My little Dutch tool chest has seen a metric crap-load of miles (or kilometers or hogsheads) during the last 12 months. And wherever I take it, I like to pick up a sticker from a local gas station or convenience store to apply to the chest.
The stickers are not to reinforce the joinery. Promise.
Today, the president of the Kansas City Woodworkers Guild gave me the coolest stickers yet. Rob Young gets to spend some of his working life in Antarctica and brought back a sticker for the South Pole Station, plus a sticker that indicates you shouldn’t freeze whatever is in the package (it could be a well-dressed live penguin).
I can’t wait to add these stickers to the chest. Even though I haven’t been to the South Pole, and I have little prospect of teaching there (I hear there aren’t many trees. Yet), I love the stickers.
This year I hope to get stickers from Alaska, Alabama and England – three of the foreign lands in which I’ll be teaching in during 2014. (Sorry Alabama. I’m from Arkansas and you know that we’re constitutionally obligated to make jokes about you because… uh, we’re Arkansas.)
— Christopher Schwarz
Please not “Roll Tide”
CMS
Born in St. Louis, MO – Moved to Bronxville, NY – Moved to Fort Riley, KS – Moved back to Florissant, MO – Moved to Fort Smith, AR and then off on his own to college etc.
At least you didn’t mention Maine. yet
Chris,
One recent graduates of the Foundations of Woodworking class at Port Townsend School of Woodworking would appreciate this. Tirsah Juskalian, having spent previous “summers” in Antarctica, spent 12 late Fall weeks in balmy Port Townsend sharpening her woodworking skills previously employed in Antarctica. I think she would appreciate a sticker or two for her tool tote.
By the way, the proper metric for describing journeys such as your little Dutch tools chest has taken is Furlongs per Fortnight.
Woodworking Antarctica
Harry McNish was the carpenter aboard Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance during the 1914-1916 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Without McNish to modify the small boats they would not have survived. He used a mast from one boat to reinforce the keel of another to make it strong enough for the 800 mile trip to South Georgia. He built a 4 drawer chest to protect the navigation tools. He pulled brass screws out of the boat and drove them into their shoes so they could walk on ice to cross South Georgia. I have not found where his tool chest is. The greatest story of adventure survival ever and based on woodwork.
In 1984 my friend Gareth Wood arrived at Scott base in Antarctica with a pile of lumber and a box of tools where he proceeded to build a building for his team, 3 of which would (including Gareth) walk to the South Pole the next summer. The building is still in use.
Woodworking has always been essential in the antarctic.
Here you go Chris: https://stockton.craigslist.org/trd/4261195519.html
Well, you’re raising the bar for us guys in the DC area for your May trip out here, eh? You might get some doozies.
And as far as trees in Antarctica – been there, done that.
http://www.livescience.com/40893-weird-ancient-antarctic-forests.html
The Alaska sticker procurement process has begun.
I attended a meeting of the Alabama Woodworkers Guild today where your forthcoming seminar was discussed. One member asked “What would Schwarz be presenting that the members did not already know?” I will pay the price of admission to find out.
You actually bring your tools when traveling by plane? I assumed they only came with you when commuting by car.