History of WETT, Part One

By: George LeBlanc and John Gulland

For the last few months I have been talking with members who were around in the formative years of WETT and we discussed some of the history and how it all began. One of the names that kept bending my ear was that of John Gulland.

For those of you who don’t know John, he was one of the most influential builders of what eventually became the WETT training program we still use today.

I called John on a few occasions and went down memory lane, which was difficult for both us because it was some time ago.

John agreed to write from his memories and, with the information he recalled, this article started to take form.

With such a long history, I have broken this into a series of articles that will hopefully allow all of our members to see where we first started and who and what was going on during those early years.

Here is one of those recent discussions with John Gulland:

George: Do you still burn wood and what type of wood stove are you heating your home with?

John: Yes, I do. I am happy to have a Jotul Oslo F500 V3, the hybrid non cat/cat. I like it, even though I’ve never been fussy on regular catalytic stoves.

George: Where does your passion for wood burning come from?

John: The short answer is moving to the bush in 1973. My first career was as a motorcycle mechanic and I was in the first community college class on the subject and earned my certificate in the 70s. I served my apprenticeship with a couple of Brits, one from Birmingham and one from Wales. In that shop you had to do everything: diagnostics, fabrication, welding, forging and so on. I welded up a stove at the bike shop and moved it to a hand-built cabin in the bush, 20 km south of Killaloe in eastern Ontario.

George: What are your fondest memories in the creation of the WETT training program?

John: There are too many to count. I can tell you, though, that watching course participants walk into the classroom carrying their WETT manuals and taking a course that I had developed was a very satisfying experience. That and the great people I worked with, of course.

George: Can you describe from the best of your collection how the organization came about?

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