No, unfortunately, I can't walk well enough to leave my house without assistance. No more after-market replacement parts, I'm afraid. Last year, I made a donation roughly equivalent to attendance (approx 900 miles from here). I expect to do the same again.
Last year, I watched all the videos that must have taken ages to put together. Robinson Cook made 5 wood carving videos about tools and materials. I still watch them, over and over again. Then came the Zoom sessions, some Q&A, regarding tools and techniques. We all had a couple of carvings for show-and-tell. Those conversations were a big help.
The schedule of programs hasn't been released yet. Maybe August. Time wise, we do a stupid time zone change in the autumn, exactly when, I can never remember. Suffices to say that you guys in the UK are +7 or +8. +7 at the moment.
Even if you have no other plans to focus your carvings beyond spoons and forks and camp wood fixtures, the tools of the Pacific Northwest are quite different. Plus, this stuff is free to satisfy your curiosity.
Talented kids apprentice with a grandfather or an uncle for a start. Maybe later with an equally talented carver such as Freda Diesen was. Me? Maybe 15 years now and I'm getting happy with the crooked knife choices and results.
There's an evolution that begins with scrounging good steel and making your own blades & handles. When you wake up and realize that you don't want to be a blade smith, you begin to buy good blades. An elbow adze and a D adze are tedious things to put together, even with proper blades (half an axe head is OK). The pinnacle of my folly led to buying completed knives from competent First Nations blade smiths!
