How a unique, 'very precious' carpentry project connects P.E.I. and Australia

For the last seven years, a carpentry instructor from Australia has been teaching students at Holland College in Charlottetown how to build a hand tool out of eucalyptus wood.

Usually, Robert Brodie gives the lesson virtually, via video-conferencing. 

But this month, he was at Holland College in person, a trip that was cancelled in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The relationship started in 2014, when Brodie visited P.E.I. as part of an international fellowship funded by the Australian government to study carpentry training in North America.

Since then, Brodie has been doing a virtual project with the students every year, building a block plane made out of Australian timber. 

"We've been doing it via the internet, so the whole COVID and Zoom thing, we've been doing it all longer than everybody else," said Brodie, who teaches at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. 

"I send the timber from Australia over here and, via video conferencing, we complete the project over a number of weeks, by me dialling in very late at night, to them very early in the morning."

'Object of beauty'

The wood is eucalyptus, much of it 40- and 50-year-old fence posts that Brodie has salvaged. 

He sends a box to Holland College's Josh Silver, lead learning manager in the heritage retrofit carpentry program, every year for the project. 

"Originally, I actually made one of these for Josh as a gift for hosting me when I was here the first time, and then we decided we should do it with the students," Brodie said. 

"I'd been doing it with my own students at Swinburne in their final week of their trade school. So I just thought it was a good idea, and he loved it, and we ran with it." 

The plane, Brodie said, is used for smoothing timber, and the one the students build is high quality and quite expensive in Australia.

"A hand plane is, quintessentially, the symbol used for carpentry, and I think it's an object of beauty," Brodie said.

"It's a functional tool, and you can have it forever. I've had this one for 20 years and it looks new. And I've got one that my grandfather had, and he would be 100 and something if he was still around. So that will last forever."

Brodie said despite the two colleges being halfway around the world, there is much that the carpentry programs have in common. 

"As Josh always says, if you put your finger on Prince Edward Island and Melbourne, Australia, we're exactly opposite ends of the globe," Brodie said.

We're trying to teach the same things, the same values and the same pride in your work.— Robert Brodie, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

"But what I have learned is that the problems and the challenges that we have in Australia are very similar to the ones we have here.

"There are obvious differences with the training system, but essentially we face all the same challenges, and we're trying to teach the same things, the same values and the same pride in your work."

Symbolic tool

Silver said the partnership has been valuable in many ways.

"Robert sends us what we think is very exotic wood — it's eucalyptus. So the wood itself is very unique, very precious to us," Silver said.

"Then we take it, and use these rough pieces that he gives us, and make a beautiful block plane out of it." 

Silver said he also appreciates the symbolism of the block plane. 

"As our program looks at saving houses and saving our built heritage, that block plane is kind of a metaphor for that," Silver said. 

"We look at a block plane that I can get at a hardware store for $20, when it gets dull, I'd be awful tempted to just throw it in the garbage and buy a new one."

"Where this is made by care and love and technique and skill. The students put their utmost into it, and come out with a piece that's not only functional, but almost a piece of artwork, a museum piece," Silver said.

It's this wonderful keepsake that Robert's able to give us, but then we can also use it as a metaphor for where we're going as a society.- Josh Silver, Holland College heritage retrofit carpentry program

"The students would then care for that tool for the rest of their career, and that tool being cared for will produce them money. They'll be able to make a living with that, and then when they're done with their career, they can pass that plane on to to the next generation." 

The instructors said there are plans in the works to expand the number of programs at Holland College teaming up with connections Down Under.

"We're in an era where lots of countries are doing nasty stuff to each other," Silver said. 

"So if we can have two countries work together and spread some love and education, I think all the better."

"We've already made some connections for other trades and other managers to hook up with some people in Australia and become more collegiate," Brodie said.

"It originally started as a journey for me, to try and raise the standards of our training in Australia. Since then, it's become a whole lot more."