Fit to be tied: Ropemaker has been practising his craft for more than 30 years
Bob Findlay one of the guests at Country in the City at Stampede
Each year, Country in the City displays at the Stampede grounds aim to educate urbanites about rural life or life long ago. But 6,000 years ago? That’s when humans began making the first ropes, and using roughly the same process that Bob Findley is this weekend at the Kinplex Arena on the grounds.
“People have been doing it as long as something needed to get tied to something else,” he said on Friday.
Using typical bailing twine to produce multiple stranded rope, the Medicine Hat man estimates he can produce rope tested to lift 500 pounds for about 2-cents per foot.
That’s led to one joker producing a toonie and asking for “100-feet please” — a task that Findley estimates would take one hour.
“It’s a three-person job, though,” said Findley, stressing he didn’t include labour costs in estimates. “He got a good deal.”
Though it may not strictly be economical, Findley says it’s a neat hobby and he hopes to reminds people to be resourceful and use their mechanical minds.
Findley didn’t grow up watching his pennies on a farmstead.
A pastor, he operated youth camps in his younger days and would often host oldtimers to give presentations.
One summer, a man showed up with a rope-maker and soon a swirled white rope with silver highlights was produced.
He was amazed that something so common as a length of rope could be so beautiful, and similarly that human hands using such a basic machine — six to eight hooks and a crank — could produce something so tidy and uniform.
The next summer three farm boys who were attending the camp mentioned they had a rope maker, and a full-blown hobby emerged.
It’s simple but ingenious, and rope is still indispensable, even though many likely buy it off the shelf, said Findley. And why doesn’t it unravel? The key is tension. “You twist the strands in a way that they want to unravel in the opposite direction from what you’re doing,” he said.
“Essentially they lock into each other.”
The practice long ago was to bolt the crank end to a barn support, and the other end to a brakedwagon across the farmyard. Cranking in the wagon binded the different loops in the process.
Over 30 years, Findley estimates that he’s used up a dozen spoils of twine that each measured 10,000 feet. The total would stretch roughly from Medicine Hat to Suffield. He usually gives demonstrations to camps, schools and youth groups throughout the year, most recently the Sea Cadets. That’s where Stampede officials took note and invited him to display the craft at the Country in the City display.
Demonstrations of sheep shearing, and cow milking are also taking place this week. Booths featuring animal rescue and prairie conservation are also well represented.
“You twist the strands in a way that they want to unravel in the opposite direction from what you’re doing. Essentially they lock into each other.”
—Bob Findlay