Husband and wife Sandra and David Barrett are keeping the traditional trade of blacksmithing alive at the Fernie Forge. As part of the Columbia Basin Culture Tour that took place August 11th and 12th, the Forge opened its doors to the public and gave them a chance to see what the life of a blacksmith entails.
One half of the business, Sandra Barrett explained the Culture Tour can be an eye opening experience not only for tourists coming through, but also for locals who may not have known the Fernie Forge existed in the first place. “It’s just seeing inside a blacksmiths shop and forge, and our gallery of work. They see when we’re demonstrating how easy it is to manipulate the metal with heat and that can be surprising to people.”
With curious guests of all ages stopping by, Barrett said the tour is a great way for people to see all sorts of artists and venues that aren’t normally open to the public. “We’re trying to look at is as an educational and informative exercise rather than focusing on sales. For one thing, we haven’t got much to sell yet. And really the focus should be on the aspect of being able to go from place to place and it’s a free self-guided tour. We’re not usually open to the public except by appointment, that may change in the future, but it’s the only chance that people have to come and see us demonstrate and see what we do.”
From gates and railings to curtain rods and artistic pieces, the Barrett’s can create just about anything you can think of using metal. While they currently operate mostly on site doing contract work and use the Forge more as a place to show off their work, Sandra is hoping that may soon change. “We’ve just been approved for a blue and white ‘Artisan Blacksmith’ sign on the highway. Once we have our sign by the road, people will be able to just call in and order stuff. Eventually this gallery won’t be just photographs of work that we’ve done, but will be pieces for sale.”
She went on to explain, “We’ve never operated as a store. Because my husband David and I are getting older, it would be nice to not do so much site work and heavy lifting, and concentrate more on the sculptural artistic side. We hope to do things like waterfalls, ornamental garden features, that sort of area and see how it goes really. We’ll be starting to make what we want to, rather than what our customers want us to.”
Originally from England, David is a fifth generation blacksmith and Sandra married into the trade. Sandra said coming to Fernie to ski a few times, the idea to move their business here came from a Fernie local she’d met at church while on vacation.
“I’d been [to the church] two or three times and he remembered me, and that was nice because I hadn’t realized what a friendly place Fernie is. People do remember you from one year to the next even though they don’t see you much in between, and it just struck a chord because we thought it was time to move on.”
Herald staff photo
Blacksmith Sandra Barrett hard at work at The Fernie
Forge
After their emigration application was processed within just four months, Sandra moved over with their two children in 2004, and David followed the next year. The Fernie Forge opened its doors in October of 2005 and the couple hasn’t looked back since. “It was a good time to move because the pound-dollar exchange rate was in our favour at the time, and we just went with it.
We thought we’d have an adventure before we were too old. We’ve got a fabulous view of Mount Hosmer and we’re able to keep alpacas and it just felt right.”
With the Culture Tour now wrapped up, anyone interested in viewing the Fernie Forge can visit their website at www.fernieforge.ca to set up an appointment.
It just sort of happened, we decided if we didn’t try, then in ten years time we’d regret not trying and we’d be too old. If it didn’t work out it really didn’t matter because we were happy where we were and as it happened it was just the right time economically to sell the yard"
“It was one of those things that I married into. David is a fifth generation blacksmith and the forge was there, and since the 1960’s it had sort of dwindled away and welders had replaced the blacksmiths but the equipment was still there. When the family business was 100 years old David took over for his father and once it became ours it was up to us to work out what we wanted to do with it, what direction we wanted to go in.”
