Mountain sounds: Boltwood Tonewood

This story first appeared in print in the February 2021 issue of Revelstoke Mountaineer Magazine. Read the e-edition here:

 It’s a cool winter morning in the Big Eddy and steam rises from the Bertrand mares in the paddock. Through the fog, a figure approaches me, with a distinctive shock of white hair and a rowdy moustache. I already know it’s Dan Boltwood. He’s well known in these parts — as a road and bridge builder, a family man, and as the guy who still rides a horse drawn carriage into town from time to time. But what many don’t know is that his unassuming shop, perched high on the hill, has produced millions of the world’s best spruce guitar tops over the last 25 years, and that his company, Boltwood Tonewood, became the world’s largest supplier almost purely by coincidence.

It’s a question he’s answered many times: what exactly is a guitar top? It’s the finished wooden face, or soundboard, of an acoustic guitar that gives it a distinct tone, depending on the species of wood used and overall design of the instrument. Englemann Spruce — what Dan cuts — is known for its rich tone and generous mid-range. The clear-grain raw logs are first cut into two-foot sections and then carefully sliced into delicate nine inch by 21-inch wafers that are just one-fifth of an inch in thickness. The tops are inspected, bundled and shipped to distributors and manufacturers, or luthiers, who carefully join two pieces on each guitar.

Considering the niche product that Dan produces, you’d think that he has a long history with music. On the contrary, Dan came to Revelstoke from Alberta in 1974 and has worked on most major construction projects in the area, from building bridges on Highway 23 north, to building coffer dams for hydroelectric projects and boring train tunnels under Mount Macdonald in Rogers Pass. The steady work combined with the stunning beauty of the area convinced Dan to put down roots, start a family and build a home with a panoramic view over the Big Eddy.

“Revelstoke was kind of boom and bust back then,” Dan reminisces. “There was always mining and forestry, and CPR was steady forever. But then Mica came and really made it good, and then the Revelstoke dam really pumped it to the top. And when that was done, the tunnel came.”

By the 1990s Dan had moved on to building forestry roads. It was work that Dan loved doing, but with forestry always pushing further into distant valleys in search of fresh timber, it meant spending weeks at a time in remote work camps. For a family man it just wouldn’t do, and Dan sought out opportunities that would have him home each night for supper with his wife and kids. As fate would have it, a friend who was an avid guitarist showed Dan a magazine ad depicting old growth logs and a list of wholesale prices for the guitar tops that were made from them.

“I said, ‘Holy smoke, you can get five bucks for one top?’” recalls Dan. “Well how many tops can you get from a log that’s four foot in diameter?”

Dan did the math his own way — by bringing home a log and cutting it up. His efforts were well-rewarded and once he figured out how to navigate the distribution system, his new guitar top enterprise grew in leaps and bounds. Dan invested in better saws and additional labour, and by the late- ‘90s his company, Boltwood Tonewood, was in full swing, producing roughly fifteen hundred two-piece guitar tops daily. The shop ran efficiently but the real competitive advantage was the location. Englemann spruce grows particularly well in our nearby temperate rainforests, so logs were easier to source and cheaper to transport. As a result, Boltwood Tonewood soon cornered the market and, for roughly two decades, was the world’s biggest supplier of Englemann spruce guitar tops.

“They just couldn’t compete with me back then.”

But the winds shifted, as they often do. Asian guitar manufacturers eventually opted to bring the production of the tops in-house and flexed their financial muscle to buy up entire lots of logs in single purchases. As a result, it has become more difficult for Dan to secure a steady supply of timber, and more difficult to sell his milled tops. So, for now, the saws are silent but the extra stock of tops that Dan had the foresight to cut when timber was cheap and plentiful, continues to be sold off.

“Well there’s a gold mine in stock, so we’ll sell that and maybe come back to it later,” Dan muses.

Always one to have an iron in the fire, Dan now has his sights set on another kind of gold mining: gold mining. Off to the side of the corral sits a new trammel which will be put to use this summer washing sluice and separating the gold flakes, once permits are in hand. It’s amazing that after decades of toil, he’s still keen to put in a hard day’s work and make a go of a new venture. On our way out of the shop, he pauses and asks me if I have experience with book publishing: turns out he’s got some stories bouncing around in his head. Maybe he’ll turn his hand to that after pulling a few nuggets out of the ground.

Looking out over the Big Eddy, we don’t say much and don’t need to. It’s a clear day and a distant Mt. Albert crackles brightly against the blue horizon. It’s a wonderful place for Dan to call home and to hang his hat, regardless of what hat he may find himself wearing from year to year.

“It’s like paradise here, just a lovely place. Always has been, always will be.”