Etching the North

Coles draws on metal

Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Feb 01/02) - Doug Lagore may have been pushed out of city council a few years ago, but his memory lives on in the basement of the Panda I Mall.

Joe Coles etches letters into a pewter mug using a pantograph. He bought the machine and dies 25 years ago for $6,000. - Nathan VanderKlippe/NNSL photo

A plaque commemorating Lagore's "11 years of meritorious service," still sits on Joe Coles' shelves, stuffed into an envelope of bubble wrap.

It's not the only memento of times past: Coles' basement is a treasure trove of old medallions and plaques -- some which could probably be collectors items.

But for Coles, they are nothing more than pieces of the daily labour that has dominated most of his life.

For the last 27 years, he has worked the adult equivalent of an Etch-a-Sketch. Using first a pantograph and later a computer, Cole has taught himself the art of engraving.

The process he uses is surprising in its simplicity. Whether it's a manually-operated pantograph or a modern computer-driven machine, a stylus follows a text or image dummy, transferring the pattern via diamond tip into a plaque, knife, mug or medallion.

And it's a big business. Coles has about 2,000 accounts in the North -- some as far away as Kangirsujuaq, in northern Quebec. He does commemorative plaques for most of the North's communities and works for many of the schools as well. April and May are so busy he employs three engravers full-time just to keep up.

Three years ago, he added a laser-etching machine to his toolset. Purring back and forth along a strip of metal or wood, the device can etch just about anything.

Coles and his engravers create images in Corel Draw 9, and then simply hit print. The laser-etcher takes care of the rest, operating much like a conventional printer, except with a much more durable output.

Coles got into engraving after skipping between 27 mines in 15 years. He decided to try something that would afford him some creative output, so he got into the rubber stamp business.

"I just started working on my own," he said. Working for someone else wasn't always up to snuff. You don't know what your potential is until you go the school of hard knocks."

Times were a little more difficult before computers -- he could watch four or five hours of work rendered completely useless by one mistake. But he kept up the business, and soon branched out from there, creating Jofran Enterprises. He now does everything from printing T-shirts to selling racks of herbs and alternative medicines.

But engraving still comprises a large part of his business, and it's the sort of art you have to be proud of for it to work.

After all, Coles says, you give your work "to someone to be proud to present it to someone else."