Puget Sound Knappers

Harry Oda - Back at School

For years Harry Oda taught anthropology and archeology, both at Bellevue College and Ft. Steilicoom Community College. Health problems led to his retirement but he' recently gotten back in the game. Flintknapping has always been at passion of Harry's and his recent joining of the Puget Sound Knappers Association has given him a new opportunity to fulfill his dream - to teach flintknapping to as many people as possible!

Harry has recently attended the Ft. Knapadonia knap-in, Port Angeles Rock show and the Millersylvania Turkeyfest Knap-in were he was able to demonstrate his knowledge to both PSK member and the public.

Not one to sit idly by waiting for the next PSK event, Harry got himself invited to demonstrate flintknapping at a great workshop at the Gig Harbor Pierce County Library on Sat. 11-10-12.

All totaled there were around 19 folks who showed up to learn from the master. Almost all the folks were new to the art and had never broken rock. The earliest folks got to file points on to the pressure flakers. Students selected these and hammerstones. After Harry gave some introductions and lecture on the ancient art of stone tool making, he had folks come up and pics some flakes to begin pressure flaking their first points. The ages of the students ranged from about 7 to 70 ish. There was one little girl around 5 who was looking on. Later on Harry instructed students how to use their hammer stones to break some large rock. The workshop went from

10:00 till 3:00 pm Everyone had a great time and were quite proud of their glass creations, with hardly a drop of blood spilled...