This P.E.I. casket-maker takes 'buy local' message to the grave
Andrew Campion even plans to make his own burial box
Lots of people while away hours hunched over woodworking projects in their backyard sheds, creating shelves, toys, even furniture if they're really good — but you might be startled by what Andrew Campion is working on in his Lyndale, P.E.I., workshop.
There's one cloth-draped casket on a sawhorse, as well as an oak casket still under construction.
Campion started making burial boxes as a hobby 10 years ago after his friend, a local undertaker, told him one of the last casket-makers on the Island had retired.
"He asked me if I'd be interested in making them," Campion said. "So I bought some of the equipment that the fellow that was retiring had, and starting making them."
'Don't want to get my hands dirty anymore'
Campion's love of working with wood began with a spur-of-the-moment decision 25 years ago. He was working as a mechanic and had been transferred to Ottawa.
"I was on my way up, and my hands were nice and clean. And I said 'I don't want to get my hands dirty anymore.'"
He stopped by a place that was making cabinets and asked if there were any jobs. The man in charge asked him where he was from.
"And I said 'P.E.I.' and he said, 'you're hired.' That was my resume."
These days, Campion does seasonal maintenance at the Charlottetown Yacht Club and sells about a dozen caskets a year to local funeral homes.
Each one takes three full days to make and costs him about $350 in materials, he said. He sells them for $785.
'Not just a box'
"I make a little bit of profit on them — I'm not getting rich off it," Campion said. "It's more of a hobby than a money-maker. If I was selling 200 a year, then I would be making money."
Campion is quick to point out that his caskets are quite fancy.
"It's not just a box. There's a lot to it, just all the detail in it."
He hand-cuts dozens of pieces of wood that are glued and then stapled together.
Campion only makes one standard casket style and size — two metres long by about half a metre wide (24 by 80 inches).
"That way, my productions costs are lower because I don't have to buy different materials for different stuff."
Once the casket is almost finished, Campion takes bags of shredded newspaper and spreads it out on the bottom of the inside, making a fluffy bed.
"it's just to build up the casket so the body isn't sitting right down at the very bottom, and if they have to adjust the body somehow, they can move newspaper around to make him sit higher or lower.
"The flyers and The Guardian and The Graphic — nothing's going to waste," Campion said.
Campion then covers the newspaper with cloth and tops it with a satin sheet.
'They're Island-made'
Campion gently fluffs up the ruffled pillow. He does all the stitching himself, he explains.
"I had to pick up a special sewing machine from the States to do all this here stitching," he said.
Campion is proud of his oak caskets because they're Island-made. And, he believes wooden caskets are best for the environment.
"The wood part decomposes better in the ground. More environmentally-friendly," he said.
'Who's going to be in this one?'
When Campion works on his caskets, he said he tries not to think about his handiwork eventually holding someone's remains — otherwise, he said, people in his line of work wouldn't be able to do the job.
"They'd be upset every time they picked up the hammer or something, thinking 'Okay, who's going to be in this one?'"
"It's just a piece of furniture to me," he said.
While that may be true now, Campion said he knows his time will come.
"It doesn't bother me" he said. "Death was never an issue with me. Our family was never brought up to feel bad about death."
After so many years of making caskets for others, Campion said he has an elaborate plan for his own someday — complete with beams of light shining out from beneath the lid.
"Like it's going up to Heaven, you see those lights."
He also muses about putting a speaker inside the casket that will play music or his own voice to mourners.
"If I can figure out a way of getting people lined up and say 'Hey, how are ya?' I'm a little stiff right now.'"
'Not ready to die yet'
Despite his plans, and with life never a certainty, Campion has yet to make his own casket.
"I'm not ready to die yet," he said. "I've got all kinds of time. My family all lived to 100 and plus, so I still have time."
But Campion believes that one day, he will rest in peace in one of his own finely-crafted creations.
"Everybody dies. It's something you can't avoid. Part of living is dying."
More P.E.I. news
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
