I'm from central Alberta although have spent most of my adult life in the UK, only returning home two years ago. For the non-Canadians who just have an atlas to look at, 'central' Alberta describes the bit in the actual south of Alberta that lies between Ponoka and Olds, west to the mountains and east to Stettler. Edmonton is 'north' even though it's south of centre geographically. The real north of Alberta has lots of trees, mosquitos, moose and a few wood bison. I digress . . .
I've been arching off and on since high school but turned out to be a natural with a rifle so have hunted and competed with a rifle for over two decades. As a military Nordic skier and survival instructor, I've got an odd (to my wife) view of rehab from injury and when I needed to fix a damaged shoulder after an argument with a mountain (telemark skiing), I got myself a FG recurve and got back into archery. That was two years ago.
I'm an Aeronautical Engineer by education (I'm one of those geeks that knew what hysteresis was before I found this site), a military pilot by profession (20 years regular, now a reservist) and a bison rancher by passion.
My interest in primitive bows stems from my background as a military officer and military historian. I spent a lot of my career looking at historical military strategy and tactics, with my two primary eras of interest being Roman and post WWII counter insurgency. That being said, I've had an on-off-on again interest in the middle ages and medieval archery. I've shot a couple of light longbows over the years and read much about Mongolian warfare, the 100 Years War and much about the 'legend' that is the English/Welsh longbow. I've also read a lot of wild conjecture and wishful thinking about these topics as well but that's pretty much par for the course with military history.
Anyway, we've got a lot of Saskatoon (Pacific Serviceberry, Western Serviceberry - Amelanchier Alnifolia) on our ranch and some can be found with straight (5-7') 2-2.5" trunks where they've been competing with Quaking Aspen Poplar along old fence lines. While out swinging a hammer some while ago (building fence), I was looking at a nice straight Saskatoon and thought, 'that'd make a nice longbow, maybe I should cut it and season it in the shop.'
I haven't cut it yet but a bit of reading and research got me to this site. I though I'd join and learn a bit before going out and cutting a tree and dipping the ends in paint.
I can build a nice wood canoe (stitch & tape or cedar strip) and generally enjoy working with wood so here I sit, reading, scheming, and reading some more.
I'm thinking of a simple straight longbow to start and my experience of Saskatoon is that it's nearly indestructible so even tillered into a rectangular parallelogram, I'm unlikely to hurt anything but my pride. All advice and criticism welcome.
