William J. “Buck” Crawford

Buck Crawford worked as a mold maker at Frost and Woods Foundry with Robert May, another Smith Falls decoy carver. Crawford was a hunting companion of young Davey Nichol and often used Nichol patterns for his own work. Perhaps due to the influence of his decoy-carving father, William A., Crawford infused his own imaginative touches into his decoys. Crawford produced solid and hollow decoys with detailed mandible separations that give his birds a characteristic smiling appearance. He defined each feather on the slightly raised wings and detailed the tail feathers as well. To achieve this intricate feathered texture, Crawford augmented his rasping with quite a bit of stamping in the final stages of production. Because of all this patience and concern with detail, Buck Crawford is considered to be Ontario’s best carver that utilized stamping techniques.