Specializing in custom designing and building high-end wooden canoes, paddles, furniture, and furnishings. I was born and raised in Northwestern Connecticut (Norfolk) until the age of 13. As a young 6-year old child, I became VERY interested in canoes, boats, and fishing...stripping the bark off white birch trees and building miniature birch bark canoes. I injured white pine trees, then gathered t
he pitch which I melted into the bark canoes; rendering them seaworthy by sealing any leaks. In 1978, my parents purchased a 350 acre dairy farm in Northern New York (Hopkinton). I was a "hands-on" kid, who loved fishing and building all sorts of things from items found on the farm, including snowshoes. I graduated High School from the tiny Canton Christian Academy in Canton, NY in 1982. Navy, and volunteered to serve as a Sonar Tech on Submarines. I attended several Navy Tech Schools in Great Lakes, IL, Groton, CT, and San Diego, CA, returned to Hopkinton, NY to marry my wife Paula around Christmas of 1984. In March of 1985, I was assigned to the USS James Monroe SSBN 622 Gold in Charleston, SC, serving aboard her for a little over 4 years. While aboard this sub, my 2 eldest children, Jenn and Timmy were born. During this time, I took interest in building my own strip canoe at the age of 23...a "less-expensive" pathway to obtaining a faster, more stable canoe from which I could launch many successful fishing trips in SC's Lake Moultrie and surrounding areas. This was delusional thinking on my part, so Paula suggested that I build a second canoe to give to my Dad in Northern NY...2 canoes would theoretically lower the average cost to build each canoe because I would only need to purchase equipment one time. Around this same time, (June of 1989) I transferred off the USS James Monroe and took 3 weeks of leave...2 of those were on a canoe trip to Baxter State Park in Maine, where we tested out my prototype 19' long Redwood "Silkwood" model canoe. Great all-around hull! Upon returning to Charleston after my leave, I was assigned to the USS Tecumseh SSBN 628 Blue in late June of 1989. On September 21st, the massive Hurricane Hugo came through Charleston, and demolished our home. I was on the Tecumseh that night, which was 1 of 2 Navy vessels unable to escape Hugo due to technical issues. We stayed moored to Pier Charlie on the Weapons Station in Goose Creek, and weathered the storm unharmed. My wife and 2 children stayed with a friend where they were also unharmed. But our home was totaled. Hugo was actually a blessing in disguise. We were able to purchase 5 acres of property in rural Round O, SC, further inland and a 46 mile commute to the Charleston Navy Base. We were able to purchase a new larger home there, and had 2 more children...Daniel and Rose. I stayed with the USS Tecumseh for nearly 4 years, and continued building canoes and paddles in my spare time when not on the submarine or training. My shop was too small though...only 10 feet X 16 feet. So we built a larger, temporary "shelter", that was somewhere between a picnic pavilion and a tent...closer to a tent. That gave me space under which I built a couple more canoes. In January of 1993, I was told that I MUST take a Shore Duty position, and the only job available was at the large Navy Brig (prison) in North Charleston. So I went to a 6-week Navy Corrections Officer School in Anniston Alabama, then returned to Charleston for nearly 3 years as a Corrections Officer. This was NOT a job that I desired...I only accepted it because it guaranteed me to be able to stay in the Charleston area for 3 more years. While serving at the Brig, I invested my reenlistment bonus into a new shop that I would build. We had some huge pines (30-26" diameter) on our land, plus a few smaller ones. I felled them, then had a sawyer with a portable mill come to my property and mill them according to my cut-list...I had designed my new 2-story, 28' X 46' shop similar in shaped to the gambrel-roofed dairy farms up north, with which I was quite familiar. It took a couple of years to build the shop to completion, during which we kept building canoes and paddles, attended our first wooden boat shows...winning several "Best-of-Show" awards in Georgetown, SC ('93, '94, and '96) and 1st Place Peoples Choice at the mega WoodenBoat Show in Southwest Harbor, Maine in 1994 and 1995. While at the Brig for the final few months of my time there, I was asked to fill the position as the Military person in charge of the Wood Shop...one of several Shops at the Brig designed to assist prisoners in rehabilitation back into society. I gladly accepted, and was then asked if I would consider a special assignment teaching a core group of volunteer prisoners how to build a strip canoe. Of course I agreed, and this special program was a huge hit...the "PERS84" Officer, in charge of all Navy Brigs, and based in Washington DC, made several trips to see this project through its completion. To this day, the mahogany canoe is still on display at NavConBrig Charleston. But most importantly, I learned that I LIKED to teach...and that I was really good at it too. I left the Brig in January of 1996, and boarded my last submarine, the USS L. Mendel Rivers SSN 686 out of Norfolk, VA. I served aboard her for 16 months while Paula, my sister Naomi, and her husband Rob ran Wood Song Canoes. In May of 1997, I exited the Navy (no retirement) and became a full-time artisan woodworker. The stories I have accumulated since 1987 are numerous...enough to fill an entire book. The clients, the shows, the projects, the media events (over 30 major magazine feature articles), the celebrities, even a real Red Carpet Hollywood event at the Beverly Hilton with the Cast of "Friends" in September of 1997. Those stories will have to wait until I can relay them in person, should you make the trip to Round O, SC to visit my shop. In 2009, right after the serious economic downturn, I made the decision to incorporate furniture along side the wooden canoes and paddles. Every year brings new challenges and I never know where I'll be focusing my woodworking efforts...whatever clients commission me to design or build, that's where my focus will be that year. Canoes, paddles, furniture...and even one-on-one tutoring sessions. If I love to design it, build it, or teach it...challenge accepted!
