This is the first posting of “The Boreal Carver Presents” showing the wonderful bark carving creations by Pat Potvin.
Pat has been busy carving coal miner faces into bark for the past several months. After a trip to Canmore in January and a stop in a local store selling Alberta arts and crafts, Pat decided to try his hand at carving something that could be sold in the store. His creations are stunning, the details amazing.
Before Canmore became a destination for recreation in the Rocky Mountains, it had been a coal mining town. That changed in 1979 when the last of the coal mining was shut down. When you go to Canmore now, you have to look to find the remnants of coal mining and stop to read the history of those years. https://canmore.ca/residents/about-canmore/history-of-canmore
Pat’s bark carving studio is in the corner room of our basement. This is where Pat goes to get his “zen”, where time stops and the gentle sounds of the bark carving tools are heard as the bark begins to reveal itself.
The bark that is used is from the Boreal Forest of Northern Alberta found in the Lesser Slave Lake region. It comes from Black Poplar and is taken off a completely dead tree. Trees that are 100 to 150 years old will yield bark thick and wide enough for carving.
Pat uses his creativity, pictures and inspiration from the piece of bark to coax a unique piece of art to emerge. The carvings are done using hand tools and a little bit of sanding. The final piece is coated with lacquer which gives the wood a rich dark colour exposing the layers in the bark.
In these two pieces, the layers of bark reveal the deep lines of the faces of the coal miners. Coal mining work was dirty, long, hard and the men aged quickly from the daily descent to the depths of the coal mine.
In these faces the bark reveals the harsh reality of being a coal miner. You worked and hoped every day would be a good one in the mine. You likely left behind a wife and children who had their own struggles with the chores of a household, many mouths to feed, children to get off to school, gardens to sow, and money to stretch to meet the daily needs of a family. The coal mine brought many immigrants to Canmore who needed to learn to speak English and understand the workings of a coal mine quickly.
Coal miners, and their families, didn’t have an easy life and in the bark carvings you can see the life lived in every line etched on each face. “A Day in the Life of a Canmore Coal Miner” is part of a resource provided to schools and it is a great way to put yourself in a coal miner’s shoes for a day: https://www.albertaparks.ca/media/3295/coalming.pdf
For now, take a look at these coal miner faces and imagine the lives they lived descending every day deep underground to extract a resource that was widely used for fuel and power generation to make our daily lives easier.