Ingram Creek Saddlery opened in a Greenwood storefront on May 7 – a perfect addition for the shops in the downtown core.
As well as repairing and making saddles, store owners Bob and Margaret Ann Bugeaud also repair and make custom boots. This offers tourists and residents alike a glimpse of a trade that has largely disappeared in the modern day world of disposable goods from China.
When Bob attended a two-week boot making course in Montana, the Missoulian newspaper did an impressive article on the both him and the school.*
Margaret Ann and Bob have been in business for three and a half years.It all started back when Margaret Ann wanted to make her own saddle. “So I got in touch with Master Saddlemaker Bob Land of Okanagan Saddlery in Vernon and took a three-week course, she explained. “I made a saddle for myself, and got so interested in it that we just sort of carried on.”
Since then they’ve been operating as a home-based business from their ranch near the Ingram Bridge on Hwy 3.
As any local business must in order to survive, they have diversified the products and services they offer since the business started. They haven’t been resting on their laurels though; they also built a portable storefront that goes to fairs and rodeos.
“If you can think it, we can make it!” says their website (ingramcreeksaddlery.ca).
As well as saddle making and repair, their list of offerings includes custom made and off the shelf boots, clothes by Wrangler and Roper, hats, gloves – socks are coming, tack by Weaver or custom made, and Montana Silversmith Jewellery.
Everything is done by hand at Ingram Creek and that means there are no two saddles exactly the same. Margaret Ann said that some saddle makers use clickers, a cookie cutter type of tool, which stamps out each piece of the saddle exactly the same as the last. The advantage of hand cut leather is that each piece is cut to fit that particular tree (the base of a saddle). There are actually four layers of leather on their saddle seats and Ingram Creek uses only leather, instead of a metal strainer as found in a lot of other saddles.
Ingram Creek Saddlery is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at 264 Copper Street in Greenwood. Phone 250-445-9994.
*Link for the website article mentioned:
http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/dillon-boot-maker-shares-western-footwear-craft/article_161ff07a-7aac-11e1-912e-001a4bcf887a.html