explorers & ADVENTURES
Carving NEW
PATHS Left: Rich Fernald first became interested in woodcarving through a chance meeting with a fellow veteran at Richard’s Coffee Shop. Below: Fernald at his son’s home with a few of his carvings.
Woodcarver and former teacher Richard Fernald’s life lessons on opportunity BY: » Thomas Simonson | PHOTOS COURTESY OF : » Rich Fernald
“H
ow do I get something out of that?” woodcarver Richard Fernald says he often wonders, explaining his reaction to a piece of wood before he has unearthed one of the intricate carved birds that he is known for. Recalling the stages of that process, it is difficult not to see the potential of each piece of wood as representative of other opportunities Fernald didn’t anticipate. As he explains, “when an opportunity comes, I have just learned to go for it—just do it!”
10 LimitlessMagOnline.com | September 2021
A retired Army veteran, Fernald notes a pattern of unexpected opportunities that became hallmark experiences. Returning from Vietnam, he was able to pursue his dream of earning a college degree, in part through the support of the GI Bill. Before that, “I never had enough money to go,” he remembers. Following graduation, he began working as a substitute teacher, a position in which he found his calling and began a 33-year career teaching history, starting in Eliot, Maine, at the same school he had attended as a child.
Embracing opportunities
Fernald is quick to note that he learned as much about himself as he did from the students and his fellow teachers. “As a young guy, I don’t think I had confidence,” he relates, explaining how teaching changed that. The job gave him the confidence to embrace opportunities, whether spontaneously training for marathons with friends as a retiree or taking up woodcarving. These highlights took place after retiring, in 2006, to Huntersville, where he met
