This is a piece that I wrote for my introductory writing class. The prompt was to write a creative-nonfiction piece, so I focused on what the ski production timeline would be from the perspective of a tree being cut down for the core. I focused on the ski brand Atomic, as I have a few of their skis and absolutely adore them. I hope you enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sun shone through the trees while the machinery whirred below. One of the men was yelling at the other to secure the strap on the paulownia tree, then switches were flipped, blades were slicing, and the paulownia tree\u2019s quick descent to the grassy floor below. More words were spoken quickly, and then the metal knuckle boom log loaders got to work. Soon, the paulownia was stacked with many other paulownia trees, and the men mentioned something about the truck being full. The truck groaned to life, the accelerator was stomped, and soon the only thing that was left of the truck were deep ruts, wood debris, and the fleeting name emblazoned on the side of the cab: Hakki Pilke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a rainy day in Helsinki, Finland when the ship from Japan docked and the paulownia trees got their first glimpse of the country. Here, many men were yelling and instructing as well, but it sounded very different than the men yelling when the paulownia trees were first being slain and transported. Someone who was called \u201cJimmy\u201d shouted to \u201csecure the logs before lifting the crate\u201d and then someone yelled something in a different language. A large fastener was hurriedly thrown across the top of the crate and then the paulownia was hoisted out of the ship, across the port, and placed on a truck. A few days later, the container with the wood came to a shuddering stop outside a big building, and a man named Sven came out to the driver, thanked him for the delivery, and then brought a big machine with two flat metal rods to pick up a few logs at a time, delivering them in the \u201creceiving\u201d area of the building. On the wall, there was a large logo and lettering underneath it that spelled \u201cAtomic\u201d but Sven hardly noticed as he was too preoccupied with placing the wood in their appropriate areas. Other areas of receiving had big signs that said words like carbon, magnesium, and titanium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the paulownia wood was placed in receiving, it seemed as though the people at the factory with Atomic on the wall didn\u2019t care about it being there one bit. Weeks went by without so much as a second glance, and no one did anything about the wood as it sat and stagnated. Two months later, the wood was taken one log out at a time and transported to another sector of the building. Once in the new area, Sven picked up each log one by one and put them on a machine that took the large log and sliced it down to smaller, thinner, and flatter pieces of wood. Someone mentioned the word planer, but there was no description of what, exactly, a planer was. Things continued to happen to the wood, and the building whirred, slopped, and whined away. In a matter of weeks, the big log of paulownia had been transformed into a long, thin post of wood, metal, resin, and plastic. The wood had been pried apart, glued together, imbedded with metal edges, and finally slapped with a decal on top. Shortly after, it was sluiced to make sure that the wood would no longer absorb water and was wrapped tightly in plastic. The little metal plate in the middle of the now modified piece of paulownia wood simply stating \u201cBackland 100.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few months later, the piece of paulownia was shipped in yet another large metal container arriving in Savannah, Georgia. This time, it did not see the light of day, but was transferred from the large ship to, in comparison, a very small truck, which was only able to carry one container at a time. These trucks ran a large span of the port, each awaiting their appointed load to carry off to its next destination. Days passed while the truck chugged along, the paulownia wood feeling the curves and grades in the road as the miles were trekked. Soon, the truck came to a gradual stop and the container was finally opened. There were again people with the metal beam machines who were unloading the cargo and bringing it into another large building. This building had the words \u201cChristy Sports Colorado\u201d on the side of it. This time, the paulownia wood didn\u2019t have to wait long in the massive building before they were, once again, loaded onto a smaller truck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This smaller truck chugged along for a short while, and then came to a sudden stop after just a few hours. Again, the building it stopped in front of had the words \u201cChristy Sports\u201d on it, but this building had more under the letters, expressing \u201cCherry Creek\u201d in addition to the first two words. Here, the people unloading the wood were a bit gentler, and they were no longer using the metal machines with the rods on them. One man picked up the wood and held them gently, calling out \u201cKevin, check these out.\u201d Another man, presumably Kevin, came over and picked them up. \u201cDamn Gareth, these are some cool skis!\u201d He responded. From there, the wood was walked out of the truck, up two flights of stairs, and put somewhere other than where the rest of the wood went. The rest of the wood, now colorful with their decal sheets, were placed on big metal displays with wheels, while the wood that was held by \u201cGareth\u201d was placed in a more secluded area behind the counter and near a place that had many more pieces of wood that looked similar. These pieces of wood, however, had stickers with numbers and gauges taken out of their brightly colored decal sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mere hours later, the paulownia wood that Gareth had unloaded from the truck was being carried out of the store again, and placed within a much smaller vehicle, that didn\u2019t look anything like the trucks that were transporting it before. This ride was considerably shorter than the others that the paulownia wood had experienced. When the vehicle stopped, Gareth got out of the car and closed the door. He then walked around the car to the side that had the paulownia wood, opened the door, and pulled them out. He had decided to keep two out of the hundreds of pieces of modified wood that were delivered to that \u201cChristy Sports Cherry Creek\u201d place. Gareth brought the wood through a few doors, up a set of stairs, and into a room with other people who said things like \u201cWoah! Are those your new skis?\u201d and \u201cI love the graphic,\u201d and everyone wanted to touch and hold the paulownia wood. Later, when Gareth was no longer with the people, he whispered to the paulownia wood that they were his favorite skis ever. It was this moment, that the paulownia wood realized that they must be called \u201cskis\u201d now, and that made the wood very pleased indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What’s it like to manufacture a ski from the tree’s perspective? I took a crack at that here, exhibiting creative non-fiction. Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-minor"],"yoast_head":"\n