From Timber to Table

The Challenge

The Galt Museum’s Rooted: How Trees Give Us Life exhibition explored the relationship between Southern Alberta communities and the trees that shape them. But there was a gap in the story.

Visitors see trees in the city. They see furniture in their homes. The transformation between the two is invisible.

The museum needed a way to show that journey. Not as an industrial process, but as a story about memory, craftsmanship, and what it means to keep a piece of the city alive.

The Solution

We followed a single Elm tree from urban canopy to dining room table.

The tree had been marked for removal in Lethbridge. Without intervention, it would have been chipped for mulch or sent to landfill. Instead, it was salvaged, milled, dried, and crafted into a bespoke dining table by a local artisan.

We documented the entire process. The sawmill. The workshop. The hands that shaped the wood. The grain revealed when the finish went on.

The result was a mini-documentary that turned a story about lumber into a story about legacy.

We filmed in the style we use for all our documentary work. No scripts. No staged scenes. Just real people doing real work, explaining why it matters to them.

The narrator’s connection to the project was personal. The Elm struck a chord because of a family memory. That kind of authenticity can’t be manufactured. It can only be captured.

The Result

The documentary screened as part of the Rooted exhibition from May to November 2022. It served as a digital anchor for the gallery, providing kinetic visual storytelling that static panels couldn’t deliver.

Beyond the museum walls, the video lives on YouTube as a permanent educational resource. It continues to reach viewers years after the physical exhibit closed.

The film accomplished what the museum needed. It made the invisible visible. It validated the grief people feel when old trees come down. And it offered an alternative ending: not loss, but resurrection.

“The beauty of working with trees from Lethbridge is that life stays here in the city.”

That line, captured on camera, became the thesis of the project.