Farrier says neigh to ordinary life

Roving all over the Sunshine Coast in his Dodge pickup, Mike Schulkowsky is the picture of a modern cowboy.

Schulkowsky is Powell River’s only full-time horseshoer or farrier, wearing a cowboy hat and leather chaps to work and speaking with a pronounced Midwesterner’s drawl. Before the horseshoes there was the dream of being a hero from a Western.

“When I was a kid, if there was a Louis L’Amour book at a rummage sale and it had a picture of a cowboy on it I’d buy it, ’cause it was a cowboy,” he said.

Raised in Powell River at a place known as Lone Oak Farm, Schulkowsky’s cowboy destiny was not written in the stars.

“I was working at the mill, watching the ferries come and go and wishing I could go with them,” he said, whose father also worked at the Powell River pulp and paper mill. “And this old Italian millworker said to me, ‘No way, you’re going to be like me and work here all your life.’”

Schulkowsky said he knew right then that he had to do something to get the life he wanted and hopped a ferry out of Powell River. He headed out to Keremeos and Oliver in 1980 to work as a ranch hand for five years.

“I wanted to be a cowboy, so that’s what I did,” he said. “I was born to be one.”

Although Schulkowsky didn’t grow up with his own horses to care for, few watching him would have doubted his commitment to his chosen lifestyle.

“If anyone had a horse to ride I was there,” said Schulkowsky. As a child he would offer his services mucking out stalls or brushing down animals, in exchange for being able to ride a horse. “I’ve always loved horses since the day I was born; I’ve been riding horses since I was five.”

But working as a ranch hand often wasn’t enough to make ends meet and in the early 1990s Schulkowsky found himself back in Powell River, working for MacMillan Bloedel once again.

Wanting to bite off a larger piece of the cowboy pie, he forged a new plan—to study blacksmithing at Oklahoma Horseshoeing School and become a farrier.

After graduating in 1992, he returned to Powell River to take over from Jim McNair as farrier for the area.

Now, 23 years later, Schulkowsky laughs as he describes some of his on-the-job misadventures.

“I’ve been bit, I’ve been kicked, stomped on, pooped on, peed on...I’ve been kicked so hard that I did a somersault right over top of my toolbox and landed on my head,” he said. “It can be a dangerous profession...but you get up and you get on with it.”

With all that, Schulkowsky said he still loves working with horses.

“Most horses like being shoed, they know those shoes are going to give them protection,” he said. “They are very aware of that and obliging as long as you work with ’em.”

The story of blacksmithing in Powell River is rich, with deep roots in the town’s logging and mill industries—when before mechanization, horses were a main power.

“Just back beyond my house up along Padgett Road there’s an old blacksmith’s shop from the ’20s or ’30s worked by a smith called Fred Salt,” said Schulkowsky. “He’d sit there with his forge and shoe horses and make all kinds of things like tools, hinges and window frames.”

Although Schulkowsky is a fully fledged blacksmith able to make his own tools and horseshoes, these days he mainly works using store-bought shoes, shaping them to fit in a small forge he runs out of the back of his truck.

“I can weld in [this forge],” he said. “It probably gets up to 2,800° Celsius.” He keeps a fire extinguisher nearby at all times. “But it’s really safe, there’s no rule besides just not burning anything down.”

With his travelling smithy, Schulkowsky said he shoes about 250 horses in the region, including some in Roberts Creek, on Texada Island and in Powell River.

However, as people mainly have horses in the region for pleasure, rather than as work horses, he said he has seen their numbers diminish over the years, mainly because of the cost.

“Horses aren’t cheap to keep,” said Schulkowsky, pointing specifically to the high cost of bringing feed in on the ferry. “You are looking at between $480 and $520 a tonne for hay here in Powell River. And the average horse is going to eat at least, on average, three tonnes of hay per year.”

One of Schulkowsky main clients, Phoebe Kingscote at Tanglewood Farms, now keeps about 10 horses, down from over 20 in previous years.

“If you need a lot of hay like I do, the price just goes up and up and up, because of the cost of bringing it in on the ferry,” said Kingscote. She spends about $1,000 for each semi-trailer full of hay she has brought to her farm.

“Right now, though, my horses pay for their own feed, working as trail horses during the summer.” She offers guided trail rides from her farm. “But my horses are aging—what happens when they can’t do that anymore?”

Kingscote said although she’s tried to get locally sourced hay from a farm on Valley Road before, it is just not enough for her horses’ needs.

Earlier this summer, Powell River Farmer’s Institute suggested buying locally mown hay from the city, such as the grass cut back each year from around the airport.

“I’ve used the hay cut from the airport before,” said Kingscote. “But it isn’t enough.”

To afford her horses, Kingscote said she’s taken a step back from horse breeding and is concentrating on the ones she has.

In the past she’s also tried to save money by shoeing her own horses, but with little success, she said.

“It took me three hours to trim the nails on one horse and it killed my back,” said Kingscote. “Money is well spent on a good farrier.”

It takes Schulkowsky about an hour to finish shoeing each horse at a cost of roughly $155 per animal. So, despite the declining number of horses in the area Schulkowsky said he’s still able to make a living.

“All I need is a horse with a good temperament, solid feet and an owner who pays me on time.”