I have already written about my start in woodworking in grade school and my making a thin-walled cedar kayak, but now that I think about my lifelong love of this hobby/profession I realize I am just continuing a family tradition. 

I have chronicled my dad’s handywork in remodeling our house in North Portland while he was working full time as a musician and educator. Even before that he had purchased a WWII Navy double-ended life boat and remodeled it into a fishing boat. He must have had a partner or two in order to afford it. Maybe a brother or two were involved. I remember seeing a photograph of him standing next to it in about 1949 or so, but I don’t know what happened to it or if he ever used it.

After that, as us siblings gradually moved out on our own, my dad constructed a trellis structure over the backyard patio and then built himself a twelve-foot-long fishing boat. Later, whenever he got bored or had a few too many, he would go into the garage and cut a few inches off the front end of that little boat. I think it ended up being about eight feet long before my mom made him get rid of it.

On my mother’s side of the family, my grandfather was very handy and worked in fruit orchards and as a maintenance person in a fruit-packing warehouse until he retired. My uncle Max bought a boat kit from a company in Portland and assembled a nice runabout that his family used for years. He was also a very good and inventive person that owned a body and fender repair shop after WWII. During the war he built a unicycle and learned to ride it so he could get around rather than having to walk around the airbase in North Africa.

My dad’s brothers were also handy carpenters. I remember watching them mix concrete and pour the foundation walls of their brother Omar’s house that they were building, and I believe they also built brothers Walt’s and Hugo’s houses. Another brother, George, was a lifelong carpenter and his cousin Oras had a shop and did a lot of woodwork as well as being a small airplane pilot.

More recently, my brother Ernie (his first name is actually James but he has always been Ernie, after our grandfather Ernest Duckham) has always made his way as a carpenter and woodworker. He built a kayak the same year I did. His, however, was canvas covered over a wood frame. We both took our kayaks on the “famous” week-long camping trip back in the 1960s on the South Fork of the Tieton River, and everyone had fun trying them out.

My sister Kathryn, who lives in Kenai, Alaska, is married to Thom, who is a craftsman as well as a commercial fisherman. Their two sons are also quite handy at building things, as well as at least one grandson.

When I was in Finland the first time, I was shown a small log cabin and sauna that several of my dad’s cousins had built on a small lake in a forested acreage that the family owns.  Additionally, one cousin was a project superintendent for a large Finnish international construction company, and I am sure many more things have been built over the years on the family farm in Finland.

So, all things considered, I think I have come by what I do honestly.

Ken Kaiyala
11-13-2025