"Whatever could be made out of wood, he could make, and everything I need out of wood, I can make it."

he men carried out many tasks in their workshops. It was there that they kept many tools. Normally, the workshop was located close to the family home in a building which also served as a shed for general use. This building was often identified as "the store". The great variety of woodworking tools, as well as other objects, used and stored in this "store" give evidence of the resourcefulness of these men.

Mr. Clayton Ralph

r. Clayton Ralph was born in Port de Grave, Conception Bay in 1920. As a boy, he left home to fish on the Labrador coast, but for most of his adult life he worked in various communities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador as a skilled carpenter and house builder. Over the course of the years, Mr. Ralph, like many other outport Newfoundlanders, built a number of fishing boats and items of furniture for himself and his family. He is now retired from housebuilding, but he continues to busy himself in his workshop making items of furniture, whirligigs and other ornamental objects.

An inventory of Mr. Ralph's workshop/store (built in 1948) was taken in 1994. Among his possessions were a great variety of woodworking and fishing items, including the more specialized tools of various tradesmen, and patterns for making furniture, wheelbarrow wheels, horse cart shafts and fishing boats. He had purchased many of these items; others, including electrically powered tools, he had made by adapting and improvising; a few were inherited or acquired over the years from various family members and friends.