It doesn't get much more Alaskan than the tale of the beginnings of a small but growing Haines-based ski-making company. Ian Seward, a local woodworker, was driving along a Haines road one day last year when he picked up a man and woman who were hitchhiking. The couple soon became Seward's neighbors, and its male half, Canadian backcountry ski expert Graham Kraft, would eventually be his business partner.
The business, Fairweather Ski Works, is still small, but the duo's ambitions are big: to bring a sustainable ski-making company, along with jobs and outside money, to Haines.
Haines is located in the foothills of the Chilkat Mountains, a region becoming internationally known for its expansive backcountry skiing opportunities. And in a ski industry filled with high-tech and colorful equipment, Fairweather Ski Works stands out because its products look like a throwback to the earliest days of the sport.
Fairweather's skis are made with the latest techniques, layered composite materials construction, metal edges, and P-Tex bases and veneer finishes on the ski tops. But unlike most other skis and snowboards on the market today, Fairweather products look like they were made decades ago, embellished with wood grain finishes and lacquer.
"It seemed like there was kind of a void in the market for that sort of thing," Seward said. "So many of the skis out there have a space-age look and are garish. We wanted to appeal to our own sensibilities and trust that it would work."
And work it has. Seward said his company sold 55 pairs of skis last year (at an average price of about $800 per pair.) The company has sold another 25 this year and is scrambling to keep up with demand. Customers have ordered skis from as far away as Italy.
Fairweather skis have all-wood cores made from locally sourced Alaska birch and spruce. The trees are split into planks and then further split into thinner plys that are sandwiched together with more modern materials to build a strong, flexible ski.
Even though the finished products -- often topped with custom designs from Haines-area artists -- look old-school, they perform just like the latest sticks you can buy at any major ski shop.
"They perform wonderfully, and we have had a lot of good feedback from our customers," Seward said. "My partner, who is a very talented backcountry skier, has taken them over the summit of Mount Logan and Mount Fairweather, as well as skied them down the volcanoes outside of Anchorage."
Seward said he and Kraft now work at the small company full-time and hope to hire other local Haines residents later this winter.
"It is looking really promising for us to be a sustaining business here in the relatively near future," Seward said. "Our most important driver of sales is going to be the website."
Seward said that in Haines -- a town of about 2,508 full-time residents -- building a local businesses can be a challenge, but recent attention aimed at the area's vast expanses of little-touched powder, along with support from local community members, has helped his company succeed.
"A local restaurant business owner cut down a big birch tree and read about us in the paper," Seward said. "They were going to cut it up for firewood, but they gave us the tree instead."
That big birch will make about 60 pairs of skis, according to Seward.
Fairweather Ski Works is mostly a backcountry ski shop, but Seward said he is working on the company's first cross-country ski prototype and hopes to have it ready for sale by the end of the year. Another popular item sold at the shop is a split board: a snowboard that can be divided into two pieces to help with a mountain ascent before being snapped into one single piece for a ride down the slopes.
The company has also been selected as one of 12 finalists for the Sealaska Corp.'s Path to Prosperity business incubation contest. The winners will be given up to $40,000 in business seed money, along with support for securing new investors.
When it comes to getting out of the shop to make some fresh tracks with a newly made pair of local skis, Seward said he doesn't get out as much as he would like because the business is so busy. But self-employment does have its benefits, too.
"Being our own bosses, we can take off some days when the urge hits us," Seward said. "We call it 'product testing.'"