A cane by any other name...
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 01/00) - Collecting curios runs in Terry Woolf's family. While some people collect spoons, shells or stamps, Woolf turned his lively curiosity on the world of canes.
"This is just to give you an example of what there is in canes and walking sticks," says Terry Woolf, filmmaker and cane-collector, cracking open a huge, intimidating book.
"Snuff boxes, sundials, optical instruments, cameras, musical canes, radios, lights, writing, drawing, subversive and political canes--"
Subversive? Stop right there. Are we still talking about canes? You know, simple walking sticks, the kind grandparents lean on?
"They're sort of secret canes," he says, pointing to an ugly looking picture of what might just be a carved face.
"This one here, it just looks like this, but when you throw the shadow on the wall it becomes Napoleon's profile. It was for secret supporters of Napoleon."
How charming for the desultory Josephine when her little emperor was off conquering the world.
"But this is the ultimate one," says Woolf, pointing at another image.
A bicycle in a cane?
"Never built. But the patent and all the drawings were made. Isn't that insane?"
Yet another picture demonstrates a naughty use for a "shooting stick," so called because they were originally used as seats while waiting for wild game.
Woolf has one made of bamboo. The double handle opens up to comfortably hold the posterior.
"You can buy them now in modern stores," he adds.
Indeed, one British cane-making company asserts that "they are now just as popular on the golf course, and for equestrian pursuits, hill climbs or other country sports."
Woolf then points out a pond collecting stick.
"It's got a hook and a line, a little sample bottle, some net, and a spoon."
All the items together fit into the cane, executing a neat and tidy disappearing act.
"You could buy these things. They were advertised all over the place. Even firearms canes, of which there are two in this town. Sword canes, herbalist's canes."
Soulful canes
Stop. Where does this come from, this need to hide things in canes?
"The French call it 'the cane with a soul,'" says Woolf.
"They came with something else inside of it. Or they're called mechanical canes.
"I have a bullshit theory that I make up about canes: if you think about it, when human beings first became toolmakers, there was two things that we could use, a rock or a stick. And if they say we're descended from monkeys, and the last election proves that, then probably a broken branch or a stick was the first tool we used, to poke at things with."
And like us, sticks evolved.
In reading on the topic, Woolf noted the transformation of canes to fashion item, and that everyone used them.
"Everyone who could afford them. Everyone had three or four nice canes. They were quite popular up until the invention of the automobile."
In a 1940 publication titled Accessories of Dress: An Illustrated History of those Frills & Furbelows of Fashion, authors Katherine Morris Lester and Bess Viola Oerke place canes in the category of fashion accessories called "things carried in the hand."
As for mechanical canes, says Woolf, they go back hundreds of years.
"The Victorians were very big on them, like this little one here."
The picture shows a cane whose handle houses a miniature music box with a minuscule revolving bird.
"They just come from all over the place. It's kind of odd. You never notice them. I never noticed them for years. And then I started. I got one. I got another."
Woolf still has his first cane, acquired at 16, passed on to him by a friend who'd had a motorcycle accident. It's an ordinary crook, just like the elusive and innocent cane of the grandparents mentioned above. Only this collector painted his sometime in the sixties -- now it's a funky crook.
"Then I started to look around. You go into a junk store, and somewhere in a corner there will be a couple a canes. We were in Seattle, I was in a cigar store, and I looked over and this was in the corner. Nothing else, just this."
The cane in question, which Woolf plucks from among the many others displayed on his wall, lights a little flashlight when you depress a spot on the handle.
"I make it a point of getting a cane everywhere I go. I'm lucky, I've been able to travel a fair bit with my work. Or people will bring me a cane. My neighbours brought me one from China. It just kind of grew by itself. There's about a hundred of them now. If you ask my partner, she says there's too many."
Gadget canes are the ones people are usually most curious about. They like to see his umbrella cane, practical in a sudden downpour; his flask cane, popular at parties; his fishing rod cane.
But he has many others that are simply beautiful, demonstrating the skill and craftsmanship of their makers. Called stick dressers by the British, they exist all over the world. Two canes demonstrate the carving skills of a Pond Inlet carver. Two Chinese, canes have minuscule loose balls, carved right inside a dragons mouth.
Woolf eventually turned to fashioning his own canes, not absolutely content with the passive hobby of collecting.
