After half a century of carpentry, Robert Peterson can still shave an edge just right
Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 30/01) - A sliver of wood curls like a ribbon, peeled by the sharp edge of the plane beneath Robert Peterson's thick fingers. He's sanding shelves for a cupboard, half a century of carpentry experience going into each stroke.
It's 4:20 p.m. inside the large shop at Energy Wall and Building Products Ltd. on Coronation Drive out in Kam Lake.
One last ribbon falls to the workshop table and Peterson flips the cupboard on its edge and traces the upper edge with his pointer finger for the possibility that one grain is out of place. Satisfied, he lays it flat on the table again.
He swung a hammer when he learned to write at six years old and now a million wood chips later he's still sanding edges.
"I love carpentry," says Peterson.
"To take something, a rough piece of lumber and make it into something finished that people admire, that is an accomplishment," he says.
"To take a piece of wood and make something beautiful out of it."
In that story book way he learned carpentry from his father mending fences and shingles on the farm in Weyburn, Sask. In those days neighbours helped neighbours and his father somehow became a defacto carpenter, moonlighting with wood when he wasn't stacking hay bales in the barn. In elementary school his shop teacher, Mr. Krogsguard wouldn't let him use power tools. There's something about the proximity between the hand and the cut.
"I learned a lot from him," says Peterson.
"I learned to be particular and do things accurately."
He started his apprenticeship in 1958 and by 1962 he was journeyman.
By 1967 he had built 400 boats for a business he eventually bought after working three springs.
He can tell wood by its smell. He says oak stinks and his favourite is Tennessee cedar.
"It has a strong smell," he says.
He knows how certain types of wood absorb varnish differently depending on the width of the grain, but that's just a start.
There's a certain intuition that comes from a life between cuts.
Peterson works all day in the sawdust of his job and goes home at night to tinker in his woodshop.
He's passed on carpentry to his two sons, and one of them works with him.
"They got the smell of wood," he says.
"I'll stop doing carpentry when I die," he says.
You have to believe him.
"I still got all my fingers," Peterson says as he holds up his hands.
