Johnson Lacrosse is the vision of Jack Johnson from Akwesasne, New York. Jack was born and raised on the St. Regis Mohawk reservation. Lacrosse is a Native American tradition and Jack took a strong liking to the sport.

 

One day Jack was at a yard sale and found himself a traditional wooden lacrosse stick for $10. He bought the stick and played around with it and fell in love the feel and look of this traditional wooden lacrosse stick he had just purchased at a yard sale.

 

Three years ago, Jack realized he wanted to understand the process and work that went into making just a thing of beauty.  He sought out one of the world's best traditional wooden stick makers in Alf Jacques. Jack tried to reach Alf for six months and finally was able to contact him and start to learn the process of traditional wooden lacrosse stick making.

 

Jack traveled three different times from Akwesasne to Onondaga to learn the the skills of this unique trade.  Alf gave Jack his permission to photograph the process so he could have visual recollection of how to make the bends.  After 36 hours and three trips to Onondaga, Jack took what he had learned from Alf back to Akwesasne and practiced bending the wooden lacrosse sticks.

 

Once Jack had a good feel for bending, he implemented a process and began making the wooden sticks in his shop located right at his home in Akwesasne. Jack first finds hickory trees and cuts them down then brings them back home where he shapes them with a band saw. From there, Jack lets them dry out for six weeks. Then, the first and back bends take place. After each bend, Jack must wait six weeks before performing the second bend and wait for the drying process to complete.

 

Shaping the shafts is the next step for Jack. By using steam, it allows Jack to straighten the shafts and he waits for them to dry for about a month.  Next,  Jack carves, drills, sands, and dries the wooden lacrosse stick and the process is finally complete. In total, the process take six (6) months to complete the handcrafted wooden lacrosse stick.  Jack uses real rawhide gutwall, no string used in all his handcrafted wooden lacrosse sticks.

 

Jack's hard work has paid off as his passion has turned into a business in Akwesasne, NY. His handcrafted wooden lacrosse sticks have been featured in the all wood stick debut of Inside Lacrosse magazine.