Art of Decoy Carving

The Oak Hammock Marsh, Manitoba workshop floor is littered with cream coloured slivers of white pine, and the air has taken on a gritty appearance as swirling wood dust fills the encompassing space. This has left a layer of dust over everything in workshop, including the coffee mugs, homemade cookie and the carvers. While dusty, the workshop has somewhat a pleasant fragrance of freshly sanded wood mixed with a touch of kerosene. Within the walls of the workshop on this cold crisp Sunday afternoon is an activity as old waterfowling itself: decoy carving.
The history of decoy carving is a rich one and is unique to North America. The first handmade decoys date back at least 1,000 years. In 1924 a canvasback decoy was unearthed in the Lovelock Cave in Nevada. This decoy was made by the Tule Eaters tribe, and its body was constructed of bound bulrush and covered with white feathers. The head and neck were also made of tightly bound bulrush and painted rusty red while the breast and rump were painted black.
In the latter part of the 19th and into the 20th century modern hunters also used decoys to lure wary ducks and geese into shotgun range. However this was long before the mass produced plastic decoys that hunters of today see lining the shelves of their favorite sporting goods store. Like the decoys from the Locklock Cave in Nevada, these decoys had to be handmade. Many hunters learned learn to fashion their own decoys from whatever materials they had readily available: wood, cork, plywood and tin were the most commonly used materials. Some of the wooden decoys were quite crude and were hacked out using nothing more than an axe, and then a pocket knife to do some of the finer details, before being painted.
Later on, waterfowlers could order rigs of decoys through the mail from stores like The Hudson’s Bay Company or purchase decoys from local carvers in their communities who could carve out a rig of decoys before the first of the hunting season. These commercially made decoys had to capture the eye of both the hunter and their quarry so many carvers took great strides to create lifelike birds with realistic paint. As beautiful as many of these early carvings were, they needed to be practical and functional. They had to ride the water just like a real bird without rolling or flipping upside down. In addition, they needed to be sturdy enough that they could be used season after season in the roughest conditions.
The style in which carvers made the decoys largely had to do with the area they lived in. Different regions of the country produced varying styles of decoys which were best suited to the type of hunting conditions in their area. Decoys that were used on the smaller sheltered bodies of water were quite different in design to decoys used on the coast or on the larger lakes. The larger and rougher waters required the decoy to be heavier and sturdier with a weighted keel designed to keep the decoy upright even when the winds rip from the north turning the water into foam and boil. The pothole decoy was generally lighter and could have a flat bottom as the wind didn’t play as much of a factor in these bodies of water.
With the advent of plastic decoys - which are extremely lightweight when compared to the wooden ones and less expensive - many hunters simply disposed of the old wooden decoys they had used for years, which of course is a great tragedy. These hand carved decoys are a key part of our waterfowling heritage. Each cut of the knife and stroke of the brush lies a story of where it came from, how it was used and the skilled artistry that took to create these pieces of fowling history. More than just a practical means to hunt ducks, decoys are now viewed as a classic North American art form, highly revered among both hunters and art collectors. So much so that some exceedingly rare decoys from well-known carvers have sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Despite the advent of plastic and dwindling sale of handmade decoys to the open market, decoy carving in fact did not die; it is alive and well today. Modern decoy carvers have continued the artful tradition of carving decoys out of wood, cork and foam. A common material used is cork, simply because it is easy to carve, it holds paint well and floats naturally in water.
Many carved decoys of today are so realistic that even the most experienced waterfowler would have a hard time telling them apart from the real thing. Modern tools such as power carvers have helped increase the detail carvers have been able to put into each decoy, to the point where some carvers go as far as carving and painting each and every feather on a decoy in extraordinary detail. Air brushing is another tool carvers use that enables them to slowly build up the colour on the bird and give the decoy an unmatched softness and depth. Decoys which have this much detail and time put into them are called decorative decoys and are rarely used for hunting, but more often than not used in decoy competitions or to sit on a mantel as an art piece.
Gunning decoys, on the other hand, are less ornate in their detail and are more durable. There is no carved feather detail and the paint scheme is much simpler. Much like the decoys of the past these decoys are meant to be hunted over. The design and simple paint scheme allows for quick touch ups by the waterfowler when the decoys get scuffed or banged around. The beauty of these cork or wooden gunning decoys when used for hunting is that they ride the waves much more naturally than any plastic decoys. They cut through the water just like a real duck instead of bobbing around on top of it like the plastic imitators. In addition, when you carve your own decoys, they can be made into a variety of posses such as, sleepers, feeders, alert, resting and preening birds. Some waterfowlers who hunt in the a early part of the season even go as far as painting some of their decoys as birds coming out of the final stages of the summer moult and have not yet acquired their winter plumage. All these factors gives the decoy spread a much more natural look to it instead of the cookie cutter look of plastic decoys.
Our carvers in the workshop at Oak Hammock Marsh are actually just learning the craft of decoy carving. Since the Oak Hammock Centre first opened in the early 1990s, every winter the late Frank Baldwin taught group of hunters and carvers the traditional art of decoy carving. After his passing in the spring of 2011, Ross Gage, Harry Williams and John Frye continued the tradition of carving at Oak Hammock. For more information about the decoy carving classes taking place each winter or getting carving supplies from Oak Hammock, please call 467-3300.
Next fall when the new carvers take their decoy and place it out amongst the reed grasses on some windswept point, they will find there something ultimately satisfying about hunting over a spread of decoys you have carved yourself, just like generations of waterfowlers did before you.