Join author Ryan Wahl for a special book event with a slideshow presentation at Coho Books (1074 Shoppers Row, Campbell River). Saturday, Oct. 25 at 4 p.m.

Legacy in Wood is a detailed portrait of master boat builder Ed Wahl and the important role his family business played in the creation of British Columbia’s fishing industry.

Wahl is the great-grandson of Ed Wahl, legendary British Columbian shipwright.

Ryan spent his childhood building toy boats from scrap lumber piled by the bandsaw, and eventually helped in the construction of the last Wahl family boat, the Legacy.

Wahl was raised in Prince Rupert and the nearby community of Dodge Cove, Digby Island. He now lives in Nanaimo with his wife, Lori.

Centuries before steel, fibreglass, aluminum and automation were applied to shipbuilding, early twentieth-century BC shipwrights hand built fish boats entirely out of wood. Guided by their intuition and knowledge of the sea, they used only basic tools to craft thousands of vessels that shaped the way shipwrights and marine architects design the boats of today.

Legacy in Wood is an illustrated story of one of those shipwrights, Ed Wahl. With the help of his six sons, Wahl created the most successful commercial fish-boat building enterprise on British Columbia’s north coast, and one of the most well known boat shops on the entire B.C. coast. Threaded with memories of Ed’s sons and the crew of the Wahl boatyards, Legacy in Wood provides a unique look into a family business that enabled the fishing industry to be a mainstay of British Columbia’s economy.