On my vacation in the Pacific Northwest I came across some interesting places devoted to preserving the craft of woodworking and places where great trees are protected.

The attractive town of Port Townsend in northwestern Washington was once a significant port in the early days of white settlement. I enjoyed a tour of its Victorian-era houses and heritage waterfront buildings. Then I recalled the name, Port Townsend School of Woodworking which I had seen advertised many times in Fine Woodworking Magazine, and heard about at SAWS. The school occupies two buildings in an old army base - Fort Worden State Park. It seems to be a thriving enterprise with weekend, week-long and 12-week long courses. There are 64 different courses being offered there in the coming year. The 12-week courses include the Foundations of Woodworking, Traditions in Furniture and The Art of Furniture. I was able to peek inside the open door of one of the two buildings and see a dozen or so students in the Foundations course working on their three-legged stool project. Besides teaching courses, the school also supports itself by helping restore buildings and furniture in Fort Worden. The Port Townsend School of Woodworking has a visiting teaching staff of 30 woodworkers from across the US and Canada. Interestingly, I think that SAWS members could teach many of the courses presented down there. Check out their website: ptwoodschool.org.

For a town of 10,000 people, Port Townsend is rich in wood craft. The Northwest Maritime Center started out there years ago as a community of “salt water hippies” enjoying the annual Wooden Boat festival. Now the Centre supports everything to do with sailing, rowing and paddling”. This includes training in all manner of recreational water transport and boat construction. Their course topics include: basics of wooden boat joinery, building a boat in your living room, stitch-and-glue build workshops for stand-up paddle boards, kayaks and sailboats, demystifying marine finish, steam bending, skin-on-frame canoes and rowboats, and building spars, oars and paddles. Check out the Boatshop Workshops on their website: nwmaritime.org/boatshop.

This student is completing the week-long boat building course.

Further down the road in Eureka , California I came across the Blue Ox, which has a Millworks, Historic Park and School of Traditional Arts. The founder, Eric Hollenbeck, has gathered woodworking tools and machinery from the last century and uses these tools and machines to create Victorian millwork including columns, moldings, corbels, doors, windows and various gingerbread gable decorations. The Blue Ox takes custom orders from restorers throughout the US and other countries as a major way to sustain itself.

The town of Eureka has two fine mansions right near the Blue Ox, namely The Carter Mansion and The Pink Lady and these are frequently needing period pieces created for their upkeep.

Eric Hollenbeck is also deeply involved in his community with students and seniors. A special project was the building of a reproduction (from a single photograph) of the funeral hearse of Abraham Lincoln. The builders were, like Eric, Vietnam War veterans who benefitted from such a meaningful hands-on project. The replica hearse is now in Lincoln’s home state of Illinois.

Reproduction of the hearse for Abraham Lincoln, built by Vietnam Veterans

Eric also built a Redwood table from a discarded scrap of Coast Redwood to call national attention to the preservation of these great trees. The table is now in the White House.Learn more at blueoxmill.com.

Along with visiting woodshops I finally had a chance to see some giant trees - the Coast Redwoods in northern California and the Sequoias near the centre of the state. Each was a different and awe-filled experience. The Coast Redwoods tend to be in dense groves so that walking among them provoked an intense, closed-in feeling. These giants are numerous even though 95% had been logged before they became protected. On the other hand, the Sequoias are high up (7,000 feet) in the mountains and they stand far from one another among much smaller trees. The greatest tree there is named the General Sherman and is the largest tree on earth by volume. It has a diameter of 36 feet and is estimated to be between 2,200 and 2,700 years old. One can only hope that future generations will be able to wonder at these majestic gifts of nature.

Conserving Woodworking and Wood

November 2022 Meeting Video

October 2022 Meeting Video