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“You’re asking the wrong person, Lizzy,” I scoff. “You know I don’t buy nice jewelry.”

“Um, that doesn’t mean you don’t know where to look. You know this town like the back of your hand. Come on, don’thold out on your girl,” Lizzy pouts, holding her hands out in a pleading gesture.

Collin steps in front of us. “I know just the spot. Let’s go girls.”

He pivots and is already walking away, waving with his hand to follow along. He leads us to a store just off the square, The Eclectic Elk. It’s a quirky little shop, filled with goods from local artists and makers. Everything from jewelry, art prints to woven goods and other odds and ends.

After meandering around the store, I notice Lizzy has been lingering at one case a bit longer than the others.

“Hey, V! Come over here. You’re going to love this.”

Hmm. Wonder what she found. She knows I’m not much for jewelry.

As I reach her side and gaze down into the display case, I immediately know why she called me.

I admire the contents of the case, which is filled with some of the most beautiful chef’s knives I’ve ever seen. Some have intricate Damascus steel blades with their beautiful color patterns and variations in striking contrast to each other. Damascus steel like this is difficult to make, no two blades truly alike. Each knife has a unique handle, some with colorful cast epoxy resin, polished walnut, or an elk antler, others inlaid with turquoise. Looking closer I see the handiwork of the blacksmith that made them, each of the blades indented with a small makers brand where the blade meets the hilt, aTandCoverlaying each other inside of a horseshoe.

I do know exactly what these are. But these are much more refined than the last set I saw from this maker. Clearly he’s been practicing.

Lizzy definitely knows me well, I love good knives in the kitchen.

“How have you never bought one of these before, V? Or do you have a set back home already?” she asks, eyebrow raised.

I’d love some of my own but before I can even get a word out, I realize Collin has snuck up behind us. His tall goofy ass is peering over our shoulders wrapping an arm around each of us.

“My buddy, Chap, makes those,” he says beaming like a proud parent as he joins us in admiring the knives. “They’re pretty badass.”

Collin is right. These are the best knives I’ve ever used. I’d like a couple better sized for my hands to take home, but they’re all amazing.

“We actually have a set tucked away back at the condo,” he adds.

“Yeah. I haven’t got a set from him yet. But hey speaking of your shadow, Collin, where is Tanner? I haven’t seen him in years,” I ask, still longingly gazing into the case.

Collin and Tanner Chapman have known each other since they could barely walk. They became best friends over the years, practically inseparable whenever we were in town visiting our grandparents. Tanner’s family already lived here and our grandparents became close friends since the early seventies when ours bought the condo as a vacation home before retiring there years later. As his grandparents retired, they downsized into a condo in the same building.

Unlike us though, Tanner is a true local, born and raised in the shadows of the Tetons. His parents moved to Salt Lake City about a decade ago to be closer to his younger sister and brother, Grace and Clay, who are in Park City. Even after he lost his mom in an accident, his dad stayed there. Tanner lives in his grandparents old cabin, just down the road from Teton Village, where his grandparents condo and ours are. The cabin sits on what’s left of their former ranch just off the banks of the Snake River on Moose Wilson Road. Most of the land has since been sold off, but they were able to keep the cabin and old barn for Tanner.

It’s always been the same story with Tanner and Collin though. When Collin and I are in Jackson, it always seem like Tanner is lurking around somewhere waiting to go off on the next childish adventure with Collin, often with me in tow. We didn’t see Grace and Clay as much, them being much younger than Tanner. When we would see them, I remember how fiercely protective Tanner was of them. But still, Tanner has always been every bit the jokester Collin is, but with an added level of self confidence. It always seemed like a paradox, someone so confident and unflappable, yet also able to seemingly make anything into a joke, never taking things seriously. At least that’s how it always felt from the outside looking in.

“Chap’s busy at his workshop but I’ll probably catch him on the slopes tomorrow. He wants to do après at the condo tomorrow and then the Fox Saturday, anyways. Sound good, V?” says Collin.

“Yep, works. Lizzy has heard me hyping the infamous fox margs since we turned twenty-one!”

“Oof. Don’t remind me ofthatnight.” Collin shudders at the memory of our twenty-first birthday night out, or more like the next day. I try to hold a laugh in just thinking about how hungover he was.

As we leave the shop, I’m still stunned thinking about Tanner’s new knives in that case.

It’s been at least five or so years since I visited Tanner’s barn where his workshop is set up. Tanner’s main gig for years has been as a property manager taking care of a handful of vacation homes and condos, with half of the barn set up for that. Plumbing and electrical tools, spare appliances, a snowblower, a plow for his truck, all things he needs to take care of those properties are right on site.

The other half though, that was reserved for his passion project.

Tanner’s grandparents ranch wasn’t particularly large and his grandfather still did side work as a blacksmith, namely for local farriers, forging horseshoes in a workshop in the back of the old barn. The old ranches in the area, and later the horseback riding outfits catering to tourists, supplied a modest stream of income on the side for the family, at least for a while.

Even as that side hustle eventually dried up by the time Tanner’s grandfather retired, Tanner took an interest to blacksmithing and forging metal as a kid. After learning the fundamentals of the process to make horseshoes from his grandfather, he started to take an interest in tools and household items, namely hunting and kitchen knives.

Over the last few years, he’s obviously become quite skilled at it, based on what’s in the case at The Eclectic Elk. The knives he made for our grandparents years ago were great. Functional, durable, very utilitarian. But the ones in that case… they’re something else.

They’re absolutely stunning, a refined sense of artistry I didn’t ever imagine Tanner being capable of honestly.

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