Porcupine canvas up for sale: owners looking forward to retirement.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: TIMMINS

In an unassuming building nestled among a row of storefronts in sleepy Schumacher, the 30-year legacy of Porcupine Canvas Inc. is winding to a close.

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With both president Deni Poulin and longtime manager Chris Pronovost on the cusp of retirement and no obvious successors in sight, the manufacturer of more than 400 canvas products, from tipis to tarps, is left with no option but to be put up for sale.

"We've had a good go," says Poulin.

"Some people look forward to retiring, but when you run a business, it becomes part of your life. I am going to miss it, to be sure, but it's time for us to step down."

When working in the construction industry, Poulin was visiting Sudbury in 1980 when he noticed the city had no less than seven canvas shops. Upon realizing that his hometown of Timmins had none, "the light bulb came on," he says.

Following some research and the purchase of some industrial sewing equipment, he opened his own store, beginning with simple offerings like restringing snowshoes and repairing tents before eventually moving onto to more industrial-focused fare.

It was five years before it turned a profit, and Pronovost, who has been with the company since the beginning, credits some of the turnaround to the company's changing approach to its products and services.

With mining firms and geologists making up an increasingly large percentage of his business, Poulin eventually also took to selling exploration supplies, from specialty compasses and sample bags to prospector picks and magnifying lenses.

Some ideas, such as its current supplies for heavy industrial clients, have worked. Others that have been attempted and abandoned through the years, such as silkscreening and upholstery, have not.

All of them, however, have made for an always interesting and exciting entrepreneurial journey, says Pronovost which a chuckle.

Retail now makes up a quarter of the business, with the remainder going to the manufacture of custom items, such as tents, tool bags, fitted equipment covers, noise reduction blankets and high-heat curtains.

While the business once had as many as 16 employees, that number has been scaled back to six, which largely do sewing work in the company's 6,000-square-foot shop...