Kid at heart: Yukon man spends retirement building toys for family and friends

Ron Wilson spent 35 years plowing highways and operating heavy duty equipment. Now the retired Haines Junction man builds the machines he used to drive — only on a smaller scale.

He calls his wooden scale replicas "big boy toys."

"I thought when I retired, you know, I got to do something, I can't just sit on the couch and watch TV," says Wilson, who spent his career with the Yukon's Department of Highways.

"It started off as a hobby. I was just going to build a few things for my grandsons, and it kind of just got out of hand in a way."

Wilson also builds wooden clocks, bowls and Christmas decorations. But his favourite pieces are heavy duty equipment.

He's given some of his models — graders, Cat D10 bulldozers — to former road crew co-workers as retirement gifts. Other models go to family and friends.

Wilson says his hobby passes time but he doesn't want to turn his craft into a full-time job. At times it's overwhelming wondering where all the hours go, he says. 

"I used to sit in the shop there all day….The wife said, 'hey find something else to do.' I have cut down quite a bit from what I used to do.'"

'Everyone just wants to play'

Elodie Dulac owns a small collection of Wilson's models, each representing one of her family's businesses over the years. But they're more than just conversation pieces, she says.

"When people come over they like looking at it. We like having them. 

"Everyone just wants to play with it, but they're not for playing with, they are for looking at," she says with a laugh.

Wilson is 70 now, but he doesn't have plans to retire from woodworking.

"I probably have a few years yet," he says, adding that the hobby is fine by his wife, as long as he keeps it in check. 

"It gets me out of her hair for four or five hours a day."