Shop Notes & Rambles
The Rambles are the stories lived and learned over decades — the moments, the lessons, and the shop life that shaped the craft. They accumulate here, sorted by publish date. If you want the curated version, explore the Workshop Library.
The Value of Wood
Woodworking today feels modern and predictable, but every board carries a much older story. To understand the value of wood now, we have to look at a time when survival depended on it. At York Factory in 1817, wood wasn’t a resource — it was life itself. Timber meant heat, shelter, tools, boats, and the ability to endure one of the harshest places in Rupert’s Land. This cornerstone story follows the men who cut spruce in deep winter, hauled timber across frozen muskeg, and rode the spring flood down the Hayes River, revealing the grit, skill, and human effort behind every piece of wood we touch today.
🌲 Outdoor Woods — A Story From the Red River Valley
Outdoor wood lives a hard life on the Prairies — sun, snow, floodwater, ice, and decades of exposure. This story explores how outdoor materials have survived here for more than 200 years, from bur oak and elm in early river‑lot homes to treated spruce, painted softwoods, and modern HDPE furniture. Built from real fieldwork across Manitoba and neighbouring provinces, it shows outdoor wood exactly as it exists in the real world: weathered, painted, frozen, flooded, and still standing. This is the long Prairie record of outdoor wood — the climate, the materials, and the choices that shaped two centuries of building.