that we asked
• 33:12
  everyone. So the dads and the boys all had
• 33:14
  three questions and it was something like one of them was
• 33:18
  related to fear. Like what are you most scared
• 33:20
  of? I don't remember them, but I was
• 33:23
  just blown away by the depth of response we were getting from
• 33:26
  like these 8 and 9 year old kids who had permission now among
• 33:30
  their friends and among their dad and their friends dads to
• 33:35
  actually be intimate and share something profound.
• 33:38
  And it just struck me really that without fail, I think for
• 33:41
  that one question about greatest fear or whatever it might have
• 33:44
  been, but pretty much every child talked about being alone
• 33:48
  and what that felt like. And it was just, it was so
• 33:52
  powerful to me as a dad to realize like, yeah, I could
• 33:55
  these these kids, they're so independent.
• 33:58
  And it's so great to see them go out and hang with their friends
• 34:01
  and, and do these things on their own.
• 34:02
  But it's so important that they have that, that safety that they
• 34:07
  can come back to that dad, that they can come back to or that
• 34:10
  mom or ideally both, where they can just like open up and, and
• 34:14
  express their, themselves. And it was so touching for me to
• 34:17
  have all those kids be like, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm scared
• 34:20
  of being alone. And none of them are trying to
• 34:23
  be tough and being like, no, I got this.
• 34:25
  And then we did the same. It was slightly different with
• 34:28
  our daughters. And for some reason, all of us
• 34:29
  had slightly older daughters who are all going through puberty.
• 34:32
  So they're all early teenagers. And I think for that one we
• 34:36
  made, we did like a mini Burning Man where each father, daughter,
• 34:41
  a couple was to build a fire on the beach in some sort of
• 34:46
  monument, like some sort of art, not just a fire, but we were all
• 34:49
  telling a story with our fire. And so we had like an hour where
• 34:53
  the dads and daughters were out collecting driftwood and
• 34:56
  whatever it was going to be and building this altar for their or
• 34:59
  their fireplace, whatever it was.
• 35:01
  And with their fire, they were creating a story.
• 35:03
  And then we all walked around and had every, every couple
• 35:08
  share what their story was. And it's just like, wow, that's
• 35:10
  really cool. And then we sat around a bit, we
• 35:11
  moved all the fires together and sat around a bigger fire and
• 35:14
  again, just had a share. And it's so incredibly
• 35:19
  empowering and, and powerful to have people just sitting around
• 35:23
  like our ancestors have done for millennia under the stars,
• 35:27
  sharing a fire. And that thing that is so
• 35:30
  important for all of our survival in the past, maybe not
• 35:34
  in so much now, but you know, fire was essential for survival.
• 35:38
  And that connection with nature and the stars.
• 35:40
  It's just, it's beautiful and it's, we need more of that.
• 35:44
  So good for you for bringing that into so many people's
• 35:47
  lives. Sorry, bit of a tangent.
• 35:50
  That's great. That actually like sparked
• 35:53
  another, another thing like through my battle with addiction
• 36:01
  and, and just lack of direction in life and just how prevalent
• 36:09
  that is like within society now. I, I don't know, I've thought
• 36:18
  about it a lot as to like, you know why?
• 36:22
  And I feel like one of the main things that's missing from our
• 36:25
  culture now that has been present, you know, forever is
• 36:32
  just ritual and ceremony. It's like being going through
• 36:41
  wilderness therapy, working in wilderness therapy, going
• 36:46
  through that inpatient program. And then I actually went back
• 36:49
  and worked for the company that bought it and hearing
• 36:52
  everybody's stories, like within, within like that world,
• 36:58
  everybody was really connected to like a certain song that they
• 37:03
  would listen to when they would go and do you know when they
• 37:07
  would go and get high or they were like attached to a certain
• 37:11
  place or a certain routine. And it like, so their addiction
• 37:16
  became their ritual. It became their ceremony.
• 37:20
  And I feel like the lack of ceremony and ritual and the lack
• 37:27
  of these like rites of passage that have existed for thousands
• 37:31
  of years, it's like it's written in a human's DNA that like these
• 37:37
  things are important. And when we don't engage
• 37:45
  ourselves or other people in these ways, they're, they go and
• 37:49
  find ways to engage in them on their own.
• 37:52
  And a lot of people find really healthy ways to do that.
• 37:56
  And a lot of people find really unhealthy ways to do that.
• 37:59
  For sure. Hey, I lost your visual.
• 38:02
  Is your video working? There you go.
• 38:07
  Yeah, absolutely. It's we are going to find.
• 38:11
  Well, it's we need to be engaged or absorbed in something.
• 38:15
  I think it's part of our who we are.
• 38:18
  And that's for something like bow carving or a hobby.
• 38:21
  A healthy hobby is so important, whether it's a sport or creating
• 38:25
  music or creating bows or other things.
• 38:29
  And instead, you know, people were turning to all the
• 38:32
  distractions that society provides today, which typically
• 38:35
  are digital. And don't teach us to create
• 38:39
  anything. Don't teach us to use our
• 38:41
  imaginations and us. I mean, not just the kids,
• 38:44
  especially literally give a kid a screen and they can sit around
• 38:48
  for 24 hours a day and you know, not even eat or sleep.
• 38:51
  It's just it's so addictive. And that is that's a drug.
• 38:55
  It really is a drug and it's, I think that's one thing that our
• 39:01
  stream, one thing that it means to me is like that connection,
• 39:06
  that connection back to our ancestors into nature.
• 39:08
  And regardless of what you do with it, whether you're just
• 39:11
  carving the bow and never shooting and, or whether you're
• 39:13
  shooting the bow and I've never carved it.
• 39:16
  And there's something there, There's something that's a
• 39:18
  connection back and something that can bring us into our, our
• 39:21
  consciousness and being more mindful.
• 39:25
  It's a beautiful thing. And it's, I mean, that's, that's
• 39:27
  lacking that quiver that you made when you were 13, that was
• 39:31
  with your grandfather. How many, how many kids get to
• 39:35
  do that anymore to go out and make something natural with
• 39:39
  their hands? It's actually a tool that
• 39:41
  they're going to be able to use in your case for a decade or
• 39:45
  longer. And what a gift that he was able
• 39:48
  to give you and your first bow and just having that those
• 39:55
  father figures, those mentors in your life, it's so valuable.
• 39:59
  And unfortunately, what I'm seeing today is fathers are are
• 40:03
  too busy caught up in the digital age to be fathers.
• 40:06
  We're running into the same thing.
• 40:07
  It's not just the kids who are on screens all the time.
• 40:09
  It's the dads are half of them aren't present at all.
• 40:13
  And the ones that are present, you know, sometimes it's they're
• 40:16
  not really fully present. They're caught up in doing
• 40:19
  everything that we think needs we need to get done when really.
• 40:23
  Comes back to family and kids and we can put all of our focus
• 40:27
  and intention on on that. It's going to be a much more
• 40:31
  beautiful. World and that's all.
• 40:34
  It's also been a challenge for me.
• 40:36
  But yeah, I'm working on for sure.
• 40:38
  Yeah. Do you have kids?
• 40:41
  Don't have kids? Yeah.
• 40:44
  All right. Well, tell me a bit about let's
• 40:46
  get back into bow craft. How often are you carving?
• 40:50
  Is it hobby or a full time thing for?
• 40:54
  You. It's a hobby.
• 40:55
  I'm carving a couple times a week.
• 40:59
  Do you have a workshop? I do, yeah.
• 41:02
  It's about 5 minutes from my house which is really nice.
• 41:05
  OK. You share that with others or is
• 41:06
  it yours? I share it with others, my
• 41:10
  friend, he has a really nice successful cabinet making
• 41:16
  business and I rent a little corner in his shop.
• 41:22
  Yeah, so often when you're carving, are you working
• 41:25
  alongside him? He's in there.
• 41:28
  Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes, probably less often
• 41:31
  than not. OK, so you're carving alone
• 41:34
  then? Most of the time, yeah.
• 41:36
  And you prefer it that way? I kind of do.
• 41:39
  Yeah. I really like working with other
• 41:42
  people too, but when I'm on my own I just put my music in and
• 41:48
  enter the flow state of creating.
• 41:50
  So the flow said again, like with archery, so do you get that
• 41:53
  same D piece when you're carving?
• 41:56
  Yeah, honestly, I'd probably get it more when I'm making
• 41:59
  something than when I'm shooting.
• 42:01
  Yeah, it's understandable. And what are you carving most
• 42:06
  often in your workshop? Any particular types of bows or
• 42:09
  woods? I've probably worked with Osage
• 42:14
  more than any other bow wood and well, I don't know, it's like a
• 42:20
  tie between Osage and Hackberry. Actually, those are the two that
• 42:23
  I've worked most with and made a handful of Neolithic flat bows,
• 42:32
  stiff handle and then just then through the handle flat bows.
• 42:40
  Those are kind of the my bread and butter of what I'm like
• 42:44
  really comfortable with. And until now, I haven't had the
• 42:47
  stock to really try and jump into other designs, right?
• 42:51
  And based on what I'm seeing in your teacher being Corey, I
• 42:54
  presume you're not doing anything fancy.
• 42:56
  No arrow shelves, no risers. No arrow shelves, no risers.
• 43:02
  I do want to. I did just get some material to
• 43:05
  try. Some horn knock points on the
• 43:08
  bows. I want to try that.
• 43:10
  I just got some sinews, so I want to try a sinew back bow.
• 43:15
  Heritage Bows. I can't remember his name, but
• 43:18
  Pete, Pete, Pete Woodland. Yeah, definitely feeling
• 43:22
  inspired by him because like and bows he makes, it's functional,
• 43:28
  but it's also just like this really beautiful art piece.
• 43:31
  Well, how close are you to Port Angeles?
• 43:34
  I'm like an hour from port. Angeles.
• 43:37
  So I mean, you should just take the Coho across and go see Pete.
• 43:40
  And he's seriously, he's he's land in downtown Victoria.
• 43:44
  He's 25 minutes away from that. And he teaches, he teaches
• 43:50
  intimate workshops, one or two people.
• 43:52
  He's got a little A-frame cabin on his property, overlooks the
• 43:55
  oceans. Gorgeous little cedar shingle
• 43:58
  workshop outside. Half of it's outside, half of
• 44:00
  it's inside. But yeah, he's an amazing
• 44:02
  teacher. I had no idea he was so close to
• 44:05
  me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:06
  You could be there in a couple hours, man.
• 44:07
  And then he's an incredible guy and his you've seen his work,
• 44:11
  his skills. It's it's off the charts.
• 44:15
  Like he's, I mean, all the bow ears that you talked about are
• 44:17
  amazing. But I really love the artistry
• 44:20
  that he puts into his bows. Yeah, yeah.
• 44:24
  Go check him out. He's he would love to.
• 44:25
  I'm sure he would love to show you what he does.
• 44:30
  What kind of horn overlays are horn knocks did you get?
• 44:35
  Just like cow Buffalo. I'm not 100% sure.
• 44:41
  They were gifted to me by a friend.
• 44:44
  Yeah, for Christmas, with all the sinew.
• 44:47
  Nice. He was like, yeah, I had these
• 44:49
  laying around. You'll probably put them to
• 44:50
  better use than I will. It's a cool friend who has sinew
• 44:55
  and horn laying around, but not many.
• 44:57
  Yeah, but. I love working on a buying Maple
• 45:01
  bow and my. Wow.
• 45:02
  OK, nice. I love horn knocks.
• 45:05
  They're so beautiful. Self knocks are great, but
• 45:08
  there's something about putting on a a knock or a horn tip
• 45:12
  overlay that I just find it to just be so gorgeous.
• 45:17
  Yeah. And you haven't used it yet.
• 45:19
  You haven't done any yet. Nope.
• 45:22
  Nice. I'm excited.
• 45:23
  Yeah, yeah. What's the quiver that you made
• 45:28
  with your grandfather made out of, you know, what kind of
• 45:30
  leather and did you have any? Did you have anything to do
• 45:33
  with? With the leather?
• 45:36
  No, had no He ordered it from somewhere and it's cowhide and
• 45:42
  it's got a little bit of deer hide lacing on it as well.
• 45:45
  OK. Are you doing any leather work
• 45:48
  with your bows and you have some wrapped handles?
• 45:51
  Are you doing any stitched handles or?
• 45:55
  Mostly I've only done wrapped handles, I've made like 2
• 46:00
  stitched handles ever. But I do want to get into like a
• 46:07
  larger variety of handle wraps just just to play with it.
• 46:13
  And yeah, most of the leather work I do is unrelated to to
• 46:22
  bows, but I tan, I bring tan deer hides and.
• 46:28
  Also a hobby or? Yeah, as a hobby.
• 46:31
  OK. And do you make stuff with a lot
• 46:34
  of that you bring to? Yeah.
• 46:36
  So like one of the main things that I make with them are these.
• 46:44
  That's a really old weathered one, but I wear this every day.
• 46:50
  And my grandfather has worn 1 like this like for as long as I
• 46:54
  can remember, every day. Still does to this day.
• 46:57
  Wow. What is it?
• 46:59
  It's just a little knife sheath. So I've got a little.
• 47:04
  French mushroom picking knife and open L and made the first
• 47:11
  one of those for myself like probably 6-7 years ago.
• 47:17
  For a long time it's like hung on the wall.
• 47:19
  And then I decided I do want to be the type of person that wears
• 47:21
  it every day, so I started it and.
• 47:25
  Do you forage for mushrooms? I do.
• 47:28
  Yeah. Washington's great for that.
• 47:30
  Yeah, it is. There's there's so many kinds of
• 47:32
  mushrooms, my favorites in the the fall chanterelle picking.
• 47:38
  So another thing I do is we Willow baskets.
• 47:43
  Sweet. So this is my pack basket.
• 47:46
  It's got a full wax canvas liner.
• 47:50
  So Speaking of foraging, yeah, I'm about it.
• 47:55
  Wow, that's cool. So how long does it take to
• 48:00
  weave a basket like that? That basket took me a little bit
• 48:05
  longer because I was trying to get kind of fancy with it.
• 48:08
  So that one took me about 9 hours, but I'm doing like a
• 48:13
  pretty basic thing to knock it out in about 6 or 7.
• 48:18
  What's the process from beginning?
• 48:21
  Are you harvesting the you said Lolo?
• 48:24
  Sometimes I have, yeah. So start to finish, you harvest
• 48:29
  the Willow preferably during like the coldest time of the
• 48:32
  year because that's when the most moisture is dropped out of
• 48:35
  it. So if you go out and harvest,
• 48:37
  like after a really gnarly cold snap, that's great.
• 48:41
  And then winter harvested Willow usually weeds a little better
• 48:45
  than any other time of the year you harvest.
• 48:48
  If you harvest in the spring, that's pretty much the worst
• 48:50
  time to harvest Willow and. What are you harv?
• 48:55
  What are you harvesting? Mostly wild willows what I've
• 49:02
  harvested. So taking branches, whole trees,
• 49:07
  what's what do you I have no idea.
• 49:09
  Branches. So Willow typically grows is
• 49:13
  kind of like a shrub. I mean, there's obviously Willow
• 49:17
  trees and whatnot, but like the shrub, you know, it'll be
• 49:20
  really, really branchy. So there's a practice called
• 49:22
  compassing and you basically just like trim the whole thing
• 49:26
  down to the ground and it's got a really established root
• 49:28
  system. And then the next year it sends
• 49:31
  up these really long, nice straight rods off of that
• 49:34
  powerful root system because it wants to get up and get out
• 49:37
  fast. So they don't branch.
• 49:39
  And those are like the best ones to harvest.
• 49:42
  So you're harvesting those really long.
• 49:45
  Straight, long and thin. Yeah.
• 49:49
  OK, Yeah. So you'll harvest it all and
• 49:51
  then you'll dry it completely because the first time you dry
• 49:56
  it, it's like the largest shrink.
• 49:59
  You'll get it like bone dry and then you'll rehydrate it.
• 50:03
  And kind of every willows different and different climates
• 50:10
  like have, you know, different results.
• 50:12
  But like a kind of a rule of thumb is you soak it for 7 to 10
• 50:17
  days and then you mellow it for three.
• 50:19
  So mellowing it is you take it out of the water and like wrap
• 50:22
  it in wet canvas and that allows the water content between like
• 50:26
  the inside and the bark to homogenize.
• 50:29
  And then you can weave with it. So you rehydrate it because it
• 50:35
  doesn't swell as much as it it is like green Willow is.
• 50:40
  So if you weave with green Willow, you'd typically end up
• 50:44
  with like a really loose basket. OK, how'd you learn that?
• 50:52
  I learned basket weaving from a really good friend of mine at a
• 50:56
  primitive skills gathering. The first time it was at Winter
• 51:00
  Count in Florence, AZ Happens in February and then took another
• 51:06
  class from him at Rabbit Stick, which happens in Rexford, Idaho
• 51:10
  in September. And that's actually my hometown.
• 51:16
  This you know right around our expert.
• 51:21
  So how is that purely hobby as well?
• 51:24
  Making baskets. Yeah, I've sold, you know, a
• 51:27
  handful of bows, handful of neck knife sheets, handful of
• 51:31
  baskets, but you know, nothing. Yeah, full time.
• 51:36
  Do you have a day job or if I. Do have a day job I I own my own
• 51:41
  company. It's called Get your pine out of
• 51:43
  the Gutter. It's roof and gutter cleaning
• 51:45
  services in Washington. Nice.
• 51:49
  Yeah. All right.
• 51:50
  So it keeps you busy most of the most of the time.
• 51:53
  And then you filling in your free time with making stuff,
• 51:57
  making cool shit. Yeah, that's that's cool.
• 52:00
  And your bow brown is primitive alchemist, is that right?
• 52:05
  What is? Where did that come from?
• 52:12
  I thought like for a long time, like what it what is like, what
• 52:15
  do I want to be known as and like, what do I want people to
• 52:18
  like, aspire to be like? If they look at me and they're
• 52:22
  inspired by me, like what do they see themselves becoming?
• 52:26
  And like, I would love to be known as a primitive alchemist
• 52:31
  and kind of like my mission statement with that is just
• 52:34
  enhancing nature's beauty because when I create, that's
• 52:40
  like the time I feel closest to God.
• 52:42
  And pretty much everything that I used to create was just put
• 52:45
  here naturally by God. And so when I'm able to like
• 52:52
  take these things provided for me in the natural world and
• 52:58
  manipulate them into a tool that's something completely
• 53:02
  functional and useful, that's in, in my mind, that's primitive
• 53:10
  alchemy. I, I'm going to start teaching
• 53:17
  workshops next year officially baskets, high tanning and bow
• 53:22
  making. Probably not many classes each
• 53:25
  one or two throughout the year for each one of those things.
• 53:30
  I think it'd be really cool for people to show up and, and say,
• 53:33
  yeah, like now, now I'm a primitive alchemist.
• 53:36
  Now I know how to take these these natural materials and turn
• 53:41
  them into something beautiful and functional that I can use
• 53:44
  everyday. How much of this do you think
• 53:47
  you would be doing without the influence of your grandfather?
• 53:52
  I'd be lucky if I was doing any of it.
• 53:55
  Yeah. I I honestly don't know where in
• 53:59
  life I would be If if he hadn't influenced me in this way is.
• 54:04
  He still alive. He is.
• 54:07
  OK, what does he think about this?
• 54:10
  He's really proud of me and really happy that I'm carrying
• 54:14
  it on this legacy within our family for sure.
• 54:17
  That's so cool. Take me through the OR process
• 54:23
  of carving a bow and I guess I'll start with when you have a
• 54:28
  stave, do you already have a design in mind that you're going
• 54:33
  to try to get from the stave, or do you communicate with the
• 54:36
  stave in a way and figure out what what's in there, what's
• 54:40
  waiting to come out? Can you hear my dog?
• 54:44
  Just a little, Just a little bit.
• 54:50
  So up until now it's, it's been more of like forcing a design
• 54:55
  out of a stave and that's gone pretty well for the most part.
• 55:03
  I have broken, you know, probably 3 or 4 bows on the
• 55:08
  tillering rack. I'm just pieces of wood, not
• 55:12
  agreeing to what I want them to do, which is OK.
• 55:15
  It's humbling, teaches me a lot every time it happens.
• 55:22
  So now that I have a little more wood, I am excited to to be
• 55:27
  interested in more designs and try and select the correct stay
• 55:31
  for each one of these designs that I want to execute.
• 55:35
  Because I'm like not all pieces of wood are created equal in any
• 55:42
  stretch of the imagination. And so really trying to tap into
• 55:49
  what each piece wants to be is going to be really fun for me.
• 55:56
  And I've, I have developed that relationship with wood in other
• 56:01
  ways as well. Before I started my own company,
• 56:05
  I was a Sawyer. So I ran like a mobile sawmill
• 56:12
  and having like a client's cut list and this pile of logs, like
• 56:16
  you have to decide like which piece of wood is going to come
• 56:19
  out of each log. And that's more of like a, a
• 56:23
  production type approach. And it always kind of fascinated
• 56:31
  me between like, oh man, I go to work when I was a Sawyer and I
• 56:35
  just make a ton of lumber out of all these logs.
• 56:38
  And then when I go and work on a bow, it's like so intimate and
• 56:42
  it's just like one piece of wood.
• 56:44
  And you're really trying to like nail that design with this one
• 56:47
  piece of wood And you know, you're taking it down to a card
• 56:51
  scraper and sandpaper and it's like, so fine.
• 56:54
  And so methodical, whereas like then in when I was a Sawyer,
• 57:00
  it's like everything's just like go, go, go.
• 57:04
  So like holding that dichotomy when I was at that job was kind
• 57:11
  of fascinating to me because I definitely gravitated towards
• 57:17
  more. So like tapping into what the
• 57:19
  the wood wanted to be in like the most precise way.
• 57:24
  So once you've decided on a design and a stay for the
• 57:27
  design, what's next? You in the layout.
• 57:32
  You draw it on the bow. Yeah, yeah.
• 57:36
  Draw it on the bow, always focusing on the grain patterns,
• 57:41
  following the flow, minimize grain run out and then draw a
• 57:50
  knife. Do you have to chase?
• 57:52
  Do you have to chase a ring on most of the ones you work with
• 57:54
  or no? Yeah.
• 58:00
  For the most part, I do have so vine Maple.
• 58:05
  They say it's not of the utmost importance to chase a ring on it
• 58:10
  and just got a Siberian Elm stave that apparently it's not
• 58:17
  super important to chase the ring on Siberian Elm either.
• 58:20
  I haven't done enough research on that one just yet.
• 58:22
  But yeah, Osage, Hackberry, just yeah, definitely in your best
• 58:28
  interest to to chase the ring. And you said you're using a draw
• 58:32
  knife and a rasp. Drawing for rasp and I use like
• 58:37
  the Shinto rasp for the most part.
• 58:42
  It's interesting how draw knives pretty much across the board for
• 58:46
  bow years that I've worked with, but they're rasps.
• 58:49
  Everyone has a different favorite for rasp.
• 58:51
  Some people never used a Shinto rasp, some people don't like
• 58:54
  them, some people love them. You know, it's farriers.
• 58:57
  There's just so many different styles of rasp and so many
• 59:00
  different bow years are drawn to typically a particular one I
• 59:04
  love. The Shinto rasp.
• 59:06
  Yeah, nice. I, I think it's got a lot to do
• 59:10
  with patience because I know myself to not be the most
• 59:16
  patient person and a Shinto rasp like slows me down a little bit
• 59:22
  so. And then what else?
• 59:25
  Card scrapers. Yeah, card scrapers.
• 59:29
  If I need to do heat corrections, I I'm using dry
• 59:34
  heat. I have like a heat gun.
• 59:38
  I have steamed a couple bows to straighten taking out prop
• 59:44
  twist. Definitely like a fat product
• 59:49
  and heat gun. I have a stave press which
• 59:55
  honestly the stave press is like the biggest game changer ever.
• 59:59
  Yeah. It's yeah.
• 1:00:03
  I don't know if I'd be where I'm at without a stave press.
• 1:00:07
  Building a workshop right now in Costa Rica and I want three
• 1:00:10
  outdoor stave presses. So I'm figuring out how I can
• 1:00:14
  get those here. But yeah, I I use them with
• 1:00:16
  Corey, of course, Corey Hawk and and some other Bowers I worked
• 1:00:20
  with. And I think that's my favorite.
• 1:00:21
  I like standing, being able to move, not fiddling around with
• 1:00:25
  vices too much or Yeah, so the state press is pretty awesome.
• 1:00:31
  Cool. What else do I want to ask?
• 1:00:34
  So, any particular tools that you use that aren't so
• 1:00:41
  commonplace that you know of? Like envisioning my like tool
• 1:00:58
  rack in my shop right now. They, like pretty much all of
• 1:01:03
  them are pretty common. I guess I don't know.
• 1:01:08
  One thing I picked up from Corey is like a, a wood gouge.
• 1:01:12
  So specifically on some staves, there's there's a like a dip in
• 1:01:17
  the ring and like the the draw knife just like won't get in
• 1:01:23
  there. So occasionally I'll use a a
• 1:01:28
  wood gouge to take that part out and then tune it up with a card
• 1:01:31
  scraper that has the curve on it as well.
• 1:01:35
  But I don't know, I would assume most people do that.
• 1:01:39
  Are any of your designs influenced by the Pacific
• 1:01:41
  Northwest? You mentioned the paddle bell.
• 1:01:44
  Was that a Pacific Northwest paddle bell that you're talking
• 1:01:46
  about doing? Probably, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:51
  And have you studied many of the designs from the Pacific
• 1:01:54
  Northwest? No, I haven't actually.
• 1:01:56
  I haven't found like a right proper piece of literature study
• 1:02:01
  them. I'm really bummed that Volume 3
• 1:02:04
  of North American like the Encyclopedia of North American
• 1:02:10
  Arab Bows, Arrows and Quivers Volume 3 was never published.
• 1:02:14
  So still looking for like a a good piece to like study
• 1:02:19
  dimensions, study wood species and get like a really solid
• 1:02:26
  replica. Yeah.
• 1:02:29
  Who was telling me? I think it's maybe Jamie
• 1:02:31
  MacDonald of Raven Beak on the British Columbia coast.
• 1:02:36
  I think he was talking about the Victoria Museum and, and
• 1:02:40
  downtown Victoria. I forgot what it's called the I
• 1:02:44
  don't remember, but it's one of the big museums, maybe the
• 1:02:46
  History Museum. He went years ago and he said
• 1:02:49
  you could actually just schedule an appointment and get a tour of
• 1:02:52
  the archives. And they had a bunch of bows
• 1:02:55
  from the area and there. And I did reach out to him this
• 1:02:59
  past summer and there was something about they were moving
• 1:03:01
  collections or something so they couldn't have any visitors.
• 1:03:03
  But might be, you know, for you something worth looking into
• 1:03:07
  because they had what I was, what I heard was a pretty
• 1:03:10
  extensive collection of bows to the Pacific Northwest.
• 1:03:14
  And you can actually go in and hold them and take measurements
• 1:03:16
  and photos and stuff. That's great.
• 1:03:19
  I just took a note of that. Yeah, so.
• 1:03:21
  But that's, I mean, I found that moving around kind of in Europe,
• 1:03:24
  there's a lot of museums and a lot of bows.
• 1:03:26
  You can't always get your hands on them, but there's.
• 1:03:29
  There's a lot of. Beautiful examples of ancient
• 1:03:32
  bows and museums. That's really cool.
• 1:03:36
  Any so if you're in the Pacific Northwest, are you, do you have
• 1:03:41
  available Pacific U because you haven't mentioned U what at all.
• 1:03:45
  I have one you stave and it's not great.
• 1:03:49
  It's from a branch and I'm not. Growing in your area?
• 1:03:56
  I I just haven't been able to find it OK.
• 1:04:02
  Not somewhere that I can harvest at least, like there's a handful
• 1:04:07
  growing in like people's yards and stuff.
• 1:04:08
  But yeah, I haven't found anywhere that I can like go
• 1:04:13
  consistently find it and harvest it.
• 1:04:18
  So I actually contacted Pete and I'm probably going to buy some
• 1:04:22
  used dates from him because it's definitely a wood that I want to
• 1:04:27
  work with, being that it's like native to around here.
• 1:04:30
  I've worked with the Ocean Spray, which is also native
• 1:04:33
  around here, and apparently Osage.
• 1:04:37
  Apparently Ocean Spray is comparable to Osage, but it's
• 1:04:45
  really, really quite challenging to find a piece of Ocean Spray
• 1:04:49
  here that's long enough and clear enough to really make a
• 1:04:55
  bow with. Yeah, do you know Ryan Gautier?
• 1:04:59
  Strong crow archery. His handles.
• 1:05:01
  Wizard goat. He's he's just in BC2, he's on
• 1:05:05
  Vancouver Island and he's worked with a lot of different woods.
• 1:05:07
  I think he's worked with Ocean Spray.
• 1:05:09
  He's got a a ton of experience making like Salish replica bows
• 1:05:14
  and working with native woods. So might be worth reaching out
• 1:05:17
  to him. He's a really good guy.
• 1:05:20
  Ryan Gautier, his handles Wizard goat, you'll find him.
• 1:05:29
  He's on our Instagram a lot because he's one of our 14 bow
• 1:05:31
  ears and for Project Quiver. So yeah, what?
• 1:05:37
  Are there any other local woods that are good for bow making
• 1:05:41
  nearer to you? Are the main 2 are just vine
• 1:05:45
  Maple and ocean spray? Heard that you can use
• 1:05:51
  rhododendron but I I don't know about that for sure.
• 1:05:56
  You must have a lot of fruit bearing trees though, like
• 1:05:59
  apple, pear, yeah. A lot of apples, cherries.
• 1:06:04
  Have you worked with any of those?
• 1:06:06
  I haven't. OK, well, thank you, man.
• 1:06:12
  I appreciate you taking the time to share with us today your
• 1:06:16
  journey. It's pretty cool.
• 1:06:19
  Happy to learn more about you. Where can people find out about
• 1:06:22
  you? My Instagram primitive under
• 1:06:26
  score alchemist. Once I get my workshop dates
• 1:06:31
  figured out for next year, I'll be posting about them on there.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah, that's awesome. Do you have a website?
• 1:06:39
  Not for primitive alchemist yet. OK, awesome.
• 1:06:44
  Well, I'll put the Instagram in the show notes and thanks for
• 1:06:47
  reaching out. Keep up the good work.
• 1:06:50
  Absolutely. And I'll be back on, I'll be
• 1:06:54
  back on Vancouver Island for a little bit this summer, so feel
• 1:06:57
  free to reach out. I can introduce you to Pete.
• 1:07:00
  He lives just down the road from my place.
• 1:07:02
  So that's how I got to know him. We were practically neighbors.
• 1:07:05
  I was, I was, I saw his axes. He refurbished his old axes,
• 1:07:10
  puts new handles on him. And I saw his axes in a little
• 1:07:13
  boutique store probably like 10 or more years ago.
• 1:07:17
  And I was like really fascinated by him.
• 1:07:19
  And I was trying to find the guy who made him.
• 1:07:21
  And then I found that he made bows.
• 1:07:22
  And I was even more fascinated with him.
• 1:07:24
  And I was trying to find the guy who made him.
• 1:07:25
  And I couldn't, couldn't find this guy.
• 1:07:27
  I don't know how hard I was trying, but I had his contact.
• 1:07:30
  So I was messaging him, but for some reason we never were able
• 1:07:32
  to to fully connect. And then one day my wife invited
• 1:07:36
  our neighbors over to come check out our farm.
• 1:07:38
  And we're walking around and just chatting.
• 1:07:40
  And it turns out Pete's the dude who I've been communicating with
• 1:07:43
  for like a year. And he's like right there on a
• 1:07:45
  farm. I'm like, what?
• 1:07:47
  That's you? Holy shit.
• 1:07:48
  You live like, I don't know, a minute down the road from me.
• 1:07:51
  Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  So question for you, what? Yeah, like what inspired you to
• 1:07:58
  do this whole project? Well, Pete and Jamie were big
• 1:08:02
  inspirations. So when I felt the calling to
• 1:08:06
  get into archery, which was probably about a decade ago, and
• 1:08:10
  it's through, it came to me through my Chinese medicine
• 1:08:13
  background. I practice Chinese medicine and
• 1:08:16
  practice Tai Chi, which is an ancient martial art that has a
• 1:08:20
  weapons training component. And so going through these forms
• 1:08:24
  of holding an imaginary bow and arrow, which I've been doing for
• 1:08:29
  20, probably 20 years. I've been doing a daily Tai chi
• 1:08:32
  chi gong practice. And I just remember very
• 1:08:34
  distinctly 1 morning I was doing that pond side at my farm and I
• 1:08:38
  just felt like I love this position that I'm in right now,
• 1:08:42
  this Archer esque position. I feel like I need a bow.
• 1:08:45
  And so I started that morning and I just started like
• 1:08:48
  searching like I need a bow. And I felt like I too, I was
• 1:08:51
  lacking some things in life. I had a month before we moved to
• 1:08:55
  this farm and 2011 maybe 20-14 maybe I don't know.
• 1:09:01
  But 15 ish years ago I destroyed my ankle in a water skiing
• 1:09:06
  accident and prior to then I was a competitive distance runner.
• 1:09:08
  I traveled the world running marathons and half marathons and
• 1:09:12
  that was in a moment stripped from me like everything that I
• 1:09:15
  I'd been a runner my whole life. And so I was pretty lost in a
• 1:09:19
  way. I got a business, I was doing my
• 1:09:22
  acupuncture like I had professionally things were fine.
• 1:09:26
  But when it came to personally what my purpose was and I never
• 1:09:30
  felt my purpose was business side of things.
• 1:09:33
  That was just something that I was passionate about, but it
• 1:09:35
  wasn't my purpose. And so when I, when archery kind
• 1:09:40
  of called to me that morning, I felt like a purpose and I can't
• 1:09:43
  explain it any more than that. So I started looking for bows.
• 1:09:47
  I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew I didn't want something
• 1:09:49
  modern. And then eventually I came
• 1:09:51
  across Ravenbeak Nature Works website with Jamie MacDonald,
• 1:09:55
  saw an English Longbow that he had just made that he was
• 1:09:58
  selling and ended up buying that.
• 1:10:01
  And that was, I still have that bow.
• 1:10:04
  I still teach people to shoot with it.
• 1:10:06
  I think it's 40 lbs of 28 inches shoots as well now as I did when
• 1:10:10
  I first bought it probably a decade ago.
• 1:10:13
  And part of my search for kind of this purpose was I was
• 1:10:16
  getting into men's work and I was eventually getting to a
• 1:10:20
  point where I was starting to plan some men's retreats,
• 1:10:24
  actually helping to like Co lead or lead men's retreats.
• 1:10:26
  And when I got that bow from Jamie, I've got this like bug
• 1:10:30
  that I wanted to learn how to carve a bow like that.
• 1:10:33
  And then I thought, well, maybe I can combine this with men's
• 1:10:35
  retreats and take men to Jamie and Powell River on the coast of
• 1:10:39
  British Columbia and carve bows. So I reached out to him and he
• 1:10:42
  loved the idea and so I started taking men there.
• 1:10:45
  So I carved my first few 3 bows, 3 bows with Jamie with groups of
• 1:10:50
  men who were on my retreats and just kept fueling the fire for
• 1:10:55
  it. And then as I mentioned, I met
• 1:10:57
  Pete, so it turns out on my farm and he lives just down the road.
• 1:11:01
  So I was able to go and spend some time in his workshop and he
• 1:11:04
  taught me how to back a bow for the first time with I think
• 1:11:07
  rawhide was the first one that I did.
• 1:11:09
  And he sold me my first laminate stave.
• 1:11:12
  I'd never worked with laminates. And then after that I started
• 1:11:14
  building some laminate bows. And so I, I got to a point about
• 1:11:23
  three years ago where I needed not, I didn't need I, I had some
• 1:11:29
  stressful years in my life and I felt like I could use some
• 1:11:34
  therapy, some like internal reflection, internal peace,
• 1:11:36
  internal healing and bow bow carving.
• 1:11:38
  I just know does that. And so I had this idea of I want
• 1:11:43
  to find more teachers. I want to reach out to people
• 1:11:46
  like Pete and Jamie around the world and travel and learn to
• 1:11:50
  carve those with them. And my son at the time was like
• 1:11:53
  10, and he had carved a lot of bows with me or help me carve my
• 1:11:56
  bows. And I thought this would be
• 1:11:58
  something that we could do together.
• 1:12:00
  And then the idea just kind of kept percolating.
• 1:12:05
  And then the timing started to feel right for it.
• 1:12:08
  And then my daughter, who was at the time 13, she ended up, she
• 1:12:14
  was in school here in Costa Rica, but she ended up, you
• 1:12:17
  know, through consultation with her mother and I, she decided
• 1:12:19
  she wanted to stop going to school and just focus on things
• 1:12:22
  that she was passionate about. And she mentioned one of those
• 1:12:25
  things was photography. I didn't know she liked
• 1:12:27
  photography. She was 13.
• 1:12:29
  And so we got her a photography mentor.
• 1:12:32
  And when that happened, this idea started to really like,
• 1:12:35
  change. And I was like, well, this is
• 1:12:37
  cool. If like, I can go and travel and
• 1:12:40
  carve bows with bowyers, maybe she can come along with me and
• 1:12:43
  take photos. And I've always been a writer,
• 1:12:46
  never published anything, but I've always known like writings
• 1:12:51
  in me. And so it just kind of all
• 1:12:53
  started to develop into this idea of let's like, let's see if
• 1:12:57
  we can make this happen. And I talked to her about it.
• 1:12:59
  She was really keen on doing it. We wanted to travel.
• 1:13:03
  My son ended up being able to come with us on some of the
• 1:13:05
  journey, but he was still in school.
• 1:13:07
  And, and he admits now, like at the time he was 11 and 12, and
• 1:13:12
  it would have been difficult for him to spend 8 or 10 hours a day
• 1:13:15
  in a workshop for four days straight times 14 bowyers.
• 1:13:20
  But my daughter, like she was old enough to go out and do her
• 1:13:22
  own thing. She would do her photographs and
• 1:13:24
  then she would go explore cities or towns or whatever.
• 1:13:29
  So it just started to kind of take shape.
• 1:13:31
  And then we just decided to commit to it.
• 1:13:35
  And what that commitment look like was just let's reach out to
• 1:13:38
  bow yours and let's just make this commitment that we're
• 1:13:41
  writing a book and we want to come and include them in the
• 1:13:44
  book and carve a bow and take photos and do an interview.
• 1:13:48
  And that was kind of like as soon as we started to put that
• 1:13:51
  out there and via e-mail or Instagram messaging, as soon as
• 1:13:55
  we started to get responses, which took literally, I think
• 1:13:58
  our first response came in like the day after we sent out an
• 1:14:00
  invitation. And it was like, OK, we're doing
• 1:14:03
  it like we're in, we, we got someone.
• 1:14:05
  And I don't remember who our first one was.
• 1:14:08
  I might be able to remember it. No, no, I don't remember who it
• 1:14:13
  was. But as soon as we got that first
• 1:14:14
  person, we're like, all right, well, let's keep going.
• 1:14:16
  And we didn't have a target number.
• 1:14:18
  We're just like, let's see how many amazing boogers we can get.
• 1:14:21
  So we were just doing research, looking at everyone's websites
• 1:14:23
  and social media, talking to Pete and Jamie, who knew other
• 1:14:28
  Bowyers, and finding out who they knew.
• 1:14:30
  And then once we'd sign on a new Bowyer, we talked to them about
• 1:14:33
  who else can you recommend? And it just really started to
• 1:14:38
  come together quickly. And that would have been in, I
• 1:14:40
  think we sent out our first invitation in probably October
• 1:14:43
  of 2024. And we were traveling.
• 1:14:45
  And by June of 2025, we spent the next five months from June
• 1:14:49
  through November to June all the way through to the beginning of
• 1:14:52
  November, traveling around the world and ended up visiting with
• 1:14:56
  14 Bowers to carve Boas. We visited with a few others
• 1:14:59
  along the way to just meet with them and take some, do some
• 1:15:02
  archery and take some photos. But we had 14 who are included
• 1:15:05
  in the are included in the book. And so that's just what how it
• 1:15:10
  happened. We found a publisher midway
• 1:15:11
  through our journeys. I found a few publishers that
• 1:15:14
  accepted our proposal. And then we ended up deciding
• 1:15:18
  with a publisher in Chicago called Trope and, and now we're,
• 1:15:22
  we're actually meeting with them in two hours to go over our
• 1:15:24
  final designs for the book. Like we're at the very tail end
• 1:15:27
  of of the process now. So it's it's pretty cool.
• 1:15:31
  That is fantastic. Yeah, and my daughter and I just
• 1:15:34
  had the time of our life. We would travel typically five
• 1:15:38
  months. I mean, we would do like two or
• 1:15:41
  three days visiting sites in between bowyers.
• 1:15:44
  Normally I'm going to cities get totally burnt out of people and
• 1:15:49
  in busyness and then we'd go into the bowyers home and
• 1:15:53
  workshop typically for like 4 or five days.
• 1:15:55
  And most of the bowyers lived in like in the countryside or
• 1:15:58
  somewhere outside of the cities. And so it gave us a chance to
• 1:16:01
  kind of spend 5 days in nature carving and her doing her
• 1:16:05
  photographs. And we'd do a day or so of
• 1:16:08
  traveling by train or plane sometimes.
• 1:16:10
  And then we'd go into a city and walk the city for like 15 hours
• 1:16:15
  a day for two or three days and then be like, we gotta get out,
• 1:16:18
  let's go out to the city, let's go somewhere else.
• 1:16:20
  So we just kept doing it and we didn't have any other than the
• 1:16:23
  schedule with our boaters, we didn't have any plans for the in
• 1:16:26
  between stages. Like we would book our
• 1:16:28
  accommodations on route to wherever we are going because we
• 1:16:32
  found that anytime we, we a couple times we made plans in
• 1:16:35
  advance and then that ended up messing us up.
• 1:16:38
  So we just kind of had this strategy of we'll book our
• 1:16:40
  accommodations when we're like an hour out, when we know where
• 1:16:43
  we're going for sure for that night.
• 1:16:45
  And, and it LED us to places we never thought we would go.
• 1:16:49
  Like we went to Jubiliana and Slovenia.
• 1:16:53
  We had no intention of going to Slovenia.
• 1:16:55
  We ended up going through more of Austria than we thought
• 1:16:58
  because we picked up another Bowyer, Phil Rockhouser in
• 1:17:02
  Austria because another one of our Bowers got injured, went to
• 1:17:06
  South Africa, Egypt, like we were all over and it was Turkey.
• 1:17:12
  And so it just allowed us all this flexibility.
• 1:17:14
  Just you know what? We knew we needed to be at a
• 1:17:16
  certain Bowers destination on the such and such date, but in
• 1:17:19
  between that we had a friend who was filming a movie in Southern
• 1:17:24
  Italy who invited us to come and stay with his family and that
• 1:17:27
  was going to be like a day. We ended up staying for like 5
• 1:17:29
  days. So it was just like the whole
• 1:17:33
  way it was. It was one of those really
• 1:17:34
  beautiful times for us where I wasn't bothered.
• 1:17:38
  There was nothing externally in my world that was calling on me
• 1:17:42
  to like for almost 5 months. I wasn't worried about anything
• 1:17:45
  else. It was, I was reflecting on this
• 1:17:47
  just the other day. It reminded me when I was like
• 1:17:49
  20 and traveling the road with a backpack.
• 1:17:52
  Like. Everything was there.
• 1:17:54
  I didn't have to think about, oh shit, I need to take care of
• 1:17:57
  this or taking care of that or whatever.
• 1:17:59
  My wife and my son were traveling at the same time.
• 1:18:01
  We wove their travels in with ours when we could.
• 1:18:04
  But for the most part, like everything in my life was just
• 1:18:07
  like on hold so my daughter and I could just be totally immersed
• 1:18:11
  in the project. It was beautiful, so beautiful.
• 1:18:17
  Wow, Yeah, that's inspiring, Yeah.
• 1:18:21
  Yeah, and the book's going to, I hope the book's going to inspire
• 1:18:24
  a lot of people. It is stunning.
• 1:18:26
  It really is. It's 350 page coffee table book
• 1:18:30
  and each bow year has about 18 pages for their profile,
• 1:18:34
  probably about 25 photos per bow year and pretty lengthy story
• 1:18:39
  for each of them as well. So it's and it's, it's going,
• 1:18:44
  it's going to be beautiful. Yeah, I can't wait for it in
• 1:18:51
  there. You mentioned men's work.
• 1:18:56
  There is a men's gathering in Chimacum right outside Port
• 1:19:02
  Townsend in June called Manifest.
• 1:19:06
  It's the largest men's gathering in the Northwest.
• 1:19:09
  I think this is their third or fourth year.
• 1:19:12
  Nice. And I have the opportunity to
• 1:19:14
  teach archery there. Calling the workshop,
• 1:19:19
  Cultivating Foresight and intuition.
• 1:19:25
  I'll, I'll send you the page for them on Instagram, let you check
• 1:19:29
  it out 'cause that it's been a really incredible thing both for
• 1:19:36
  myself and within this community.
• 1:19:38
  So. Yeah, so cool.
• 1:19:41
  I've been able to do something here called archery therapy is
• 1:19:43
  what I call it. And it's been really inspiring
• 1:19:46
  to basically combine my passions of Chinese medicine, including
• 1:19:51
  Qigong and Tai chi and archery. I'm not doing them all at the
• 1:19:56
  same time, but I have people who come and stay, stay either here
• 1:20:01
  locally or stay with me, not in my home, but in a rental for
• 1:20:05
  like 4 day, four or five days. And we'll just immerse in
• 1:20:09
  archery. And inner work through
• 1:20:12
  acupuncture and breathing and Qigong and Tai chi and it's been
• 1:20:15
  really cool. Archery, such a powerful tool
• 1:20:18
  and especially for helping people overcome like addictions
• 1:20:22
  we were talking about like bringing some purpose into life,
• 1:20:25
  bringing focus, integrity, purpose.
• 1:20:27
  Archery is amazing for that so. That's incredible that you're
• 1:20:32
  doing that too. Yeah, I just being able to
• 1:20:35
  follow our passions, it's so fulfilling.
• 1:20:38
  Every day I get to wake up and just be excited for the day
• 1:20:41
  that's ahead. And it's everything that I do is
• 1:20:43
  something I love to do, that I've chosen to do.
• 1:20:45
  And it's something that I can also feel good about doing
• 1:20:48
  because it's it's a service to others as well.
• 1:20:51
  So I feel so fortunate for that. Good on you man.
• 1:20:55
  That's. Great.
• 1:20:56
  Thanks, Jared. Thanks again for connecting and
• 1:20:59
  let's stay in touch. OK.
• 1:21:02
  Sounds good. Thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:21:13
  Thanks for listening to Project Quiver on Salish Wolf.
• 1:21:16
  Follow our journey on Instagram at Project Quiver as we seek out
• 1:21:19
  the world's most extraordinary traditional boat years and join
• 1:21:22
  our newsletter at projectquiver.com.
• 1:21:25
  Our coffee table book, Quiver, The Art of Life through Bow
• 1:21:28
  Craft, arrives in 2026. We are honored to share with you
• 1:21:33
  the beauty, history, and magic of traditional archery.