Our first project, a TImber Frame Sauna

The past 2 years really have been a bit of a blur. We have done some really cool projects and gotten the shop running well. We didn't have a lot of money when we first started so we decided that we needed to do a fundraiser for the wood shop to buy new tools. A sauna is what we decided on, but not just any sauna. It was to be of timber frame construction using recycled Douglas Fir timber from the local cannery.











































We started with a stack of timbers, nails and all and when we finished this is what we had.

In the beginning there was dust!

I started teaching at Bristol Bay Borough School District August 2007 as a science and math teacher with a woods class on the side. Now I only teach 2 science classes and the rest are shop classes: welding I & welding II, woods I, woods II (furniture), construction trades, design and manufacturing, and 7th grade woods. The wood shop has changed dramatically since the first day I walked in. There are new tools, better organization, less dust, and a lot of project that students are working on. On any given day someone can walking into the shop and find an active bunch of students working on a variety of projects. It has been a crazy process for me to change from a science teacher to a shop teacher, but despite hacking up sawdust after a busy day I deeply love teaching the classes that I do. I get a little shiver up my neck when I see a student finish a project that they have worked so hard at.