Teenager forging ahead as a trained blacksmith
Creating with metal drew London’s Will Munroe into learning an ancient trade
“Modern day magic,” is how 19-yearold Will Munroe describes his chosen trade.
While many of Munroe’s interests are typical — he’s a lover of mountain biking and Netflix — his trade is not: he is a trained blacksmith.
“Sometimes people ask if I shoe horses, or make any swords,” he explains, laughing.
It’s an occupational hazard unique to his craft, in which people like Munroe work with just a hammer and an anvil to craft art, tools and, yes, the odd horseshoe.
Metal — Munroe works with steel — is heated until it is at its most malleable and then forged into shape.
For Munroe, the magic of the trade is in the process.
“Everybody pictures steel as a strong, impenetrable force, yet a blacksmith’s able to just manipulate it at his will,” he says.
“It’s amazing to see something so delicate come out of it. You see these typically huge, dirty men . . . producing such fine, detailed work.”
Munroe says the idea of blacksmithing hadn’t occurred to him until he stumbled upon it, by chance, while attending a college fair in his hometown of London, Ont. He was looking for information on millwright programs when he came across the Artist Blacksmith program at Fleming College in Haliburton. It clicked “almost instantly.” It was “the missing puzzle piece,” combining his love of art — he is a seasoned saxophone player — with his love of metal work. He honed his skills at his high school, St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Secondary School in London.
The jazz and tech programs served as a haven for Munroe throughout school.
“High school wasn’t the best part of my life,” he says. There were some highlights, he insists, but “all of them” occurred in the tech shop or the music room.
Since graduating from Fleming in December, Munroe has started to immerse himself in the blacksmith community, connecting with other smiths through Facebook and Instagram.
Will says the blacksmith community is small, but strong, and eager to assist those who are new to the trade.
It was through a Google search that he found his mentor, artist blacksmith Scott McKay, owner of Strong Arm Forge in London.
Munroe “has a natural affinity for the work he does,” McKay told the Star. “He’s very understanding of the way that metal moves.”
And “he doesn’t mind getting a little bit burned,” McKay added — crucial when working with metal heated up to 3,000 C.
Recently, McKay introduced Munroe to a global initiative among blacksmiths to forge poppies that will adorn a new First World War monument in Ypres, Belgium. Blacksmiths from around the world will gather in Ypres in September to commemorate all those involved in the conflict. Together, McKay and Munroe made approximately 25 of the metal poppies for the project.
Though Munroe isn’t sure that blacksmithing will be able to support him as a full-time career, he is eager to expand his skills.
Munroe has begun plans to smith his way across Scotland next winter. Along with Connor Hamilton, a friend from Fleming College, Munroe hopes to make his way through the country, staying with Scotland’s master smiths and learning from them. The return date? Undetermined. “We’ll stay as long as we can afford,” Munroe says with a laugh.