Forest Trek Woodwork / Copperwood Sauna – Alberta, Canada
For Mark Lacroix, the path into woodworking started small: a picnic table, built on weekends to fund a dream of a rustic cabin in the woods. That cabin project turned into custom requests, then a company, then two. Today, Mark runs Forest Trek Woodwork and its sauna-focused offshoot, Copperwood Sauna, out of Spruce Grove, Alberta, building saunas, mini cabins, and outhouses with a design sense that pulls from architecture as much as trial and error in the shop.
Who are you and what do you specialize in?
“My name is Mark Lacroix, we specialize in building small niche structures from saunas, mini cabins, and super neat outhouses.”
Forest Trek Woodwork is the main company, with the sauna side of the business running under its own name, Copperwood Sauna.
How long have you been practicing? How did you get started?
Mark started in 2009, when he set out to build a simple rustic cabin in the woods on a remote plot he’d found. To fund the project, he built picnic tables on weekends, and as people took notice of his craftsmanship, custom furniture and small-structure requests started coming in. That demand led him to launch Forest Trek Woodwork. During the pandemic, Mark built his first barrel sauna, combining his small-structure expertise with his love of woodworking. The strong response to that project grew into Copperwood Sauna Co. Sustainability is central to how they operate: materials are sourced responsibly, and cedar cut-offs from longer pieces get repurposed into smaller sauna components rather than wasted.
What inspires your designs and choice of materials?
“Different kinds of structure shapes that catch the eye, I design our structures from a mixture of different architectural ideas and a lot of trial and error. I love creating new designs and seeing them come to life.”
We’ve asked you to share some of your favourite pieces finished with Osmo, can you tell us what makes them special to you?
“Our acorn and firebox cabin from Forest trek are two of our favourite products we build. They have our unique touch to them with rich wood features and cabin in the woods feel, with the touch of modernism.”
Favourite Osmo product?
Our favorite is the Osmo 410 UV-Protection Oil, it's so easy to work with and gives a great long lasting finish we want to offer our clients.
Do you have any advice for someone entering woodworking?
Start small and let it grow naturally, good things come with time.
What tool can you not live without?
Our sawstop table saw, the powerhorse of cutting tools and keeping things safe at the shop.
What is something you wish you knew sooner in your career?
Learning to take a break from the hustle of running a woodshop, in the early days we would take in alot of custom projects to keep things flowing but would have learning curves and stress about making things perfect. In the end it developed our carpentry skills and helped us grow. We learned to say no to projects we weren't interested in and focus on what we're great at.
What are you most excited about this year?
We're most excited about growing our sauna brand and fine turning our building processes.
Anything else you would like to add?
Follow your dreams, my woodworking career started with a picnic table, I left my engineering career to follow my passion in woodworking.
Where can people find you?
Forest Trek Website: www.foresttrekwoodwork.ca
Forest Trek Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forest.trek.woodwork/
Copperwood Sauna Website: www.copperwoodsauna.ca
Copperwood Sauna Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/copperwood.sauna
