[Woodcarver] Totem Pole Carving

[Doug & Carol Rowe]

I'm having a great experience and want to share my fun with you so that if
you get the chance, you won't hesitate like I did.

About a year and a half ago, a camping club that helps maintain a Scout Camp
near here asked me to come to their assistance.  One of their members had
started a totem pole for the Scout Camp then suddenly died.  Could I help by
either finding a totem pole carver who would work for nothing or would I
finish the pole for them?  I dithered and waffled all summer until the bad
weather came then settled back hoping the job would be offered to someone
else.  A phone call in the winter finally got me to agree to at least look
at the pole and decide what needed to be done.  In the spring I drove the
150 Km to the Scout camp and found an old electric utilities pole on a
makeshift stand, wrapped in plastic.  After opening the plastic and being
begged I tried one more time to get them to find another carver because my
tools kit is designed to carve charactures and small relief carvings. No
problem they said and opened a Tool Box with a tool roll containing  23 full
size Ashley-Ines carving tools, all fairly sharp, a power hone, two mallets
and some other carving stuff.  What could I say I was hooked.

We went to the scout camp two more weekends and carved for about 5
hours each day for a total of 6 days and the only trouble I had was saying
no thank you to some of the beers the camping club members kept bringing.

This winter, I am building the wings and beak for the Thunderbird on top and
I will have one more weekend of carving this spring.  It will then be up to
the camping club to paint, plant and present the totem pole to the scout
camp.

This has been and continues to be a rewarding experience so my advice to all
of you is if you can find any time to do a bit of carving for your
community, do it.  You will get back five times what you give.

Doug