Our Mission is to provide the highest quality of carpentry with the best people possible working together with a positive attitude.

The story of Artisan really begins with my dad, Hank, who emigrated from Holland in the early 1950s, and gravitated to a career in contracting in Southern Alberta some time in the mid 1960s.

I began working with my dad, when I was in my early teens---shovelling dirt, sweeping floors, nailing roofs, and pouring concrete. Dad taught me all the essential tricks of the trade---how to string a line, square a building, lay out the framing, and swing a hammer. This first chapter of my construction career took me right up to the time when I was nineteen and got a job working for Trademark Building Supplies in Taber, AB. With Trademark I began my Alberta Apprenticeship, mainly working with an old carpenter who taught me how to do things right.

I finished my apprenticeship and became a journeyman in October 1984. I also moved to Edmonton, and in the big city I entered an entirely new world of finishing carpentry---air tools! I got a job with an Irish carpenter who taught me how to do railings and build curved stairs on site. I was left to finish---on my own---the railings and curved stairs for a certain Mr. Hugh Campbell, then general manager of the Edmonton Eskimos. I was in my early 20s at the time. It was a real test, but Mr. Campbell said I passed. 😊 In those days---the mid-1980s to the early-1990s---everything was in Oak.

In the late 1980s to early 1990s I operated my own proprietorship, Oakcraft Carpentry and did mostly custom-built homes. Then, after almost 20 years of working in an entirely different field, returned to finishing carpentry in 2011 as Artisan Klok Finishing Carpentry, doing a mix of high-volume and custom home construction.

Ron

September, 2018