Semper Opus!

What a glorious day! Finally a bit of spring up here. Well yeah, the black flies came out and bit us here and there but; we’ll take it.

We scheduled a work session on the Montreal Trail Portals project and actually didn’t freeze or get precipitated on for once. The concerns about the quality of the poles and their mass were unwarranted. The minute the saw dug into the poles we could all smell western cedar or tamarack. Excellent wood for this project, tight grained and light! Two of us could muscle them up on to the trailer we borrowed! Our plans B, C, and D were quickly forgotten.

We spotted the poles under a group of White and Red Pines at 36 IL and the two jointers began to practice their arts/skills on a prototype modified tennon joint for the portal.

We’ll (well, they) will build an example that will eventually be on display at 36 IL by the end of May (their goal). It’s going to be so cool. We never had the time nor the expertise to do projects like this. We wouldn’t have had the funds to pull something like this off if the SISU Foundation hadn’t supported us with a grant this spring.

Historic, eye-catching, informative; the portals will be a big addition to our little ski trail complex!

If you’ve ever wondered what the Semper Opus thing means, we have this project and the trail marking stakes project under way at this time. There’s always something going on. It will probably never end.

Ski Freely, hike on. Join us if you feel like getting out. Z