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    He and his partner had left Ottawa to move to Whitehorse. They decided to take nothing but back roads and to hike and canoe at every opportunity. He first saw a Diamond Willow walking stick in Saskatchewan and was impressed with its blond appearance and dark diamond-shaped flaws.

    Villeneuve found these sticks again in Fort Smith, NWT. The campground keeper was a carver and he had a stack of them in the corner for sale. But instead of trying to sell him one, he sent him to a nearby lake to find his own.

    After two days of looking, he was unable to find the tree. Diamond Willows look just like any other willow with its bark on.

    As he was leaving, the campground keeper gave him a freshly de-barked Diamond Willow stick. Once he was settled in Whitehorse, he sanded it down and applied marine varnish. A wrist strap at the top and a tin can to protect the tip finished the job.

   "It's beautiful", he says today. "And it's not just that it looks nice ... there's something else."

    He figures it is special because it shared his journey to the Yukon. It can't be replaced.

    But if he had to, he could always buy a Diamond Willow with the bark still on it at the Carcross Barracks. They sell for $10 each and are brought in twice a year by two trappers.

    Villeneuve only uses the Diamond Willow for easy, Sunday walks to keep it from getting too worn. As a free-lance photographer, however, he has another "working" stick.

    It is made by Trax and is collapsible so he can throw it into his luggage. The best part is the mount on top for his camera when a mono-pod is needed to keep his camera still.

    Spending weeks at a time in the bush taking photographs, he finds the stick helps with uneven ground and makes his pack seem lighter.

    An older cousin introduced him to walking sticks when he was 7 or 8. They used them when playing in the woods and would pole vault over streams.

    Up until 10 years ago, he would just find a stick during his hike. But they would break or wouldn't feel right. Besides, above the tree line of a mountain there are none to find.

    So, Villeneuve added the single Trax pole to his equipment. He decided against a pair of poles because he finds when he falls his first instinct is to grab tighter to whatever he is holding. Instead, he wants one arm free to break his fall.

    Hiking is all business for Grant Lowey, Phd, MSc, BSc.

    As the placer geologist for the Yukon Government, he spends six weeks a year in the bush researching the origin of placer gold deposits and compiling the geoscience data.

    Not all of the interesting sites are near a road. Many placer deposits are in valleys and glacial deposits are in the mountains.

    The official name of his walking stick is a "Jacob's Staff". The informal name in geological circles is a "Pogo Stick". It is first and foremost a tool. But it is a tool to which he has become very attached. Changing camps in a hurry, he has had to dispatch helicopters to retrieve it when it is accidentally left behind. [click on the photo of Grant to enlarge it]

    The primary function of the Jacob's Staff is to measure geological formations. It is exactly 1.5 meters long with the bottom half meter marked off in tenths of a meter with a wood burning kit. The next measurement is at one meter. A shaft of a pen is taped to the top so that he can judge through the peep hole when the stick is parallel with the formation he is measuring.

    At the bottom of the staff is a tin can to protect the bottom and to make a loud noise when he is tapping along to scare away bears.

    He bought the stick at Beaver Lumber 10 years ago. It was just a 1.25-inch dowel, waiting for some mundane construction job, until he etched the measurements in and varnished it twice. It looks beaten up today, but he would only replace it when he loses it.

    Lowey prefers wood to metal because it is warmer to hold. At night in the base camp, he can wedge it high between two branches and use it to do chin-ups to help his arms catch up with the exercise his legs had received all day.

    It is useful during a break in a hike as he sticks it into the ground at a low angle and then leans his backpack up against it as he sits for a rest. It has also been used to measure the depth of rivers before he crosses and even as a tent pole.

    It is most useful when going downhill. He drags it behind allowing him to lean back and dig into the ground.

    Sometimes, however, Lowey has to climb down a cliff that requires he have both hands available to grab onto cracks and ledges. He has had to let it drop only to have it roll and tumble a lot further than he wanted.

    It feels odd to walk through the bush without his staff. He feels like an ex-smoker who doesn't know what to do with his hands. He keeps it at home and uses it for his recreational hiking as well.

    Daydreaming sometimes leads to ideas on improvements for his Jacob's Staff. Perhaps a hook at the end to catch a tree trunk as he struggles up a hill, or attaching one of his tools to it.

    The helicopter pilots he works with would probably prefer he design a staff that is retractable. They hate seeing anyone approach their helicopters with long sticks because they might be absent-mindedly flung over a shoulder and into the rotors.

    Okay, so not everyone is sold on walking sticks.