Cape Breton woodlot proprietor creating inventive furnishings for high-end area of interest market

MABOU, N.S. — If a tree falls in the forest, will it end up as a dining room table?

It just might if it happened to be on Neal Livingston’s small woodlot in western Cape Breton.

The veteran documentary filmmaker, renewable energy developer, maple syrup producer, author, photographer, visual artist and environmental activist is now manufacturing a limited line of furniture made from trees grown on his 250-acre property located between Mabou and Inverness.

The project is just the latest venture in what has been an eclectic and varied career for the 66-year-old Livingston, who bought a small plot of land in Cape Breton when he was just 21.

At the time, the native of Hamilton, Ont., had no idea of what was to come over the next 45 years.

“My brother was living in Halifax and I went there to work, but once I discovered Cape Breton, the west side in particular, I went there as often as I could,” recalled Livingston

“I had hitchhiked around North America and parts of Europe but found that my calling was in Cape Breton. I liked the forests, the beaches, the warm water and the people. In a very general way, Cape Breton always treated me well. I never had an experience that made me not want to be here.”

Neal Livingston is a hands-on woodlot owner who is making artistic dining room and coffee tables from the lumber he harvests on his Inverness County land. CONTRIBUTED

 

Nature calls?

Although his furniture-making business was still decades away, it didn’t take Livingston long to find his purpose in the woods surrounding his new home. He built a cabin, which was soon replaced with a house initially powered by a micro-hydro turbine. In 1993, Livingston became the first Nova Scotia resident to sell his electricity to the Nova Scotia Power grid. Since 2017, he has also generated power through a system of 48 solar panels.

Not satisfied with just tapping into the area’s hydro and solar power-generating opportunities, Livingston became interested in the development of commercial-sized wind power. In 2005, he formed Black River Wind Limited with Peggy Cameron. Today, the company operates three wind turbines in eastern Nova Scotia and western Cape Breton, including one on Glenora Falls Road.

All the while, the filmmaker who produced some 40 films kept an eye on the trees growing on his property. At one point, he turned his wood into what he called “Tree Art,” a collection of pieces of sculpted wood that can be hung from walls or ceilings. But, as a staunch opponent of clear-cutting, Livingston found that selling selectively felled lumber was not financially viable.

That’s when he began to explore options to transform the wood from his maple and spruce trees, grown on Cape Breton’s first eco-certified woodlot, into value-added products.

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Neal Livingston displays some of the “tree art” he created from wood harvested on his Inverness-area woodlot. CONTRIBUTED

 

Idea to reality

“I had been putting away hardwood for a number of years with the intention of eventually building boardroom and dining room tables,” said Livingston, who is also a co-chair of the Margaree Environmental Association.

“Then COVID came along and presented me with that opportunity. I did some research and didn’t find anybody else in North America who was building tables from wood from their own forest. I had the capacity to throw some money into this project and with COVID giving me the time, I decided it was time to do what I had wanted to do for many years.”

Earlier this year, Livingston got to work. Now, nine months later, he has an inventory of 41 dining room tables and 23 coffee tables. Some are already spoken for by family and friends. He has only just started marketing the others in what he describes as a niche market.

“I did some research and didn’t find anybody else in North America who was building tables from wood from their own forest.” — Neal Livingston

The dining room tables range from $1,000 to $14,000, while the coffee tables go from $1,100 to $2,800. Piece images, prices and descriptions are available on Livingston’s forest to table website.

“The average person is probably not going to be interested in these, but if you’re going to buy a condo in downtown Halifax, or any other city, and you have white walls and white ceilings and big windows, then you might like to have one of these beautiful, pattern-spotted tables, so I am focusing on a higher-end market,” he explained.

“I did some work with a marketing person I know and she told me nobody else is doing what I’m doing, that I already have a reputation as an artist and that the products are really valuable and that the prices should reflect that.”

Neal Livingston’s collection of coffee tables, dining room tables and tree art in his Inverness storage facility. CONTRIBUTED

 

The finished product

So, what will a buyer get for their money?

According to Livingston, his products are visual works of art that have practical functions. He uses maple, white spruce and yellow spruce.

“A lot of the crazier-looking tables, crazy in a good way, and exotically-beautiful ones were made from white birch with spalting (wood colouration caused by fungi), while the most expensive table has incredible colour and patterning from oranges to browns to yellows – it’s an amazing looking table,” he said.

“I was fortunate that my son’s cottage is an old legion hall near Inverness that I kind of took over. I took all the lumber to the hall and laid it out on the floor. They were like puzzle pieces. I spent hours putting together some of the most beautiful tables I could from the limited supply of wood that I had.”

His wood supply may be limited, but it is renewable. Livingston plans to build more tables this winter. “Some of the products will be made from trees brought down by hurricane Dorian (September 2019) and some will come from the wood that came down during the terrible ice storm we had this past spring.”

Today, Livingston’s Black River Group of Companies includes Black River Hydro Limited (est. 1984), Black River Maple Products (1984), Black River Productions Limited (1987) and Black River Wind (2005).

David Jala is a business reporter at the Cape Breton Post.