Good Natured

My first profile for CWC was an easy choice with friend and mentor, Chuck Oakander. I first met Chuck over a decade ago through Cass Hicks, another close friend. Chuck and Cass have known each other for most of their lives but it wasn't until later in life that their friendship would blossom into a relationship which would find them married.

That Chuck finds himself living along the northern Pacific coastline where he grew up is no accident. Chuck, at an early age, realized he was most happy, most content, most at home, in and among the natural elements of the coast. A true waterman, Chuck has ridden the currents of wind, waves, sun, and storms of this region for the last 61 years.

Chuck didn't choose his first line of work. It chose him. As a 12-year old, Chuck and his buddies would regularly fish in the lagoon for perch and bullheads. As Chuck tells it, his now neighbor Josh Churchman, who's 10 years Chuck's senior, would routinely cruise by on his 16ft skiff on his way out to the open sea. And return with a treasure trove of a catch: salmon, halibut, and rockfish.

Josh's impressive catch, couple with his stories of the high seas, captivated Chuck. Within the year, Chuck was working at Josh's side as an unofficial apprentice helping to catch, filet and sell the day's take. His fishing career evolved over the next 20 years to include deep sea voyages which would take him routinely 250 miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, and, at times, thousands of miles off shore for albacore tuna.

It was during one of these long distance voyages, more than 30 years ago, that Chuck encountered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Garbage as far as the eye could see. But what was most troublesome to Chuck, and what we've now come to realize as the most urgent threat, was the vast amount of trash you couldn't see. Small particles of micro-plastics floating under sea level.

Chuck describes it as a gyre. There are five gyres in the world, at the North and South Atlantic, North and South Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean. A gyre is a vortex of currents that, in turn, conspire to pull ocean debris into a central location. Seeing this had an impactful effect on Chuck and only strengthened his dedication to our natural elements.

After a stint as a deep sea commercial fisherman in his 20s, Chuck traded water for wood and began his career as an arborist and, ultimately, as a sculptor.

As Chuck approached his 30s, Chuck traded water for wood and began his career as an arborist and, ultimately, as a sculptor. He began to transition into tree work.  Within a couple of years, Chuck had joined Pacific Slope Cooperative and dedicated his full attention to trees. Over the last three decades he’s established himself as one of the most respected arborists in the area.  His experience is complemented by his collection of equipment including a fleet of trucks, cherry pickers, tractors, blocks (pulleys), countless chainsaws and a vast array of hand -tools - each, seemingly, with its own folksy tale.

Chuck's transition from the deck of a deep sea fishing vessel to the tops of Northern California's coastal trees was a natural evolution. The coastal regions of Northern California boast some of the largest trees on our planet. Trees which have been forged from years of massive Pacific storms spinning down from the Gulf of Alaska. Multi-day events with rain measured in inches and winds that continually prune the tops of these monuments as they come of age.

Working and playing amongst these elements, it's more likely that you might mistake Chuck for an NFL linebacker than an arborist and sculptor. I had initially listed him for this article at 6'2 which drew a laugh as he corrected me to just under 6-feet. Chuck's presence which is neither intimidating or arrogant, simply powerful. He's someone who generates a natural curiosity in you. A curiosity less about what he does, but who he is.

The coast has no limit for providing invitations into the metaphysical world but Chuck's first love is for the waves. That the renewable energy sector continues to home in on swell, waves and tides as a means to provide a clean way to generate power is a tribute to what Chuck had discovered for himself at an early age.

Chuck's preferred method of harnessing wave power is atop one of his 12-foot surfboards. He constantly amuses himself with a variety of long-boarding tricks reminiscent of a classic style which included a time of tandem surfing with Cass. But Chuck's signature move, the one which everyone knows him for, is his headstand.

Chuck in his element.

On any given day Chuck sits in the increasingly crowded local line-up as an affable enforcer.  That’s to say, if Chuck sees a newbie surfer break etiquette (most common: paddling onto a wave someone’s already on) he’ll paddle over and talk through the situation in an empathetic way - a way that anyone trying something new would appreciate.  This isn't a difficult break and it draws a wide range of abilities and temperaments. And while it doesn't happen often, if Chuck witnesses anyone knowingly behaving like a chump, he’ll run them out of the water faster than a 17ft White shark.

The local break is only about a 5-minute drive from Chuck and Cass's homestead. From this perch, and on a clear day, Chuck can see the Farallon Islands from the property.  The Farallon Islands sit 26 miles due west of the Golden Gate Bridge but from here they’re only about 20 miles off the coast.  Here along the coast, the cold waters of the Pacific mix with the warmer air to generate fog which can hug the Northern California coastline for weeks at a time. 

The Farallon Islands

A homestead is property broadly defined to include a main-house and adjacent, supporting structures and houses.  Life on the homestead originated as a means for families, typically multi-generational, to self-support through the cultivation of agriculture and livestock.  A hard life but you won't hear any chatter about company downsizing or rumored layoffs. You won't hear any talk about work/life balance either. Here on the homestead life is simply life - not some weird secularized existence at odds with itself.

Cass and Chuck’s farmhouse is flanked by two kotchas directly to the west.  Traditional Miwok Native American kotchas were made of large pieces of redwood bark leaned together to form a teepee-like structure. Chuck’s kotchas utilize a circle of eucalyptus poles for supports, like a traditional teepee, and use Monterrey Cypress bark for the walls. The large kotcha was blessed by a Miwok who told Cass and Chuck that "kotcha" translates to "home." The kotchas offer space to have a fire, converse, reflect and, at times, to heal.

The kotchas

Along the southern side of the farmhouse is a single-room studio which houses Cass’s acupuncture practice.  Two large tent structures and a converted shipping container house Chuck’s collection of tools and equipment.  The remainder of the property features a myriad of Chuck’s work in varying stages of completion.  Primarily benches and chairs, amongst other projects, tucked in and around the homestead as an unintentional showroom.

The scope of Chuck’s professional work can be enormous.  Massive, mature eucalyptus groves with dozens of trees with wood as heavy as marble stretching more than a hundred feet to the sky.  Regardless of the scope, the tool sets for these jobs remain largely the same.  Cranes, pulleys, flatbed trucks, boom trucks, chainsaws and chippers.  Get the job done and make sure everyone goes home safe.

I’ve always been somewhat perplexed by the liberal use of the phrase ‘risk taking” in the corporate world.  Risk for me, for whatever reason, has always been in the physical sense.  And risk for so many of the people who are earning a living doing the things I admire the most, it means just that.  If something goes wrong, they’re not coming home with a bruised ego, or at worst, no job, they’re simply not coming home.

While the wood that Chuck sculpts comes from his worksites, that’s where the consistencies stop.  And as Chuck pulls into his driveway after a day at the worksite he sees one of his in-progress sculptural wave benches.  And as strong as his desire is to put down his chainsaw at the end of a workday, he can’t wait to pick up one of his sculpting tools as soon as he gets home.

While Chuck will use a chainsaw and, occasionally, an Alaskan saw mill as the start of a project, big, clunky gas powered tools are replaced by smaller, more agile tools powered by vision, experience and human strength.  Crow bars, chisels, axes, mauls, and gouges.  And the adze.  Many, many adzes.  

The adze is like an axe but instead of a vertical blade, it’s horizontal.  This woodworking tool is used for carving with origins back to Egyptian times.  Like the traditional axe, an adze has countless configurations.  Short or long handled, the adze can be used for any variety of wood shaping initiatives.  Chuck’s collection includes an antique shipwright’s adze from his Uncle Pete.

Naturally, Chuck's signature pieces are his wooden wave benches. He starts with a 12ft-15ft trunk weighing in at 2,000 pounds or more. Wood harvested from his jobs at Pacific Slope Co-op. In the same way an open ocean swell presents a wave with no preconceived shape, Chuck lets the shape of the wave bench come to him. To date, Chuck has produced 15 or so (he doesn't count) sculptural wave benches.

It wasn’t until after 30 years working as an arborist that Chuck began to shape and sculpt the very trees he had been working with.  Without any formal experience he simply began carving a piece of black walnut he had harvested from a job in Stinson.  Chuck’s seemingly unending knowledge of trees and wood have proven a natural complement to his inherent gift as an artist.

Chuck was about my age when he started exploring large scale sculpting. It was something new, though not necessarily unfamiliar. And as I look to my own future and legacy, I draw so many lessons from him. But none more real than that Chuck works for himself.

If you'd like to make a monetary contribution to help clean our oceans please consider making a donation to The Ocean Cleanup group. The Ocean CleanUp organization was founded by Boyan Slat in 2013 and has made tremendous progress towards cleaning up our waters.

You can see more work by Chuck on his website.

Photo Credits: A big thanks to Ted Tuescher for his images used in this piece. Ted's images include the beautiful pictures of Chuck's completed works: the lead in picture and gallery at the end. And also the portrait of Chuck holding his adze (3rd image in the post). More of Ted's photography can be found on his website. Also a big thank you to Cass for rounding up some of the older shots. And for shooting the video.