~~~Balik sa Dagat Bangka Journey ~~~~

met with mitch denny the other day. i was surprised he picked up the phone as usually he is out in the sea fishing. but fortunately, we met and chatted for a bit. mitch is a fisherman and also a carver from alaska; he shared stories about growing up in alaska in an island where there was no electricity and how one would have to take a boat to get to the cities. i listened as he shared how he taught himself how to weave cedar hats from a borrowed book in the library; we laughed as the days of cataloguing, looking up books via cards and a ‘live’ librarian is no longer the norm today. then he took a weaving class after he made his first cedar hat; the class consisted of older women who wondered what he was doing in the class. he learned to carve from master carvers, by observing and doing. in the photo gallery, you will see some of the smaller hand-made carving tools that mitch made himself. he showed me the different chisels, what an adze does by hollowing out trunks to make a face totem. the red cedar paddle he expertly carved from a plank of wood. what you don’t see in the photo gallery is a newly sanded carved mini-canoe with mini-seats and paddles for 18 paddlers. he humbly shared how with one of the mini-paddles he will not included in the final set as he was not satisfied with how it looks; for myself, a novice, it all looked beautiful. he showed me the deer skin for his drums and also cedar weaves he himself split up in long pieces for cedar hats. lemon juice, he shared is the trick to bring back the shine of a cedar hat. i showed him the bangka that was gifted from bohol made by a boholano fisherman who used to hunt giant manta rays (unfortunately they no longer exist in the bohol seas as they are extinct). he reminded me that if i didn’t do what i was doing with learning the seafaring traditions as i am with bangka journey, balik sa dagat, who would?