I've always built things. In school I was the kid making custom slide decks while everyone else used the templates, mostly because the templates were ugly and boring. That hasn't really changed. If something catches my eye, I want to know how it works, then I want to make one myself.
The medium doesn't matter much. I built a Shopify store and the brand around it for a family friend's spice business, and she loved it. That's the bit I keep chasing: delight. Everything I make has to feel good, work well, or ideally both.
I grew up in Kincardine, a small town on the Ontario lakeshore. Before that, Ottawa. Going from the city to a rural farming and tourist town was odd at first, but Kincardine is lovely, and so are the people.
What stuck with me is the dark. Walking home from a friend's house at night with no streetlights, just the wind in the trees and the complete certainty that nothing was about to bother you. It also taught me to research a purchase to death, because if you bought the wrong thing, returning it meant a two-hour drive.
I camp at least once a year. Usually Tobermory, sometimes Algonquin. The portaging trip I did in school is still the best week I've had outdoors, moose and all. My working life is mostly screens, and the place I feel most settled is a tent. I've stopped trying to square that.
My current favourite is the Moritaka Ishime mega nakiri in Aogami #2. Moritaka has been forging blades in Kyushu for around 500 years, starting with swords. It's heavy carbon steel, so it rusts if I leave it wet, and it holds an edge in a way I didn't really believe until I owned one. The first time I used it, I drove it a touch too deep into the cutting board.
My first was a gift: a Yu Kurosaki Senko Ei gyuto in SG2 powder steel. Kurosaki became Japan's youngest certified master blacksmith, earning the title in his forties. It's a beautiful, slightly absurd object. It's my everyday knife, and it's borderline indestructible.
What I love about Japanese knives is that they sit on this odd line between simple and impossibly exact. People spend generations refining a single profile and still find more to learn. I haven't tried forging one yet. For now I tell myself I'm "still in the exploring other knives" phase, which is a handy excuse for buying more of them. The whetstones in my drawer are a tiny fraction of the actual craft.