The shape of things to come
Fraser enjoys woodworking, but unlike most people, Fraser's skill is not acquired as a hobby; in the Territories, one's ability to work with rather than against one's immediate environment can be the difference between life and death. Under those circumstances, one must be able to identify in the dark or in a blinding blizzard what kind of tree one is interacting with: understand each type of wood's particular grain for creating shelter, its relative softness, its density for creating a raft; whether it will stay dry more easily to catch an ember for a fire, whether its sapling will bend adequately to make a bow, if it will bear edible fruits, if it is diseased, and be able to hear the sap running in its trunk.

Fraser can do all these things and more besides thanks to his Inuit mentors while he was growing up, and to his extensive, voracious appetite for absorbing information. But it is a different thing to use those skills in another way, when one is not on a hunt, or needing to survive. When one can take the time to truly appreciate and handle the wood and shape it into something that will last forever, barring accident or fire, it's more than just a hobby; it is an investment of the self, and the creation of a very personal legacy.

The wood he works with now is a fine cherry, aged for a year, and the shavings that fall from the hand plane are like slivers of autumn at his feet.

Surrounded in this small workshop by the traditional tools of the trade, Fraser feels, despite his great personal distance from the country he was born in, very much at home.