In a little workshop on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, Lewis Mitchell straddles his workbench, huddled over a manicured cutting of hickory. He’s refining one end of it as hook, while wrenching a heavy razor along its edge, rending large shavings with each pass.
His weathered hands and sturdy forearms operate the blade with a rhythmic force accompanied by the sharp sound of steel carving through each stroke.
Mitchell is one of the last Haudenosaunee lacrosse stick makers following a tradition that dates back thousands of years. Long before the Declaration of Independence and nearer to the time the Normans stormed the British Isles, the Haudenosaunee people were playing lacrosse and making lacrosse sticks.
“The Haudenosaunee gave the game of lacrosse to the world,” Mitchell said, “and the wooden stick was part of that gift.”
According to legend, that gift was given to the Haudenosaunee by the creator, and it is played for his pleasure. They have many names for it: Deyhontsigwa'ehs (bump hips), Baggataway (the little brother of war), but it’s more commonly called The Medicine Game.
The Haudenosaunee belief is that lacrosse can heal the spirit and bring communities together. The key derivative of those healing powers, they insist, comes from the stick and its connection to nature.
“I think the great thing about lacrosse is it's much more spiritual,” said Lyle Thompson, “There's something about the stick that's your own.”
Thompson, also a Haudenosaunee, is and arguably the greatest lacrosse player of all time. He is protective, even territorial with his lacrosse stick.
“Not everyone's like this, but I don't like people touching my stick," he admitted. "It's because it's like there's a connection there that's deeper than the game of lacrosse.”
For perspective, small children are often gifted sticks in lieu of baby blankets. As Brazilians grow up with a soccer ball at their feet, the Haudenosaunee grow up with lacrosse sticks in their hands.
When Canadian colonizers adopted the game in the late 19th century, indigenous craftsmen opened factories on tribal lands, churning out wooden sticks, including in the Mohawk nation where Mitchell’s little workshop now stands.
“This factory right here employed about 60 people,” he reminisced aloud, “from carvers to people splitting logs, there were a whole slew of people who worked on the island.”
Mitchell said he remembered being a small boy in the factory, first sweeping up shavings, playing the game daily, while eventually becoming a full-time craftsman.
Every stick was hand-hewed by Mitchell and his fellow artisans, “and they shipped their sticks all over the world, Australia, England, so they were mass producing sticks,” he said.
According to the Canada Cornwall Museum the Haudenosaunee at one time produced an estimated 98% of the world's lacrosse sticks.
To get the best quality, Mitchell recommended using hickory or ash. Whatever wood is used, it must be split by hand.
“You could use a chainsaw or a skillsaw to cut a straight line, but the grain might twist on you, and you'd be cutting against the grain, which weakens the stick when you’re done,” he warned.
Hickory trees are split into strips, then fed by hand through a massive band saw where it is cut to size. From there, they are steamed and then bent into shape. After months of drying, they are bent again and left to set for a further two to four months before they can be carved or any holes are drilled.
Traditional sticks use deer leather cord for the netting, giving the stick a very specific pocket tailored to the specific player as it is used.
The process for making one stick takes nearly a year, and in that process threatens many fingers and hands. It is an understood occupational hazard of handcrafting a stick.
The factories perfected the process, pumping out hundreds of sticks a day. However, when plastic came on the scene in the 60’s, the wooden stick became obsolete, and the sacred artistry nearly died.
Mitchell was forced to leave his craft and took up a career in law enforcement, but in his retirement, the stick, he said, called him back.
“I thought, ‘I used to do it before, you know,’ so I said, ‘I'll do it again.’”
Mitchell sought out the few remaining stick masters and re-learned everything, including the steps he skipped as a younger man.
“I didn't do any sanding back then,” Mitchell admitted, “I was afraid of that sander because you touch that sandpaper, you just nick it, and man, that'll tear some skin off of you, and it burns.”
He sought out the wisdom of Alfie Jacques and Teddy Leaf, both giants in the stick making community.
“As one elder told me,” he reminisced aloud, “always try to see the stick in the wood itself.”
With a grant from the Mohawk Nation, Mitchell built a humble factory with all the massive equipment he needed in a one room shed along the St. Lawrence riverbank.
Unlike the mass productions he once produced, his workshop holds a simple carving bench and backbend that he built himself.
When orders come in, he takes his time, “from the log to the finish, you're probably looking over a year. Probably I could get it down to maybe 8 months, maybe, but that's kind of pushing it.”
The more time and care taken, Mitchell has found the better the stick will reward its player.
Mitchell said he is happy to take breaks for the cure, ducking in and out four days a week.
“I've got four grandkids,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “three boys, and one granddaughter. They all play hockey. They all play lacrosse.”
Mitchell said he hopes to take on an apprentice someday, maybe one day it will be his own grandchild. Afterall, he - and his fellow Haudenosaunee kin - managed to keep the tradition alive after it came so close to the brink.
“When I relearned how to make sticks, there were probably about five [stick makers] throughout Haudenosaunee country.” Now, Mitchell said, “there are probably 30, 40, 50 people making sticks throughout Haudenosaunee country.”
Lacrosse is more than just a game to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy; its place as a cultural export is a critical bridge for the nation’s relevancy.
“We almost disappeared. There were only maybe 50,000 of us left, and we almost disappeared. And now we're getting stronger and stronger, and we need to keep that going,” Mitchell insisted.
His pride rests on The Haudenosaunee National team's reputation among the best lacrosse teams in the world, third only to the U.S and Canada.
Appearances at the World Cup have reignited conversations around the Haudenosaunee sovereignty.
“Having a national game, a national identity, it's important to keep that going,” he said, in his little shop by the St. Lawrence River.
