Oak Harbor resident Robert Bower makes knives of a dying art, one reminiscent of the obsidian blades of Native American cultures. But according to Bower, the tradition isn’t separated by region, only by time and materials.

“Every culture that’s ever been has had a lithic culture, a stone culture,” he said. “The Native Americans just like to use the obsidian from here, but if you go back east they’re using chert and all kinds of stones.”

Any stone that can make a conchoidal fracture, the shell-shape design, can be knapped. Some must be cooked, and there’s all sorts of processes they can be ran through for different effects. Bower likes making knives and sticks to them, perfecting his craft.

He gets his blades from Oregon obsidian and makes the handles out of local trees or driftwood. Knapping is easy, he said. The basics can be learned in 15 minutes. From there, it’s just about getting better, and better, and better.

He learned what he knows from another local knapping legend, Joe Higgins, who started the Puget Sound Knappers almost 40 years ago. The organization now has over 600 members from all over the world.

Yet Bower and Higgins favor different styles. Higgins does what’s called percussion; he knocks chunks off the rocks with a copper cap on a piece of wood.

Bower prefers pressure flaking. He uses an ishi stick, the tradition of the Nomlaki and Wintu tribes of Northern California, pushing flakes off instead of knocking.

Wednesday and Saturday mornings, Higgins holds knapping sessions out of his shop for anyone who shows up.

“It’s a lost art,” Bower said. “We’re trying to get it back out there, trying to find young people that want to do it. The hard part, they’re more interested in their phones than they are anything with their hands.”

Natives used the knives for everything, Bower said: cutting grass, skinning animals, self defense and more.

“If you have that skill, to make one of these things, you can go out in the hills with nothing, grab a couple of rocks, and pretty soon you’ve got a sharp object that you can cut a tree down with if you want to,” he said. “You can skin an animal out with it. You can do whatever, because the flakes off of the obsidian go down to the molecular level. It’s sharper than surgical steel. It will cut you so quick, you don’t even know you’ve been cut.”

While many purchase Bower’s knives just for their beauty, some still prefer them for traditional uses like skinning.

Having run the craft center for the Navy for over 20 years and teaching industrial arts prior, Bower enjoys working with his hands. It’s also an excuse to go out into nature and find the materials. Better yet, people seem to enjoy what he makes.

“Once you retire, you better have a hobby or you’re going to go nuts and beat your head on the lawn,” he said.

Peruse Bower’s knives at the Penn Cove Water Festival on May 18 or shoot him an email at bowerwood@comcast.com.

Photo by David Welton Robert Bower gets his blades from Oregon obsidian and makes the handles out of local trees or driftwood.