This information is reprinted from the Cranberry Corner column of Hand Papermaking Newsletter #49 (January, 2000).

This is the first of a series of articles that I will be writing about paper and paper quality and how this interacts with its end uses.

In future articles I will be describing the invention of paper, what paper is, how it is made, paper permanence, the various types of paper (both machine made and handmade), and their physical and optical properties and end uses. I will explain the meaning of any technical terms when they are mentioned.

And now a word about me! In 1987, when I retired after 37 years of paper engineering and science, I decided to build my own paper mill by myself, to make archival handmade papers. Acquisition of equipment and construction started in 1989 and the first paper was produced in January 1993.

The mill is situated in a small barn beside my retirement home--“Windy Willows”--located on a five-acre drive-on island in beautiful Cranberry Lake (part of the Rideau Canal system) just a 30-minute drive north on Highway 15 from downtown Kingston, Ontario. Hence the mill is called Cranberry Mills.

Here I make archival handmade papers for such uses as bookbinding, book conservation, printing, woodblock printing, printmaking, painting, drawing, and stationery.

My wife Betty and I also tend about an acre of gardens, including an orchard of dwarf fruit trees, nut trees, a vineyard, vegetables and herbs, rock gardens, hardy rhododendrons, an “English border,” and a Japanese water garden complete with Buddha and fountain! From our wide selection of perennials and annuals I pick certain flower petals for use in my “Floral Inclusion” papers.

That’s enough for introductions. Tune in to The Cranberry Corner in the next newsletter.

by Ted Snider