Adirondack chairs, handcrafted cheese cutters, various oyster shuckers, custom canoe paddles, driftwood, rodent hides, cast-iron fire pits... for anyone who wasn't there, this is what filled Marion Square this weekend as vendors peddled their products at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE).
The sun glistened over the thousands that strolled through the expo on Friday afternoon. My mom, who flew in from Maryland on short notice to accompany me at the event, called it a “perfect Southern winter day.”
As we meandered through, I kept getting sucked into different vendors. The first stand was that of Carolina Shuckers Custom Oyster Knives.
Kirk Davis (right) and his buddy Michael Waller (left) have been friends since their college days at East Carolina University. Five years ago the two were at an oyster roast when an epiphany came to them. “We used to make these (very crude) oyster-shucking knives and bring them to roasts with us,” said Davis. “More and more of our friends began asking for them, and what were once rough pieces of metal evolved into crafted oyster shucking blades with bottle openers on them.”
“Bottle openers?” I asked.
“Yeah, what’s an oyster roast without a few brews?” Kirk joked.
Makes sense.
After spending what was probably an annoyingly long time talking to Kirk about the oyster shucking business, I moseyed through the crowd to the Smoky Mountain Bow Knife stand. An elderly gentleman named Harold Collins approached my mom and me. “These are some pretty interesting pieces of equipment,” I said nodding to an arrangement of serrated knives that looked more like bows than any kind of knife I’d ever seen.
Harold, like all the other vendors, truly believes in his craft. Ever since he could remember, he had been manufacturing these knives that were native to the people who live in the Appalachian Mountains (Harold’s home). Harold was not as verbally zealous about his knives as Kirk and Michael had been about their oyster shuckers, but rather, he had a quiet confidence about his work.
Harold’s understated salesmanship worked on Mom and me. We agreed that his bow-knives would make a perfect birthday present for my Dad—who is a sucker for grand gimmicks like the standing shoe-dryer that sits in our laundry room. If you locked my Dad in a room with infomercials on repeat, he’d go broke by the end of the day.
For the next hour or so, Mom and I huddled near the beer tent drinking, socializing, listening to live music, and watching the SEWE camaraderie unfold in its many forms. Our next stop would be the Charleston Music Hall to see Jim and Jamie Dutcher present their Living with the Wolves documentary.
It's been said before on Grit that the Charleston Music Hall is a must-see venue. I agree. The close-quartered theater is intimate, and Jim and Jamie Dutcher did not disappoint.
Quick disclaimer: going into the Dutchers' show, wolves weren’t an animal that I particularly cherished. There were two reasons for this:
1. I recently watched The Grey. The movie, as many movies do, portrayed wolves as ruthless killing machines. The audience was destined to root for Liam Neeson and his plane-crash-surviving-crew to kill the wolves before the wolves killed them. The movie was terrible… everybody dies.
2. When I was 10 or 11 my parents and I were watching Dancing With Wolves with Kevin Costner. I was thoroughly enjoying the movie (mostly because it was rated PG-13 and it was sort of badass that my parents let me watch it back then). Without warning, some idiot shot the wolf that had been overseeing the group of men on their western quest. Startled, my mom snapped, “God bless it. This stupid ****** movie!” she screamed and stormed out of the room. Upset with my mom for ending my PG-13 movie, I decided that I henceforth would hate wolves.
That was, until the Dutchers began telling us of how the wolf was “the most misunderstood animal on the planet.”
The Dutchers divulged their tale of a six-year venture with a pack of wolves at “wolf camp” in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. While showing photos from their experience, they elaborated on the mysteriousness of a wolf pack society. They described wolf tendencies, characteristics, loyalty, and the vital hierarchy of the pack. Over time, Jim and Jamie gained wolves’ trust and were often approached, nuzzled, and treated as allies to the wild animals.
The Dutchers entranced the Charleston Music Hall with personal accounts of friendship with the wolves, and bosom depictions of the pack’s familial interactions. After six years with the wolves, Jim and Jamie and the wolves parted ways. The Dutchers went on to produce three award-winning documentary films about their experience.
After some time, Jim and Jamie returned to the Sawtooth Mountains to visit their wolf pack—unsure if they would be accepted. As they showed in the film, the wolves recognized their old friends and licked them with love and affection.
I looked over at my mom and there were tears of delight running down her face. Day one of the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition: Success.
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