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Please select an optional lacquer finish from our materials page. After confirmation of purchase, our team will be in contact with you to confirm your finish selections.

Designer Elaine Fortin

Fogo Islanders know that nature knows best.

Trees know to grow the strongest, sturdiest curves as they emerge from under the ground and reach up into the unforgiving Newfoundland wilderness. Fogo Island and Change Island boat-builders use these natural curves of juniper and spruce trees to create the structural ribs of their punts: the small wooden fishing boats that served as the traditional workhorses of the inshore fishery. It takes a trained local eye to find the right trees, and a particular season to harvest.

Using the same method, we created the Punt Chair. The yearly harvesting of timbers means that each Punt Chair is identified according to when the timbers were harvested, from where, and by whom. Each chair simultaneously carries forward the history of the tree used to make it, a centuries-old knowledge of outport woodworking and ingenuity, and our singular boatbuilding heritage.