This film tells the story of a cabin I (Cody Bokshowan aka Trustin Timber) built from self-harvested logs and milled lumber. I do hope you enjoy the video but there is also a story within this story that is specifically relevant to WeatherWool which I share below. 

I often ponder my life and how one thing led to another.  I was doing that the other day, thinking about the exact moment I truly fell in love with WeatherWool. 

It goes back eight years, when I started felling trees for an off-grid log cabin. Felling and peeling bark is a sticky and messy process, not to mention the chainsaw oil that sprays from the saw, so I didn't want to wear my relatively new WeatherWool to do this job. I had already been wearing WeatherWool for a year when I started this project, and so I had already been blown away by how it handled rain and snow conditions.

I had also taken it on a few fly-in backcountry canoe camping trips, so I was well aware of how cozy and comfortable it was, having slept in it many nights. 

But it couldn't possibly stand up to the hard labour of logging and would be hard to clean if it got full of sawdust.  So I wore my Carhartt work jacket with a canvas outer layer with a quilted lining for the first while. But logging is hard work, often done in cold conditions once the sap has stopped flowing for the winter freeze. I'd start the day shockingly cold, having been sitting for 45min in a warm truck driving, and not built up much body heat other than the warm air blowing on me. I'd step out into the cold and would instantly question if this was really what I wanted to be doing with my free time.

By the time I'd haul all my gear up to the logging site and pull the chainsaw several times to get it going, I'd have already built up a sweat. In those early days, I was still learning the art of felling, and most of my trees got hung up in the forest canopy. What followed was usually a battle between me and an 800lb tree, completely severed at the bottom but casually stuck against another tree. Ropes and pulleys and prying usually had me in a furious sweat before the first tree ever hit the ground.

By noon, I'd usually have put my jacket on and off about 6 times to regulate my heat. A dozen or more times before the day was done.  If it wasn't for the fresh air, the singing birds, and a dream, I might have thought this whole idea was a losing battle. Yet I could also feel this challenge was making a man out of me. Giving up now wasn't an option. As time went on and my pile of logs went from 5 to 10 to 100 and eventually 300, I learnt a few things.  My trees were starting to fall exactly where I wanted them, no ropes or pulleys or prying necessary.  I was smiling a lot more and almost ceased murmuring insults at myself. I was getting the hang of what to wear: my socks (wool), my boots (alpaca lining), clothing layers (wool) and my outerwear (wool). I was becoming one with the forest and the process. Even the easily spooked whitetail deer were starting to get used to my presence. 

During that winter, I had a conversation with Ralph about the durability of WeatherWool. It seemed too soft and precious to be an outer layer for hard labour like logging, but he encouraged me to wear it, and so I did. I started wearing the CPO under a waxed canvas vest, which became my default and then layering over it with Al's Anorak for the colder parts of the day.  (That is still my cold weather default to this day.)

It certainly was a more enjoyable garment to work in, but the memory that holds so clear in my mind was a late afternoon on a sunny 2020 spring day. The temperatures were really starting to rise, and I was feeling warm. I pulled off my WeatherWool Anorak, and it hit me that since I started wearing the WeatherWool Anorak, I hadn't been taking it on and off all day as I had been with the canvas work jacket.

At times I unbuttoned a few collar buttons or unzipped a side vent or two, but for the most part I wore it on the drive there, all day working, and if I took it off it was generally not more than once a day and having my WeatherWool CPO underneath was another layer of the same magical fabric. This wool layering system was such an eye opener for me. What a fool I had been wearing clothing that didn't breathe for so long. 

I also noticed that despite the many sticks jabbing into me while walking through the bush, the 100's of handfuls of branches I'd picked up to clear the area after limbing the trees, and the tossing of logs over my shoulder to carry them to the building site, the WeatherWool was still holding up great. 

I was already a fan of WeatherWool for its cozy comfort and easy packing on canoe trips, but I now realized its durability and breathability performance too.  

Also, it stayed pretty clean and even the bit of pine sap that did get on it eventually dried up and crumbled off.  It smelled just fine too, even after working in it day after day and sleeping in it when I decided to stay the night. During this time, I went from appreciating it as a nice item of clothing to admiring what wool could really do.  

This realization is what led me to start talking to Ralph about letting me take on some rebranding and imaging to help the company look a little more high-end and improve the appearance of the brand to match the high-end product they were delivering. 

As it turned out, though, they had much bigger problems than pretty pictures and graphic design at that time.  Between hurricanes washing away wool, mills closing down, and other production issues, they couldn't even get the fabric made, so marketing wasn't much of a concern at that point.  

But Ralph and I stayed in touch, and I genuinely wanted to see them succeed, so I'd call or text if I noticed something on the website or Instagram they might want to edit or reconsider. Meanwhile, I kept wearing WeatherWool, chipping away on this cabin build, wearing it on multi-day back country canoe trips, fishing trips, and so on, and continuously being blown away by the performance day after day. 

Eventually, 2 years later in November of 2022, I got a call from Ralph asking what I could do for them if they were able to pay me a small amount each week. That was the beginning of where we are today, having now been working for Ralph and Debby for 4 years.  I sometimes wonder if it wasn't for this cabin project giving me the desire to make a hard day's work more comfortable, and Ralph encouraging me to wear WeatherWool for hard labour, would I have ever realized the true potential of WeatherWool and ever been in this position today working at WeatherWool. Maybe I would have set my WeatherWool aside for special occasions, afraid to get it too dirty or wear it out. If I had, I probably would have never fallen as deeply in love with it as I did or offered to stand proud in front of the people promoting this brand. I had worked in apparel and fashion marketing for 10 years prior to this. I never once wanted to be the face of the brands I was working for or felt the price was worth the value, but WeatherWool was different. This was a product I was proud to tell as many people as possible about and still am today. 

It's worth noting that the same CPO and Al's Anorak I started with I still have today and will always have. They don't look brand new anymore, but boy I love them more than any of my newer stuff becuase of what we have been through together and look forward to seeing my son wear them in the not-so-distant future.

This cabin taught me several lessons, and WeatherWool was only one.  I invite you to learn a few more in my new film, "Full Cabin Build - 5 Years In The Making". Hope you enjoy it!

Cody Bokshowan