American Woodworker and Craftsman

Al Swanson - Helena, Montana

It’s been such a pleasure working with and getting to know Al Swanson. If you’re in the fly fishing world, and don’t know who he is, take some time to learn about his work. It’s exceptional. And the way we came to know each other makes this even better. I’m honored to share his story with words and photos in the latest issue of the Drake Magazine. Here is the unedited version of that story:

Losing a parent is never easy, and really there’s only one acceptable way for it to happen - old age. Al Swanson lost both of his to cancer by the time he was 44. Seven years later he himself was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the right tonsil. A baneful hand to be dealt even for the most optimistic of people. Yet optimism is all you get from Al. He’s never the victim. If any of his dialogue on life’s recent catastrophe ever deviates from the positive, you can only go as far as putting it into the “matter of fact” category. 

Swanson grew up on a farm in Portland, Maine in his fathers workshop surrounded by hardwood trees where they would make necessities out of necessity. In his early 20’s dad bought a sawmill which helped fuel the creative fire, but his sights were set on golf course management. He eventually found employment on a course yet couldn’t resist spending most hours building with wood (not part of the job description). Later a family friend took Al under his woodworking wing, at which point it became obvious he had found his calling, and the stage was set. 1995 was the year things took shape in a tuna can of an apartment where he turned the 10x12 bedroom into his first workshop making side tables, checker, and charcuterie boards. Not huge money makers, but each one a learning lesson that would afford a new tool for the quiver and unhappy neighbors.

1996 found him 2,100 miles west in Montana doing odd and ends carpentry for a private client where Big Sky Country genuinely flowed into his yet cancerless body. As romantic as the country was, a year or so passed and he realized “home is back there” - speaking of the east where most of his family and friends still lived. 98’ brought him again back to Helena for a visit with his sister. Almost immediately after that trip “I packed up every tool I owned and drove out there with all sorts of piss and vinegar to help me figure it out. I can make a mark out there. Nobody is doing what I’m doing in Montana.” Turns out that piss and vinegar did the trick. The work improved exceedingly over time and began getting noticed, with each piece sold leading to bigger projects and higher paying clients. His road was also paved with plenty of discouragement as every worthwhile venture is. Nevertheless by 2006 he had a showroom/gallery space in downtown Helena highlighting his striking one of a kind furniture as well as paintings by other local artists he personally invited in. Business was boomin’. Al’s work was being shipped to customers all over the world. 

Back east Al had done some traditional ocean fishing for striped bass and such. In Montana “everyone was fly fishing”. He was taken with the sport, as well as the magnetic beauty of the storied rivers, and thus learned to cast. Al was in. All in. One day he noticed his guide friends picking up rich out of towners from the hotel to go fishing and wondered “How could I give them a little piece of Montana to take home?” From that the idea was eventually born for the now patented and coveted Al Swanson exotic wood fly boxes and rod holders inlaid with sophisticated fly/fish patterns made from crushed stone, metals, Abalone, and Mother of Pearl.  Although it took quite some time and even more headaches to actually get the ball rolling. The products that now make up 60% of his business were ultimately sent afloat by a chance encounter in 2014 with a customer Al almost turned away when he asked him to fix a mangled net found at the Brimfield Antique Fly Market in the Berkshires (Massachusetts). The shop was so busy keeping up with custom furniture orders that fly fishing products weren’t even a thought. Yet he couldn’t say no to the stranger passionately pleading for the net he hoped could be a special gift for his son. “Do you know who that is?” an employee asked Al afterward. Enter Perk Perkins - CEO of a little fly fishing company called Orvis. “Lucky for me Al is an artist, so he gets tempted by unique things'' -says Simon Perkins (the son and current president of Orvis) of the beautiful rebuilt net he went on to use 100 days a year for 8 years of guiding on the Smith, Blackfoot, and Missouri Rivers. Where he “beat the hell” out of the net as a walking staff, crow bar for dislodging his drift boat from rocks, and netting incalculable numbers of fish. Ironic considering the initial reaction to his fathers gift was “I can’t use this. It’s too nice”. Saying yes to the net ignited an organic relationship between Al and a company that shared a high commitment to quality and a synergy of beliefs. At that point Swanson and Simon weren’t close friends, but Helena is a small community, so they ran into each other at the Blackfoot Brewery, poker games, concerts, and of course, the river. So later on when Al approached Simon with the first rendition of the fly box, it was a no brainer. “We loved everything Al stood for. His art and attention to detail, the story telling nature of the work, love of fly fishing, and his understanding that the sport connects you to the land” said Simon. Of course with model names like “The Blackfoot” and “The Missouri” they told stories specific to the Montana fisheries that Orvis naturally wanted to share. Perkins said “My dad loved giving unique gifts, which translated to the company’s cultural desire to curate unique products for our customers.”  In 2016 Orvis ordered 500 boxes from Swanson to be featured in their holiday gift catalog. Swanson Studios had neither the inventory or knowledge to fulfill such an order, but he figured it out and that relationship is still alive today. 

January 2019 life started getting weird during his son Gabriel’s hockey trip to Canada when a nagging sore throat came on that just wouldn’t quit. Back in Helena he had a biopsy done which came up negative, “but I didn’t believe it” Al said. His suspicions were confirmed after another biopsy at a facility in Missoula showed an isolated tumor in the right tonsil. Filled with ominous thoughts of his parents fate it was imperative he quickly make one of two choices: do the operation to remove the cancer or deal with the hell storm of chemotherapy and radiation. He chose option one and in April of that same year a Davinci Robot removed all the poison from his body. Or so he thought. “One year to the button a familiar pain came back that totally freaked me out”. Sure enough, a PET Scan showed a plethora of microscopic tumors that could only be cured by option number 2. The first go round wasn’t so bad, but now he was dealing with treatments to the head and neck that cause some of the worst pain a human can endure. “All the things you take for granted like talking, eating, drinking, and breathing are excruciating. They cut the living shit out of me and turned my brain into mashed potatoes.” This all occurred during the first major COVID shutdown, so not only did Al have to drive himself to the hospital, he wasn’t allowed to have any visitors. Alone is bad company when you’re falling down a black hole. Eating was no longer a matter of need, it was a matter of can’t. The pain was too much, so he went from his fighting weight of 201 down to 151 in ten days. Every waking hour was spent  wondering if he had any kind of future, while also facing the reality of not being able to single handedly run a business or take care of his 13 year old son while a glacial mountain of hospital bills piled up. “If I don’t work, there’s no money”. Month after agonizing month passed of eating through an IV, steroids, opiates, vomiting, radiation burning his body from the inside out and “not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring until it comes. Then you wake up and realize all it’s brought is pain”. That was his immediate and unavoidable truth. It’s also where optimism comes into play. “I decided I wasn’t going to sit there and let it beat me. I was going to surround myself with awesome people, and awesome people showed up.” The first ray of sunshine came in the form of a cardboard box delivered to his doorstep. On it was a hand drawn smiley face and inside was a white canvas rod tube personally autographed by Simon and his entire team. Along with positive vibes that tube also housed a brand new Helios. Not long after his dear friend Mary Hibbard came to the rescue. She had the idea to start a fundraiser for Al and said “we’re doing it and you don’t have a choice”. Swanson has never been the type to want help so this became added discomfort to his every day. Turns out though, when you spend 25 years selflessly giving to your community, that same community jumps at the chance to give back. Mary did the thing right. They shut down the streets for a band, auctioneer, food, and over 1,000 people showed up that collectively raised over 70k for Al.

This is where I come in. A photographer and writer on a trip with my wife and dog. Mojo and I drove from San Diego. She flew. After a morning skunk session on the Spokane River we popped in a Coeur d’ Alene art gallery. The kind women working there looked at my “Mission Bay Fly Fishing” hat and asked if I was a fly fisherman. Not wanting to be hassled into buying one of their arresting Mel McCudden paintings I said “yes, but I’m not very good”, and kept moving. She followed and inquired if I ever heard of Al Swanson. I hadn’t, but that was where the conversation took a turn and led to me drooling over images of Al’s rod holders on the computer behind their front desk. Before she could talk me into pulling my credit card out, I left  with two thoughts - it would be an honor to own some of his work that seemed more fit for a museum than the river, but also that it would be fun to shoot a story on Al in action at his workshop, wherever that might be. After a few days in Idaho we drove on to northern Montana and Glacier National Park. Fall was in its prime. Everywhere you looked nature was putting on a show. Colors. Wildlife. Rainbows. Sunshine one minute and snow the next. Needless to say we didn’t want to leave when the time came. Nevertheless, our reluctant trek started down to Bozeman where Emily was scheduled for her return flight home. After 3 or 4 hours of driving through Montana’s majesty all 3 of us needed to stretch our legs and eat some lunch. So we pulled off The 15 into the next town that just happened to be Helena. Aimlessly walking by several quaint storefronts my eyes looked up just long enough to notice a large poster with the headline  “Al Swanson - Charcuterie for a Cause” - aka the $70,000 event. It was all too much to ignore, so I sent Al an email. A week later we spoke on the phone for about an hour when he candidly shared his transmigration of the past few years. Before knowing the destruction he’d been through I just wanted to document him at work to be able to show others his art. After our talk it was obvious that more good could be done by sharing his story with the fly fishing community. 3 weeks later I was on a flight to Helena. December 1, 2021 we met at a local bar, came up with a plan over whisky to shoot the next day at his shop, and the following on the river. That next morning arrived quickly with a text from Al “not sure what’s wrong with me, but I think I need to go to the hospital”. My responses were unmatched. Not knowing what to do I went to the shop where his one full time employee and CNC master Patrick Sever was already at it along with Jeff Miller- a long time friend and former employee who dropped his life in Arizona to fly up and help keep the shop moving (for free) in Al’s absence.  Al and Jeff met in the early 2000’s when Jeff was living in Helena. ”He came to town and I had never seen anything like his work. What he was doing is unsurpassed”. They had a few conversations at the gallery over the next couple years, but it wasn’t until Jeff’s wife bought him a workshop with Al that their relationship really took hold. Miller was retired by that point and had lots of extra time to spend on his love of woodworking. So he started helping Swanson out with deliveries and the less crucial furniture tasks until his skills were up to par. “Al is a wonderfully talented guy and generous to a fault. For an artist of his caliber, he’s incredibly open with his knowledge” says Miller. He also stressed how much Al cares about the final product. “If it’s not right, it’s not going out the door”. A few hours later he confirmed that Al was in the hospital but that was about all he knew. I spent some time making images at the shop, which from the outside, is quite inconspicuous. Any passerby would have no idea that world class wooden art is continuously made and shipped from something so nondescript.  After a bit of shooting I left not knowing what was ahead for Al who was scheduled to have another test in 2 weeks to determine if the cancer had come back. A month went by until I heard from him again. “That was the sickest I’ve ever been” he said of the day we were supposed to shoot at his place. He had a copious amount of healing still to do. 

Late January 2022 I was headed back up to Montana for another story not far from Helena and text Al to see if he was strong enough for some action on the river. “It’s full on winter here. Windy as hell and freezing cold………whatever, I can handle it”. Couple days later we met in front of his house at 6am where I jumped in his truck on the way to the Missouri River and asked “How are you?” “It’s been a journey!” he said with that same positive and matter of fact inflection. There was almost a hint of humor in there too. Things were changing for the better. Sunrise wasn’t for almost two hours so all we had was conversation about what happened since our brief visit in December, including the debauchery leading to his hospitalization that morning. A battery of medication that didn’t play well together including a daily steroid (Prednisone) mouth rinse to help with the open lesions and ulcers prescribed by an outside doctor unbeknownst to his inhouse team. After taking it for months he was told to stop, but it’s not a drug you can quit Cold Turkey. His body reacted, losing total function in his legs and arms while laying in bed, barely summoning the strength to text his son for help. It was a fluke that his son was home at all that day. Al regained consciousness inside a CT Scan where it was determined he had acute adrenal failure, then admitted to the hospital for an extended stay. Al’s insides were once again shattered but he had dodged another bullet. Luckily the problem was promptly addressed and he was set on the course of healing. If not, there’s zero doubt that would be the end of his story.  

For a Montana winter it was a pretty balmy day at 30 degrees. Yet plenty cold enough for the feeling in my hands to go away after just a few minutes of shooting. Al didn’t complain though. He just slipped fluidly into the near freezing river and began casting with the grace of someone half his age whose body didn’t spend the last three years in purgatory. He hadn’t seen a river in months, let alone stand in one. Science just wouldn’t allow it. Yet there he was, back home in a sense, finally doing something he loves in the very same place Lewis and Clark once stood in 1805. And as long as we’re name dropping I’ll do it for Al because he won’t. On top of being an Orvis staple he’s also made custom boxes and tubes for people like Jimmy Kimmel, Michael Keaton, and Tucker Carlson. Today, at least as of our latest phone conversation,  he’s really turned the corner and is riding the wave. Despite frequent doctor check-ups, daily pain, weaning off opiates, and having 5+ years left before the radiation fully leaves his body, optimism is at an all time peak after the latest PET Scan showed the cancer had been eradicated. Still knowing full well that part of the future isn’t in his control,  he presses on, consumed by his desire to create. “I can attribute most of my mental healing to my craft. Don’t know what I’d do without it.” Even when you factor in the merciless misery he’s faced over the last 3 years, not being in his shop could be the worst part for him. Now that he’s finally able to be Al Swanson again, I asked if he has plans for new products. To which he ensures there is plenty in store, for both furniture and fly fishing. “I’ve also got a 16 year old son that I want to see grow up”. His friends all tell him he should write a book because, as they say, “he’s been to hell and back”.