Dave was born in Ontario and spent his formative years in the Toronto suburbs. After high school he packed up his worldly possessions which consisted of a pair of skis and well worn climbing gear, and headed west to Vancouver to go to school. He quickly fell in love with the North Shore Mountains becoming obsessed with mountain biking Mount Fromme and spending his winters searching for hidden powder stashes on the back side of Mount Seymour. Ready to get out of the big city, he eventually moved to the Comox Valley in 2003 to raise a family and further fuel his obsession for outdoor living. Dave’s writing is inspired by his passion for all things crafted by hand.
This past January, I received an email from the organizer of the BC Epic thanking me for my registration. Which was odd, because I had never signed up for the event. It turned out that my good friend Rob Trainor had gone ahead and done that on my behalf. In early September 2021, Rob had […]
Words & Featured Photo by Dave NowakGallery Photo by Gary Egli
After the year that was 2020, we’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel—a return to the way life was before COVID-19 struck—but we are left with the scars of surviving a global pandemic. Although we weren’t immune to the virus’ effects, those of us on the Island were somewhat sheltered from […]
My parents were notorious collectors. On any given Saturday, they would pack up our silver E150 Ford Econoline van with a cooler full of Country Time lemonade and Flakes of Ham sandwiches. They would drag my younger brother and me across Grey, Bruce, and Simcoe Counties in search of antique sideboards, step back hutches, and […]
When you first look at a Waterman surfboard, you wouldn’t expect it had been crafted by a guy who grew up on the prairies. But every Waterman surfboard is handmade by Patrick Salamon, who grew up along the Yellowhead Highway, midway between the tiny towns of Bredenbury and Churchbridge, Saskatchewan. At age 18, Salamon moved […]
Gaining popularity in the mid-1950s, the modest A-frame, with its inherently simple aesthetic, defined a way of life. Its silhouette is reminiscent of steep mountain terrain, or the peaked firs of a west coast rainforest. Its angular roofline seamlessly connects the earth to the sky, sheds snow in the winter, deflects offshore winds and foul […]
Walk into any garage in Canada and you’re likely to find a hockey stick or two, tucked in a corner or shoved upside down in a barrel alongside brooms, rakes, and other long-handled implements. Even if you never set foot on the ice as a kid, as part of your Canadian heritage it’s required that […]
I came across a photo box recently containing pictures of a summer my family spent in a rented cottage at Penn Lake in Ontario’s Muskoka region. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and these sepia-toned images sparked memories so vivid that I could hear the sound of our 15-horse outboard motor, our […]
There is a well known Western idiom that “work is a means to an end.” The rat race, stuck on a treadmill, pushing a rock uphill; these are familiar expressions employed to describe our North American work lives. We want our children to be happy, so we tell them to find work that inspires, and […]
Words by Dave NowakFeatured photo by Kain McCollum
I met Cyril Werlen from cascadianwoodtech almost a year ago in our favourite coffee shop. Unbeknownst to me, this Swiss ex-pat, with an adolescent grin and antique carpenter’s ruler in the pocket of his Carhartts, along with his partner Reto, were yet another pair of local craftspeople whose story I’d get to tell. Cyril Werlen […]
I am not sure if Kerouac had any idea when he was writing his iconic novel On the Road, that the idea of the road trip, whether it was meant to be a metaphor or not, would become such a fundamental part of North American culture. No longer is it seen as an opportunity for […]