Haliburton School of Art & Design: Blacksmithing

 I've been wanting to refamiliarize myself with metal work for some time.  I don't like farming out work that I'm capable of doing myself and there was a point early in my working life when I was welding weekly as part of my millwright apprenticeship, but I haven't joined metal in over three decades. It's amazing how the time flies when quantum cyber research gets in the way.

Finding opportunities to develop these DIY technical skills in Canada where people don't like to DIY is a challenge. The only welding courses I could find were full-bore certificate courses for professionals, but then my wife found the Haliburton School of Art & Design. HSAD takes place in Haliburton, which you'll have heard about on TMD before because it's one of my favourite places to go for a ride in Ontario. It's also only about three hours from home.

HSAD offers piles of course options ranging from visual arts to technical crafts. If you're reading this you'll probably be interested in the blacksmithing course, not necessarily for the smithing but because it offers you access to expert metal workers in a fully tooled shop that will make you hands-on familiar with not only the hot forging of metal but also various other related technologies such as welding, grinding, polishing and plasma cutting. The three of us went up for the week with me doing the smithing, my son glass blowing and my wife water colour painting.

We were asked to bring a project, but what you really need to do for this is to start amassing ideas so when you're in the forge you've got a list to go after, that way you're not wasting time in front of a hot forge wondering what to do next. I showed up with my copy of the Rudge Book of the Road and an idea to build a metal sculpture of the line art in the front of the book.

My blacksmithing experience consists of an afternoon, so I thought this would take me the week, but by the end of day one I'd already worked out the rider in hot steel and started worrying that I'd run out of project.

I figured getting handy with welding would take a some time, but I forgot to take into account technological progression. Back in the day (in the late 1980s) when I was learning how to weld it was all stick (and no MIG carrot). It took about 15 minutes for Amie to talk me through the MIG process and ten minutes later I was tacking pieces together to get my layout right. No sparking a rod to see where you are either with modern instantly darkening welding helmets. Early efforts at joining pieces were messy but by Thursday I was knocking together pieces at will with clean welds. It's now just a  matter of practice to get back to a point where my joins are a point of pride.

Monday was a real hot-box with temps in the mid-thirties. In the forge it was well into the forties and I was drenched when I left. I should have shown up with better heat management methods and was very dehydrated when I left. I recovered as best I could overnight. The next morning I was still not feeling well but got myself in, got a handle on welding and put the rest of the design together.

I woke up Wednesday properly sick with the mother of all summer colds, but the only thing I needed to do to finish was the rider's scarf. With a bit more hot forming of steel and welding I had my 1920s art deco styled Rudge metalwork sculpture done.

On a side note - the propane forges aren't very big and don't work for long, complicated pieces, but the shop had dual coal forges with four working sides in the back room that let you heat longer pieces. The only trick with the coal forge is that it can get so hot it'll burn the steel (which looks like sparklers when it goes). The propane forges are set to not get that hot, but the coal forge can, so in addition to feeding the beast you also have to be careful it doesn't burn your steel. I ended up leaving the scarf in too long and it burned through at the back, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing as I wasn't able to create the creases I was looking for in the ends. After burning it in half I was able to make the creases and weld the two sides back together, making it better than it would have been otherwise.

  

Old school, but it does offer some advantages along with some challenges...

I then got a primer on how the grinding room worked. The temperatures were dropping from Monday but when you're wearing face protection, a leather apron, long trousers, steel toe boots, leather gloves and a respirator, it's hot anyway. Even with all that and feeling right rotten I enjoyed getting a feel for grinding and cleaning up finished pieces. I get the sense that grinding is another one of those hands-on skills that can go surprisingly deep.

The end result was hung outside and I got given a spray on chemical that would prevent it from rusting while showing off the ground metal finish.

The finished piece looked so nice I got a clean image of it and then updated the logo on the site with it, and began the process of moving away from TMD logos focused on what I'm riding at the moment.

 

Amie Botelho was our instructor and she is all about hands-on learning. Most mornings we
did a 15-20 minute demo of tools and techniques that you could immediately find a use for. Any time you needed other equipment you'd do one on one safety and how-to training and be let at it. On the forge (and everywhere else in the shop)  Amie is incredibly efficient and that teaches you all sorts of lessons if you watch closely.

It isn't about how hard you hit, it's about how efficiently you get get hot steel out of the forge and under the hammer. It's also about turning your project over and looking at it closely as you work it. Smithing isn't about brute force, it's about attention and precision, but watching a master smith do it is infinitely better than reading about it in a book or hearing someone drone on about it in in a lecture.

Every demo was immediately followed by the suggestion to 'just do it', complete with lots of support in a class of 16 from Amie and shop-tech John. But the best part is that most of the 'students' are actually experienced smiths themselves. The ones around me had all done the four month certificate program at Fleming, so you're surrounded with experienced metal workers who are very free with support and advice (if you want it - you're left to your own devices if that's your jam).

If you're looking to hone your metalworking skills, or want to jumpstart them from scratch, this is a great place to start. Just make sure you show up with lots of ideas if you don't want to be cranking out spoons and bottle openers all week (unless that's your jam) - they're totally open to whatever you want to tackle. We had students working on everything from building a barrel forge of their own involving big industrial pieces, to yard art metal work using the small stuff.  Those experienced smiths in many cases were churning out all the smithing they needed for the year. One told me he'd make the $700 fee for attending for the week every day in what he was producing, making it well worth the cost.

Why come at it like this? Canada being Canada makes it very difficult for you to do things like forging or doing metal work on your own property without hanging you out to dry with insurance and infinite municipal, provincial and federal paperwork. Coming at it this way gives you access to a full service metal shop with all the tech and consumables, and with the safety and insurance challenges all taken care of. The bonus is you also get to hang with an interesting group of like-minded DIYers for the week, which is worth the price of admission alone.

The bandsaws looked like they were older than I am, and I'm feeling old this week!

Once I had the Rudge line art metalwork done I had a go at plasma cutting. I was originally thinking of making a variation on the Isle of Man TT trophy, but symmetrical wings are well out of my wheelhouse without more practice, so I turned it into an absurd door stop with a vaguely Honda theme.

 

Not bad for my first go with a plasma cutter!

Spoons are properly hard work. I found the edge of my forging techniques there quickly!

True that.

The forge at work.

He was early for lunch... this takes place in Haliburton, there are (lots of) deer.

Yep, I did a bottle opener too.

The propane forge at work.

Empty Algonquin Park

I managed a couple of days out on the bike around my birthday this year. Thanks to being freed from the shackles of the school year, I was able to do it outside of the May long weekend when the roads would be utterly mad with with ravening hordes driving the largest SUVs they could find and hauling every possible motorized toy to their second homes in the near north.

It ended up being just over 800kms over two days. 500kms on day one from home and up through and around Algonquin Park, then 320kms home on day two.  The Map.

The ride down Highway 9 to the 400 north was packed solid with transport trucks, to the point where I missed the turn north on Highway 27 because I was literally surrounded by the bloody things.

Finally on the 400 north (which was moving well on the Thursday morning before the long weekend), I let the Kawasaki fly and we shot up the road, finally clear of the convoy. I had three things going for me when I crested a hill right into the eyes of a waiting OPP cruiser.

#1: I was making time in the middle lane rather than the fast lane and was following another car

#2: The bike is awfully difficult to get a reading from thanks to not a lot of metal to bounce radar off of

#3: You can always count on some citiot blasting up the fast lane in a mega-sized German SUV

The cruiser lit the lights and pulled out only to collect said SUV out of the fast lane. He wasn't going much faster than I was but he can enjoy that ticket.

The 400 was (incredibly) fully functional and I was around Barrie in no time and moving up Highway 11 at pace. I pulled into Webbers because they have a nice new Starbucks where I got a coffee and stretched. In under two hours I'd covered the 172kms that got me clear of the gravity of the Greater Toronto Area and into the near north.

After a warm up (it was 5°C when I left just past 9am), I was back on the Kawasaki and heading north again. Gravenhurst was (incredibly) efficient and I slipped past what is often a backup without delay. By 11:30 I was grabbing a quick lunch and filling up in Huntsville and then it was Highway 60 into Algonquin Provincial Park.

I stopped at the West Gate to have a chat with the wardens and get my pass as I intended to stop at the Visitor Centre. After a nice chat with the young ladies at the desk I got my pass, set up the 360 camera and then got in motion ASAP because it's blackfly season and boy do they come out of the woodwork when you stop!

Into the park there was very little traffic. The only one I had to make space for was the massive German SUV thundering through one of the most beautiful places in the province at well over 120kms/hr (it's an 80 zone). If you play your cards like that, you're not likely to see anything!

Once clear of the traffic by the gate things got really quiet. An occasional car would pass the other way but there was nothing on the road in front of behind me as I went deeper into nature. It was midday so I wasn't likely to see any big animals (and I didn't), but birds were plentiful with birds of prey over the road and many others in the bush.

It was a glorious ride alone through the park - a place that comes as close to a church for me as anything can be. The bike was the perfect vehicle. I was moving fast enough to stay ahead of the blood sucking insects, but slowly enough to smell the lakes and woods and feel the thermoclines as a dipped into and out of valleys.

The visitor's centre is worth a stop if you're travelling through the park. The lookout off the back is a great view (and high enough up to be relatively bug free!). I would have stayed for a coffee and a snack but the restaurant was closed. It was a good opportunity to clean the bugs off my visor though.

By now it had hit the high of 12°C for the day and though it was sunny it was cool, especially when in motion on the bike. If I stopped I got sweaty and then the flies would come, so best to keep things moving. Out the east gate and then the plan was to ride south around the bottom of the park.

The Concours had been fantastic on the highways and had handled everything I asked of it. The only place I think the Tiger could have done a better job was on Peterson Road, which is your typical poorly maintained Ontario backroad with ruts and potholes that'll knock your teeth out. The sporty suspension on the Kawasaki didn't enjoy that bit of road. The Tiger's longer suspenders would have done the trick, but otherwise the Concours was the right bike for this ride, especially on the highways.

I finally pulled into Wilberforce about 444kms into the ride for a stretch and a drink (and to clean the bugs off the visor again). 

After a quick pit stop I was on my way again. The 118 is one of my favourite roads in the province and I twisted and turned my way down it towards Canarvon and Minden where I was spending the night. Only a long delay in Haliburton for road works slowed the ride down. At least I know the fans are working on the C14. They cycled three times while we sat there wondering what the f*** was going on. It turned out a water pipe had burst across the road holding things up.

I pulled into the Red Umbrella Inn just outside of Minden at about 5pm. After getting cleaned up I rode into town for some of the best Thai I've had at Suwan's Thai Cuisine and picked up a couple of local craft brews from Boshkung Brewing Social (Minden really has everything you need) before filling up and heading back to the inn for a quiet night by the lake.

The next morning I was up early and over to the Mill Pond for breakfast. Great eggs and bacon and then it was an empty ride down the 118 to Bracebridge, Port Carling and finally Bala for a coffee before the last stretch through Wahta Mohawk Territory before popping out at the 400 and getting into the rapid flow south.

I dodged and weaved around Creemore, stopping once to change into lighter gear because the temperature had shot up with the humidity and made it home before the thunderstorms started. A nice way to spend a couple of days on the road. I only wish I'd had more time.

A Cure For Your Insanity Part 3: Getting Lost and Finding Myself in North Eastern Ontario

Mapping it old-school in Calabogie.  Having to stop and
do this throughout the day resulted in a much more 
enjoyable ride.

 Ottawa isn't quite as manic as the GTA when it comes to driving culture, probably because it's a fraction of the size.  I didn't see the intentional assholery that GTA drivers seem to revel in.  That used to be arms-reach from us out in the country where I live, but thanks to COVID and rich people speculating on the real estate market, there has been a cidiot diaspora to my neck of the wooks and aggressive driving is the new norm on our country roads.

The 417 out of Ottawa at noon on Sunday was thrumming along at 130+kms/hr.  I kept to a steady 120 on the inside lane and was passed with regularity.  When we were in Alberta in July I noted that the speed limits are set reasonably without clinging to 1970s limits designed to generate revenue and justify more police.  The 110kms/hr on the highway had everyone moving at about 110kms/hr.  The 100 limit on country roads was the same with no one blowing beyond as has become common on our backroads.  Ontario's artificially low limits (and then the intentional ignoring of them until the police and insurance industry feel like making it rain) produces a kind of cognitive dissonance in Ontario drivers.  They know the limits don't mean anything and tend to drive however fast their vehicle feels good at, which in a modern vehicle with advanced tires, anti-lock brakes and computerized suspension and engines is much faster than the limits set for woody wagons in the '70s.

Once off the madness that is Ontario's 400 series highway system things settled down and I fell into a nice rhythm on the 508.  I usually have to ride miles to find a corner (and corner) where I live in the tedious S.W. Ontario agricultural desert.  Speaking of which, I was struggling to understand why my visor wasn't plastered in bugs while riding through Eastern Ontario woods, but it's the lack of factory-farmed livestock.  Those closely packed animals generate more flies than meat.  When you're not always passing by fowl (sp!) smelling chicken manufacturing facilities or cow paddy strewn fields, there aren't the kinds of flies that knock your lid off.  I didn't have to stop and clean my visor once on these rides, and being able to ride roads where the corners keep finding you instead of the other way around is like water after days in the desert.  Since all the OPP are on Highway 7, there wasn't a one of them on any of the roads up this way (speed traps aren't about safety, they're about income generation - there's no money in setting up speed traps on quiet roads).

No one sells pens anymore (the Canadian Tire had none even with school starting up in a couple of weeks), but I found some sharpie markers in Calabogie's McGregor's Produce, which is a general store that has pretty much everything in it (with a fraction of the footprint of the city-sized Canadian Tire).

It was another sun drenched day, though the shadows from the trees takes the sting out of it, unlike the concrete oven than urban areas turn into.  I got the map folded to where I was and markered out a route that took me on the twistiest roads I could find over to Bancroft where I would spend the night.

I hadn't figured out how to hot-key the 360 camera to auto-fire shots so there are no photos from this glorious day, but perhaps this is as it should be.  Google didn't know where I was and I had to engage my atrophied brain to remember the route, but the map was only a stop away.  Instead of constantly aiming at the next waypoint and having the phone barking directions and corrections and other information that I didn't need (while tracking my progress to offer timely advertising), I was untethered.

I actually doubted my ability to remember turns so started with just the first three, and what a three they were!  The 508 through Calabogie is ok, but the 65 to 71 east is SPECTACULAR, to the point where the road had me laughing out loud in my helmet (which I could leave in open face mode because I wasn't being battered with livestock flies).  This magical strip of tarmacadam twists and turns over and around some proper hills; this may be the best riding road in Ontario, particularly for me on this day where I had my head up (nothing to constantly tug my gaze down to the next direction), no traffic whatsoever AND it had just been resurfaced and was billiard table smooth   I had a realization halfway through this bit: I don't care if I'm 'lost', rollercoasting along this road was absolutely brilliant!

I stopped for a drink and to review next steps at the end of 71 at Calvyn's Takeout.  I wish I wasn't so soon from a big breakfast or I would have stopped, it smelled fantastic.  The next bit had some arterial highways then onto smaller back roads.  41/28/514/515/512 was another great mix of twists and turns on pretty much empty pavement (I don't think I passed or was passed by anyone over the next hour and this was on an August Sunday with lovely weather).  I stopped in Quadeville to update the mental map and pressed on when the mosquitos prompted me back into motion.  A thin film of mozzies was the only thing on the visor, unlike the plump livestock flies that'll take an eye out down south.

By now I was hours deep into the woods.  I can appreciate the diversity and cultural richness that population offers, but the manic nature of time in these places exhausts me.  Out here you tick along at the speed of the breeze, and when you see someone else you make a point of giving them a wave because you're not tripping over piles of people all day.

Never underestimate the citiot's ability to
trivialize anything that doesn't exist to support
their all-encompassing urban lifestyle.

I ended up missing the turn south to the 68 and stayed on the 66 all the way up to Wilno on Highway 60 (the road that goes through Algonquin Park).  It was all the advertising for Opeongo camping that made me realize I'd missed a turn and had come too far north to Hwy 60, but it didn't matter.  The roads were clear and I was enjoying the ride.  The alternate route added some kilometers to the day, but even in August the sun is up for a long, long time.  I stopped in Barry's Bay and charted a new route down 62 to Bancroft where I had a hotel room waiting.

62 was another beautiful Eastern Ontario road with views through the hills in the lengthening shadows on winding, though higher-speed roads.  I made good time and after about 350 kilometers, most of which were on twisty country backroads, I was ready to hang up my boots for the night.

The Bancroft Inn & Suites is just the sort of place that would wind up someone from the city.  It's basic, but clean and doesn't offer fancy coffees or fancy anything else; it was the perfect stop for the end of this analog day.  It was about as far as I could get from the neon-disco GLO hotel I'd stayed in the night before, but that jived with the thematic point.

By now I'm 3 days into a ride and far away from where I'd been starting to have PTSD anxiety dreams about work.  There is nothing like breaking out of a routine to clear your head and offer you some perspective.  My only regret is that I kept wanting to share moments with my partner but she was booked solid back home.  I've never done more than a 4 day trip on the bike, and I think that's a goal now.  Getting into the rhythm or riding along unfamiliar roads to a new destination is incredibly energizing.  I need to do this for more than 4 days at a time in order to get lost in the ride more completely.

The next morning I'd figured out how to hotkey the 360 camera to shoot on auto.  I was up early (the joys of being in your 50s) and after a cup of in-room coffee I stepped out into a cool single digit morning.  Steam was rising from the lakes as I filled up in Bancroft and found my way directly onto backroads. aiming for Haliburton an hour down the road where breakfast beckoned.

The roads were once again startlingly empty and I rolled unimpeded north east of Bancroft and around the 648 ring road through Highland Grove and Pusey before finally connecting to my favourite Ontario highway: 118.  Even with some traffic and construction I was still well in my Zen pocket.

The Kosy Korner in Haliburton is what you'd expect from a $10 country breakfast: 2 eggs, bacon, toast and tatters and bottomless coffee.  The service was incredibly quick (less than 5 minutes from ordering to eating), but it was getting full of locals so I decamped to the Upper River Trading Co. where I got a nice Balzac coffee and people watched while going over the map for the day.

Feeling full and caffeinated, I hit the road out of Haliburton by 10am and subsequently enjoyed one of the most meditative rides down an empty 118 yet.  Mysterious black lakes and rivers appear on the side of the road and wind into the never ending forest, hinting at what may be beyond.  The road weaves through ancient rock and living nature like the best kind of Canadian poetry.

Cathedrals of stone...

The animals here be prehistoric!

A ride down a near empty Hwy 118 is something to look forward to.

Not as busy as the road into Algonquin, the 118 offers similar views without the maddening crowds.  As I approached Bracebridge the mania returned.  Like many places within reach of the GTA, Bracebridge has turned into a pale imitation of it over the past decade as its population has exploded.  As a general rule, the larger and more austentatious the vehicle, the more likely they are to drive like a tool.  The first one was a Cadillac Escalade, the rolling definition of fuck-the-world-and-get-yours consumerism, which blew past me at 120+kms/hr (I was doing 95 in an 80 zone).  With the Zen bubble popped I switched on my rampant biker paranoia and eased back into the super-heated and pressurized world of Southern Ontario driving culture.

I still eked moments out of the ride through Port Carling to Bala and out through the Mohawk territories to the 400 Highway, but once on the 400 Southern Ontario's driving mania was in full force as I pulled out onto the highway to discover the trucks all doing 120+kms/hr and the rest doing better than 140.  Accelerate or be a moving chicane that's likely to get rear ended by some doofus in an SUV doing 150kms/hr while looking at his phone.

Back into my usually riding range, I stopped in Creemore for a quick bite having not had anything to eat since breakfast at Kosy Korner that morning.  From here in it's lots of flies and straight lines.  The next morning we sat on the porch with a cup of coffee at 7am while enjoying the symphony of backup beepers (5 or 6 of them at once?) along with the bullet crack of nail guns building more houses in the once empty field behind our subdivision.  The tintinnabulation of construction was eventually drowned out by our neighbour's lawn service showing up with their helicopter-loud professional lawn mower (to cut about 200 square feet of grass).  We gave up at that point and went inside.  Maybe we spend so much time on connected devices in our urban hell holes because we've made them so uninhabitable IRL.

There are some beautiful places to live out of the madness that are only an hour out of Ottawa.  If we could escape the grip of Southwestern Ontario, perhaps we could find something more livable (and rideable) in the east.  I've always wanted to live somewhere where you could enjoy the ride at your backdoor, Calabogie delivers it!

Looking back over my longer rides, I think four days is the longest I've ever been able to arrange for a motorcycle trip.  Max and I did a four day loop around Ontario and Michigan many years ago, but busy work/life responsibilities makes it difficult to pry more time free, though that's maybe what I need to find balance in this chaos.  A colleague just spent 60 days this summer riding out to the west coast to do the PCH.  My mind feels rebooted after four days away, I can't imagine how he's feeling, but I'd like to.