Gift for my mentor in K9 Search and Rescue: “Orouge” the Eastern Cedar Hiking staff

I just completed a hiking staff out of Eastern Red Cedar that will be a gift for my mentor in K9 Search and Rescue. We go trekking through very harsh country full of cliffs and briars with many snakes, and hiking sticks are considered a valuable set of gear. Last time she didn’t have a stick I found one on the ground for her to use and she kept it despite it not being in good shape or easy to walk with, so I wanted to make her a proper one to use, with 550 paracord and a replaceable mountaineering tip.

I salvaged the wood from a huge beautiful cedar whose crown broke during a storm. The wood was in perfect shape and has a strong cedar smell that is wonderful while working on it.

I used all traditional manual hand tools to peel the bark and make the stick. Stained lightly with pre stain conditioner and then Minwax Sedona Red to bring out more vibrancy in the woods natural color. Finished with Odie’s Oil. Covered with a few thin layers of Rennaisance Wax for additional water protection as we walk through rivers. The cane base is by Veritas and is their Large walking stick base. I used G-Flex epoxy, which I had for repairing skis and other intensive waterproof applications. The paracord is by ParacordPlanet, made in North Dakota, and is a shimmering cord that shifts between the colors red, orange, and purple in the light. The ties I used are the Turks Head knot and the French hitch. I poured boiling water over the paracord wrap which was already very tight, locking it into place.

I name all the staffs I make, and this one is “Orouge” the Red Gold, as it is a conjoining of the french words for Gold and Red. Her K9s are all golden in color and very beautiful.

Opened an Etsy shop named MoonStixSAR named after my K9 Moon on the recommendation of friends and family who love their sticks. I want it to remain a hobby and donate some of the proceeds to my Search and Rescue team. Etsy is glitchy and doesn’t have my shop indexed, so I contacted customer support to fix that. Until then, the only way to find my shop is through a direct link. Anyone else have issues like this before? Hoping it’s easily resolved, as I want to list and sell some some of the really beautiful sticks I’m working on.

Super grateful for all the advice I’ve found and useful techniques on this forum. There are so many ways of making amazing walking sticks and it’s great as a new stick maker to be part of such a neat community. It’s such a fun hobby and I love walking the woods—this just gives me yet another fun occupation to do during my hikes as I look for dead and fallen trees. Oklahoma is a harsh climate with some of the post powerful and destructive wind and lightening storms in the world so there are lots of storm damaged trees and branches for me to use.




MoonStixSAR