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EESTI ELU reedel, 5. veebruaril 2021 — Friday, February 5, 2021
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Kid’s Corner: Easy whittling projects for teens a spen, and cedar. If the wood is from outside, make sure it’s sufficiently dry before whittling. Using a bar of soap and a table knife might be a good way to involve young children who might still want to partici pate. Regardless, work gloves can be worn to protect your hands. First of all, open up an armlength space around you with no objects or other people in the way. When you whittle, press into the wood slowly and steadily, cutting in an outward direction. The knife can get caught in the wood sometimes and slip, so it’s always better for the blade to move away. It also pays to have a sharp knife and to keep it sharp, so that the whittling is a clean, easy job. To guide the process, you can outline the shape of what you are making with a pencil. This tells you just about when you can stop carving. Try whitt ling down from a smaller piece of wood that’s close to the shape of what you’re aiming to make. Spatula: Let’s say you have a 28 centimetre long piece of wood: carve out a long, narrow handle of approximately half its length. At the halfway point, move outward in a fan shape before carving flat sides for the “head” of the spatula. Round
off the edges slightly, and gra dually create an angle down to the top of the spatula for better scraping abilities. Cut out some shapes and patterns along the length of the handle as you see fit, to make it more ornamental. Wooden Spoon: Alternatively, you can keep whittling the top part of the spatula shape into a more pointed form and careful ly carve into the head, to create a slight dip in the wood for the spoon. For a deeper dip, carve the head less than you would for the spatula, to give lots of space to carve into. Try angling the cutting blade against the edge of the spoon and cut in a curved direction to make a clean bowl shape. Butter knife: If you have less wood available, you can make a simple butter knife. From the middle of the piece of wood, start by carving straight down to the end of the butter knife, to make a flat spreading surface. Gradually whittle down the back side of the knife to a simi lar size and shave off the edges as usual. This will create more edges, which you will also whittle down. Eventually, the flat surfaces will meet each other and form a comfortable round handle. Caricature carvings: This is the most advanced carving idea of this set, if you’re feeling
The tenacity and resourcefulness of Estonian Winter sports
shaping their interests into well-loved businesses. There were six lifts to the top, 14 runs, a ski instruction program, equipment rentals, and a chalet with a comfortable cafeteria and balcony on the second floor, situated in the pic turesque Kawartha Lakes area. Guests and families would spend countless consecutive weekends learning to ski here (and snowboarding when that became popular), putting in their hours of practice, all with in reach of the GTA. It was a social hub. Maybe some readers were even present at Devil’s Elbow when it hosted the Toronto Eestlaste Suvepäevad on Saturday June 20th, 1970? Or in 1971 or 1973?
Vincent Teetsov When I was a Cub Scout long ago, we were taught the importance of knowing how to safely handle a knife. It started with a miniature pocketknife and an inexpen sive bar of soap. Theoretically, I could make that bar of soap anything I wanted it to be. I seem to recall my den leader making a fleur-de-lis, which made my attempt seem a bit embarrassing. But still, to make something with one’s own two hands is satisfying. Knowing how to use blades of all kinds is a nifty skill to have, for practical and decora tive purposes. Together with wood, we can make anything from utensils and small tools to walking sticks and furniture. We won’t start making a set of dining room chairs right now, but if you want to do a bit of light woodworking without too much preparation and commit ment, whittling with a pocket knife is a good place to start. If you’re Estonian or know someone who is, you’ll pro bably find yourself around a forest at least once in a while, so here’s an opportunity to pick up some fallen pieces of wood and make something cool out of them. Ideal types of wood to use include basswood, pine,
Vincent Teetsov In the February 1938 issue of Eesti Spordileht (Estonian Sports Magazine), there’s a lively collage of photos, from when “ski jumping took place for the first time in Estonia.” Crowds of spectators were forming along the barriers, looking high up at the ski jumping hill that had been constructed. In between events, the athletes guzzled hot drinks, adjusted their number bibs, and waxed their skis. Even with an artificial hill and that year’s sub-par snow quality, these Eesti Suusa päevad (Estonian Ski Days) were a success, with events happening in Narva, Tallinn, and Tartu. The publication’s piece about the events tell of a record number of spectators at the events, and athletes per forming at the top of their game, proving “that skiing has become a mass sport for us.” Consider then the Kiviõli Seikluskeskus (Kiviõli Adven ture Centre) in Ida-Virumaa. As suggested by the name of the town, refining oil shale was a big part of the area’s economic activity for decades. It also devastated the local salmon population and the river fishing
that had benefited from that fish. Starting in 2001, Janek Maar and Kaja Kreisman worked together to take one of the old waste heaps, sometimes referred to as the “ash hill”, created by the nearby refinery and turn it into a ride-worthy set of four slopes, between 400 and 700m in length, with lifts. In a town facing post-industrial decline, the hill has since re stored a sense of pride in the community and created a desti nation for visitors and locals. Around the same time as when that slope opened up, in Bethany, Ontario, Devil’s Elbow was approaching its 50th anni versary as a ski resort. The late Velfrid Holmberg founded Devil’s Elbow in 1963. Holm berg was born in Hiiumaa in 1928 and arrived in Canada in 1949. In Toronto, he started Holm Construction with Martin Reigam. The two of them found the plot of land and developed it in their off-time; cutting trees and thick shrubs, and making trails that would become part of the resort. Down the line, Velfrid and his son John ob tained full ownership of the resort. It was a family business, supported by Velfrid Holm berg’s wife Elizabeth; and later, his daughter-in-law Sandra. Another instance of Estonians
A drawing of spoons from Muhu, from “Woodworking in Estonia” by Ants Viires — via Lost Art Press.
confident. As a long-lasting alternative to a jack-o’-lantern, you can carve spooky and funny faces into the surface of a round, medium-sized piece of wood. Maybe you have a fallen branch in your back yard or something you found in the park? You could carve the undulat ing face of the mythical Estonian character Suur Tõll. To add a woodland Estonian theme to your carving, you could whittle the wood down into the snout and ears of a wild boar. For an accurate per spective of the boar’s face, start by cutting the lines of a flat tened cone shape into the wood. These will be guiding lines in side of which you can fit the
Velfrid Holmberg passed away in 2014. Devil’s Elbow was in turn closed and sold in 2018. But when this happened, there was some indication that it could still be opened as a re sort in the following years. The Bethany community has been hopeful, and no doubt, there are many who miss going there from far and wide, for all that winter sports, like snowboard ing and skiing, give to us. Eesti Suusaliit (the Estonian Ski Association) describes Estonian skiing as something that was reborn as a sport in the late 1800s, after having been lost over the centuries. It rose from the embers of a practical ancient method of transporta tion, including when hunting
Photo: bethanyontario.blog
Tellige EESTI ELU 2021. aastaks!
carved details. For example, to simulate the effect of scruffy fur, make several shallow cuts into the wood, within that cone shape. Change up the amount of wood you take out with each cut, to create variations in texture. When these carvings are done, take 100 or 120-grit sand paper, which you can get at a hardware store, and smooth the wood down. Whittling makes for fantas tic, hands-on projects that you can do without fancy tools. Show off your handiwork to your family when you use your carved tool to spread butter or dollop toppings onto your next slice of rukkileib and take pride in something that you made!
and tracking in the wilderness. This wasn’t Olympic jumping or super giant slalom. Yet, with each new season, Esto Ski Day, or individual rider, winter sports continue to enrich us and make fun memories. Winter sport enthusiasts will find any suitable surface they can, down a gradient or across flat ground. I wouldn’t call it “making lemonade out of lemons”, as there’s no citrus involved. But you might be able to call it “making mountains out of mole hills.” In a positive, literal way, that is. Next to working on crafts and other hobbies, winter sports are how Estonians survive the winter and glide through the seasons.
