Carving dragon boat heads is a lot of work.  Imagine standing
while hammering and chiseling for almost 5 hours a day.  Both Bob
Brinson and I were there everyday.  Bob supervised our carving
when I had to work at the library, and I supervised when he had his
errands.

The carving experience exceeded our expectations of how much fun and
how much work it would be.  I would definitely recommend it for
every dragon boat team to try.  It brings everybody together both
on the team, and amongst the teams in the workshop.  We
recommended that 6 teams would be a good number and having a minimum of
6 people from each team participating.  We were definitely plagued
by a lack of participants as many of our team members were unable to
attend the mid-week carving sessions.  I would definitely
recommend including TWO weekends, as Saturdays and Sundays would also
encourage the most spectators. 

The first time you do anything is always a challenge.  We have
lots of pictures and stories to share over beers and nachos now. 

See all our carving pictures at www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/DragonBoatheadcarving

Carving Dragon boats in Vancouver's Roundhouse Community Centre for Thursday, February 25th.

Time is running out for finishing up our carving.  Yesterday,
we asked our instructor Eric Neighbor how long he thought it took
people to carve dragon boat heads in China.  “Oh- weeks, probably.”

“What! And we are doing this in five 5-hour days!”
“Well – just
to get started…This is a pilot project, I thought initially that people
would be able to be painting for Friday.   If we had one more
extra day for everybody, it should accomplish a lot and really help
people finish their carvings.”

I had hoped to get into our carving area early today so I could work
on re-doing some of my drawing plans.  My initial drawings haven't
accurately translated the Gung Haggis team logo into as satisfying a
rendering as I had hoped.  It wasn't until last week, when Eric
e-mailed me to say that there was one spot last in the workshop, and
would Gung Haggis Fat Choy confirm it's commitment.  We've done
pretty well, all things considered, in creating a design in the two
hours of class time on Sunday, and trying to render it into a wooden
log less than 24 hours later.  As well, we have tried to round up
paddling team members and friends to help carve something that's
probably never been done in North America before – create a wooden
dragon boat head from scratch.

I get to the Roundhouse at 2:30pm, and show Eric the photo-copied
enlarged pictures of our dragon boat logo, and how I would redesign the
log carving if I were to start over.  We discuss the pros and cons
of going with what we have, or redesigning the carving.  We are
not that far off.  If I did redesign the drawing, there would be
more of an angle for the head, to allow more neck and wave designs for
the neck.  We decide that it is far better to keep moving forward
than taking a step back.  We do want to have something to show for
our 5 days of carving effort, and not come in dead last in this pioneer
round of “X-treme Dragon Boat Head Carving Survivor.”  We want to
have something decent looking that looks like a dragon boat head and
tail when the CBC TV cameras come back on Friday afternoon.  We
want to have something that doesn't resemble a hacked up piece of log,
when the other teams come by to look at us.

We know the other teams well.  Bob Brinson used to coach the
Abreast in a Boat team.  I have known some of the team members
since 1997, when I first met the team and I introduced myself as a
fellow cancer survivor (1989).  Bob started coaching the Women on
Water team from Ft. Langley last year, and he even brought me out to
help coach one Saturday.  Some of the paddlers came down to
Seattle with us for the first dragon boat rodeo barrel racing in 2004
with the Tacoma Dragon Boat Association.  And we know the Wong Way
team.  I have known Peter Wong since about 1997, when we were
helping out with the Festival by taking out corporate sponsors. 
Ming Wong is Peter's nephew, Ming and I met in 1999 when we went down
to San Francisco for paddling with the Spirit of Vancouver team
organized by Richard Mah.  Peter's father William Wong – known as
“Uncle Bill,” grew up in Strathcona with my uncles and aunts, and my
Uncle Laddie has worked in Modernize Tailors for decades. 
We
all know each other.  We have raced against each other on the
water.  And despite our friendly natures, we all have an inner
competitive nature deep down inside.  We don't want to be last.

Every team has been experiencing carving challenges.  One
dragon's eye splinters off, another dragon's tail cracks and needs to
be glued, another team makes a mistake and gouges too deep and cuts in
the wrong area.  But we all adjust and move on.  We don't
have time to brood about bad decisions or mistakes.  Despite the
pressures, I never hear anybody raise a voice to anybody else. 
Everybody's spirits are buoyant.  Everybody is excited.  We
are all over the hump with our carvings, we can see the shapes
emerging.  And some teams are starting their detailing work –
carving out eyes and mouths, adding spikes to the back of the neck.

Thursday is day four of carving.  I have finally prepared a
design for our tail.  Bob wanted to emphasize the wave designs
from the logo, and I couldn't visualize his ideas until we finally had
them on paper.  My drawing looks incredible.  I am very
happy.  Our design has a tail hidden yet emerging from the
waves.  I will have to post a photo of the drawing so you can
figure it out.  It is abstract and radical.  But then we
don't want to be like everybody else.  We want to be outrageous,
ahead of the curve…

While I am working on my design, a young Asian woman approaches me
and asks, “You must be Todd?”  “You must be Pamela…” I
smile.  Pamela contacted me two weeks ago and asked about joining
the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team.  She found us on the
internet.  If you google “Vancouver + dragon + boats” – Gung
Haggis Fat Choy comes up #5 and #6.  Very cool!  Pamela says
she likes the multicultural emphasis we place on the team, and that
website articles demonstrate that we do very interesting
activities.  Gee… I think, we are probably the only team that does
Tai Chi in the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens, wears kilts and/or tartans, has
a Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner, and has been featured globally
on French public broadcast television.  I give Pamela a tour of
our carving area and show her our design plans.  We put her to
work helping to carve the nose, teeth and mouth.  She smiles later
and says, “This is much easier than I thought it would be.”

Alf and Dave show up soon and we get to work on the tail.  We
draw out the waves for the tail, and start gouging the designs in the
wood.  It's an unconventional design, and I think they understand
it.

My cell phone rings and it is Anita Webster, media and
communications coordinator for the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival. 
She got my e-mail about the dragon boat carving and is excited about
it.  She thinks it makes a good story and wants to get some TV
cameras down, and some radio reporters to record the sounds of hammers
and chisels that she can hear over the cell phone.  She asks how
the project got started and I hand my phone over to Eric
Neighbor.  10 minutes later, I have to ask Eric for my phone back,
as it is now time for me to do my work shift at the Vancouver Public
Library (gotta make money somehow!)  Anita says she will call the
media in the morning and send out press releases. 

At 9:15pm I return to the Roundhouse Community Centre.  Most of
the carvers have all left.  Bob and I ponder how we will make our
carvings look semi-decently finished when the CBC TV cameras show up
again tomorrow.  He wraps the dragon's neck up in the tartan sash
I brought, and with a broad smile… he says to me, “Do you think we
should wear our kilts tomorrow?”

Here are pictures from Monday nights carving.

Imagine the sweet aroma of freshly cut red cedar.

Deb Martin takes the saw as one of the initial steps to releasing the dragon from the cedar.  Deb Martin and Bob Brinson – photo by Dave Samis

Feel the rich grain of wood beneath your fingertips as you caress the bark and grain.

Deb Martin

Step on wood chips hewn by your own hands.

“The Boys” survive the first evening of wood carving!
Dave Samis, Chip Frank, Todd Wong and Bob Brinson.

Carving out the Dragon Boat head – Revealing the Inner Dragon!

We started carving our red cedar logs into dragon boat heads and tails today!



Todd Wong is shown the art of working with the grain of the wood by team mate and fellow co-coach and carver Bob Brinson. – photo Dave Samis.

I walked into the Roundhouse Community Centre at 3:30pm.  And
there were bright lights and a tv camera crew, and the Abreast in a
Boat team furiously chipping away…
And I thought to myself… “Damn I missed a media opportunity.” 
The CBC TV crew was filming for a pilot project about events in the
community.  The producer/director is Moyra Rodgers who
produced/directed the CBC TV performance special “Gung Haggis Fat
Choy.” 

I really like Moyra.  She is one of those women whom you know
always has something going on in her head.  She is president of
her own production company Out To See Productions, and she also
produced the CBC events for Vancouver Art Awards and the Bill Reid
Tribute Concert at the Chan Centre.  Working with her on the Gung
Haggis Fat Choy television special was a great journey.  From the
time we did “blue sky” idea brainstorming, to the meetings of fleshing
out concepts, to the filming of the musical performance segments for
the Paper Boys in the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens and Silk Road Music on
Keefer St. in Vancouver’s Chinatown.  Moyra is always easy to work
with.  Even when she makes you unbuckle and buckle your kilts
repeatedly… for the camera!  Okay… we did a segment showing me
dressing in Scottish dress as part of the origin of Toddish McWong and
Gung Haggis Fat Choy.

Moyra did lament that it was too bad CBC TV National Programming
Directors didn't go for the proposed expanded one hour “Gung Haggis Fat
Choy” performance special that would have embraced Chinese/Scottish
Cultural interactions from BC to Nova Scotia. “It feels like its not
finished yet,” said Moyra.

But enough about me and Moyra… what about the carving?

Hacking away at red cedar with only a wooden mallet and a chisel is
hard work.  Chip, chip, chip and the pieces of wood fly
away.  Your arm gets tired. And the log still looks the same 5
minutes later.  I’ve never done this stuff before!  It’s a
good thing Bob Brinson knows what he is doing – at least I think he
does.  Bob taught me today about working with the grain of the
wood.  We don’t want to be chipping and causing deep splits into
the wood.  My girlfriend Deb was right into the chipping
too!  She shared with us the story of how her family project was
making a cedar strip canoe, led by her father.  My carpentry
skills are basically helping my sign writer father paint 4’x8’ plywood
sheets and driving 2’’x4’’ stakes into the ground with a sledge hammer
for sign post displays.

While Bob got to work taking a saw to the log, Deb helped me trace our
design pattern onto other sheets of paper, so I could create more
pictures of our design.  One for the log, and one for the wall
display.  I also drew up the front and top views, and drew the
front view directly onto the log, so Bob could tell where to start
carving, and where to leave.  

The camera crew always seemed to pop in and out when you least expected
it.  One moment, they were filming the Wong Way dragon boat team,
the next they were at the Abreast in a Boat table, then suddenly they
were watching us.  It felt like being on a Reality TV show… I
joked to Moyra.  But really!  Something like X-treme dragon
boat carving.  Each team is given 2 logs, a set of chisels and 5
days to create a dragon boat head and tail.  No power tools can be
used.  Ready, set, goal!  

Proud
of a hard first day's work.  Dave Samis, Todd Wong, Chip Frank,
Bob Brinson – all stand with instructor Eric Neighbor beside the former
cedar log now showing signs of the dragon it will son become.

Is there a prize?  Well, maybe the satisfaction of a job well
done, and the chance to be part of something never done before, and be
filmed for television…  But maybe the Alcan Dragon Boat festival
will arrange something.  After we had finished for the evening, I
talked with one of the Wong Way members suggesting that the ADBF could
put up some prizes. Peter Wong, is currently the chair of the Canadian
International Dragon Boat Festival Society which governs the
ADBF.  When I suggested that the public could be encouraged to
vote for their favorite carving, and have the chance to win a prize,
his eyes lit up when I said this would be a great media opportunity.
So… maybe something will yet happen.

At about 4pm, Dave Samis showed up to help us, very excited about his
new truck.  Dave is actually a member of the GVRD dragon boat team
but ever since I first coached their team for 2003, he has joined the
Gung Haggis Fat Choy team to paddle with us in Seattle, Victoria, UBC
Day of the Longboats and the Ft. Langley Canoe Regatta.  Dave
loves our team, and now he is loving the experience of wood
carving.  At 5:20pm, I brought back pizza and drinks for our crew
and we took a little break.  I tell Dave about the plan to make
the dragon’s horns resemble the pipes of a bagpipe.  Somehow we
get on the idea of using hockey stick blades to create the dragon’s
spikes down his back.  We will definitely have an OUTRAGEOUS
looking dragon head.  Sort of a cross between Roger Rabbit, Puff
the Magic Dragon mixed together with Bob and Doug Mackenzie from SCTV.

Chip Frank showed up soon afterwards to join us around 5:45pm.  I
quickly bring Chip up to speed by showing him our drawing plans taped
to the wall.  He likes them.  It turns out that Chip loves
working with wood, and immediately wished he had brought his tools with
him.  Chip and I start squaring off the log destined to become our
tail.  Chip shows me how to work with the grain, and starts
putting in saw marks for us to start chiseling into.  He teaches
me to center the wood by finding the core, marking squares on each end,
and keeping our planes level as we chisel away… We make short work of
one side and the top.  Another 1 ½ hours and it will be square,
and ready to start its transformational journey to become a tail
section.

Throughout the evening’s process, we are constantly aware of what the
other team’s are doing or not doing.  For instance, while the 3
other teams are clearing off their logs outer husks and making 2’’x4’’
wedges to fit into a dragon boat, we are working on our head piece and
giving it shape – ignoring the 2×4 fittings.  We figure that if we
ignore the tail, at least we will have a great looking head
piece.  We figure that if we ignore the fitting section, at least
we will have a great looking dragon face.  5 days is not that much
time to carve and paint a set of dragon head and tail for a dragon
boat.  We can always work on the 2×4 fitting segments later. 
But for now, with the tv cameras coming back, we’d rather have the best
looking dragon boat head around.

Dave took digital pictures of our evening, and he will send them to me asap to post on this website.

Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team at Alcan Dragon Boat Festival 2004.
Carving dragon boat heads with Eric Neighbor:
Sunday 1:45 to 5:00pm

At the Roundhouse Community Centre, on Sunday Feb 20, Eric Neighbor
introduced the teams to the project.  We each paid $100 for the
workshop that provided carving tools, 8 logs of seasonsed red cedar to
create 4 sets of heads and tails, and his expert advice, as he has
taught more than 4000 people how to carve.

Day One would see us organize our carving schedules, familiarize
ourselves with Eric and the program's goals, conceive sketch and design
life-size plans.  There was a good friendly atmosphere in the
room.  Eric made everybody feel welcome and excited.  Our
team members that showed up for Day One were our coaching team – Bob
Brinson and myself, our keener rookie of the year from 2004 – Naoko
Watanabe who only arrived in Canada the month before meeting us at the
Alcan Dragon Boat Festival, and my friend Gordon Bradford.

My team coaching partner Bob Brinson and I knew many of the people on
the other teams, as we had either coached the other teams or paddled
with some of the paddlers.  Only four teams signed up to be part
of the pilot project for carving dragon boat heads and tails: Women on
Water from Fort Langley, The Wong Way organized by the “Modernize
Tailor” William Wong family, Abreast in a Boat, and us – Gung Haggis
Fat Choy.  Bob had formerly coached Abreast in a Boat, the team
made up of breast cancer survivors, and he was now presently coaching
Women on Water – whom he lead to their first medal at the Peachland
dragon boat reaces this past summer.  I had paddled with Ming Wong
from The Wong Way + their patriarch William Wong had grown up with many
of my aunts and uncles in Chinatown.

Most of the teams got off to a quick start working on their drawings
while our team concentrated on the logistics of how the design would
work. My friend Gordon Bradford is an industrial designer who brought
in some great design concepts of function and application.  Bob
Brinson is a former CBC television carpenter who had worked on the
Beachcombers production and has reconditioned the original 1986 teak
dragon boats as well as refitted the 10 year old Taiwanese dragon boats
that only arrived in Vancouver in 2003.  So our team started
working with 3-D drawings and concepts of which boats we would connect
the heads to, and the best way to utilize the carving material. 
While Gordon has never been in a dragon boat before, he is an avid
canoeist and our team worked well together. 

Bob and I wanted to utilize both the Scottish and Chinese elements of
our team's origins to create a unique multicultural design.  We
built upon the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon head logo that my architect
friend David Wong of e-Atelier Architects had designed in 2002. Naoko
and I exchanged ideas about some design concepts, went to get drinks
and potatoe chips for everybody – then fleshed out the design details
once Gord mapped out the outline on paper.  Our dragon head design
would transform from a flat  siloutted outline figure into a
3-D  lively cartoonish  personality – complete with wagging
tongue and tilted tam-o-shanter hat.

We are all very anxious to start taking chips out of the cedar wood,
and to see our design coloured and taped up to the wall.  CBC TV
cameras will come by on Monday night to film us beginning our work
comparing the raw logs to our creative concepts of ink and pastels on
paper.  They will return on Friday to see how much we have
accomplished or didn't accomplish.  Meanwhile, I shall take
digital pictures to document the process and keep you updated on our
progress.

While our team isn't full nor set, a number of team paddlers and
friends will join us for the carving experience.  Some wanna-be
paddlers, new recruits and former paddlers will also drop in and
hopefully take their tentative steps at carving a dragon boat head and
tail.  There is still lots of room for eager beavers, as four to
eight people can work at a time on the heads and tails.  If you
would like to join us or watch – please call me at 604-987-7124 or drop
in on us at the Roundhouse Community Centre.  We will be carving
on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – from 3pm to 8pm, and on
Tuesday from 10:30am to 5pm.
  Team debriefing meeting after a race, while being filmed for the Thalassa French PBS station, France 3.

Who wants to design and/or carve a wooden dragon boat head and tail? in Vancouver?

The Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team will be one of only four
participating teams in a spcecial pilot project organized by Master
carver Eric Neighbor and the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival at the Round
House Community Centre – starting Sunday Feb 20 and going to Friday Feb
25. This is a great opportunity to have some fun, and to create
something as a collective “team”.

If you are a “retired” paddler or a “new recruit” or want to bring “a
friend” – that is fine – I just have to know
the numbers and who wants to participate. Become an active team member
or a honourary team member. You will be in great company as Vancouver
Mayor Larry Campbell has asked for one of our team shirts after
attending our January 30th Chinese Robbie Burns fundraiser dinner – the
infamous “Gung Haggis Fat Choy”!

If you can only attend one day that is okay…

if you can attend every carving session… that is okay too.

I just need to recruit you onto the “carving team.”

The introduction meeting is Sunday February 20th, at the Roundhouse
Community Centre at Davie St. and Pacific Blvd. in Yaletown. 1:45 to
5:45pm.

CBC Television will film the 4 teams carving on Monday evening and Friday evening – as the schedule
for carving runs like this:

Sunday – Introduction / design & sketches 1:45pm to 5:00 pm

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday – carving sessions are late afternoon to evening 3pm to 9pm?

Tuesday is late afternoon only 3pm to 5:30pm?

No power tools will be used. The workshop instructor is Eric
Neighbor. There is lots of Bio information on his web site,
www.klorker.com .

Eric says:

“The project originated from watching the boats on race day,
looking so proud with their beautiful heads and tails on and thinking
to myself “I bet some of those teams would like to make their own boat
decorations”. Regarding what to expect from the
workshop; I'm not sure what to expect myself. Although I have taught
carving to more than 4,000 people, I have not taught this workshop. I
will try to make it as flexible to team's needs as possible. Having
said that, I envision interested team members to pair up with another
member to work together on a head or tail, for at least two of the five
carving sessions.

A schedule of carving times will be made up at our
planning/design session, which everyone should come to, on Sunday February 20th.
The carving sessions will last for 5 hours each and run Monday, February 21
– Friday February 25. The actual hours will be decided with team participation,

on Sunday Feb 20.

“I anticipate most sessions will start late afternoon and run into the evening,
except for Tuesday, Feb 22, when I am not available after 5:30pm. The workshops
will be happening in the Round House main space and will be viewable by the public
– from a distance. I will provide all tools/materials, but people are encouraged to bring
their own as well.No power tools. I encourage team's to discuss potential designs
before we meet.

“Does the majority want a traditional design or a non-traditional design?
Please forward any further questions. I'm so excited!”
– Eric Neighbour

www.klorker.com