Timber Framers Guild comes to Sandpoint for workshop and TimberFest 2023

By Reader Staff

Members of the Timber Framers Guild will converge on Sandpoint to participate in a special workshop organized by local craftsman Collin Beggs.

Guild members will learn from two master carpenters specializing in traditional Japanese timber framing during a 10-day course at the University of Idaho Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center, and the class project — a bell pavilion — will be installed at Pine Street Woods to hold the bell created by local artist Mark Kubiak.

While in Sandpoint, the Timber Framers Guild, in partnership with Kaniksu Land Trust, will host TimberFest, Friday, June 9-Sunday, June 11. The event, open to the public, will bring together more than 100 attendees for a weekend celebrating craft and community, and featuring a variety of demonstrations and speakers, as well as a KidsBuild and tours.

The weekend kicks off June 9 with a tour, during which TimberFest participants will visit a local mill, the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center and Pine Street Woods, including a stop at the Kaniksu Lumber milling site, where they will learn about the portable mill shared through a partnership with Bonner Soil and Water Conservation District and the lumber retail and forestry education initiative supported by Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation. Following a welcome dinner at the Ag Center, attendees will head to downtown Sandpoint to explore.

Saturday features presentations by Dale Brotherton, who builds in the Japanese tradition; Indigenous craftsman Shawn Brigman; Ken Conger, of the Bonner County Historical Society; Joe Miller from Fire Tower Engineered Timber, who provided his expertise in reviewing the engineering aspects of the bell tower; and Autumn Peterson, who will talk about the guild’s community building projects in her hometown in Oregon. Beggs, Kubiak and KLT Executive Director Katie Egland Cox will talk about the bell pavilion, its inspiration and development.