Made in the Mountains

Our Story

Advent Wood Products is a small Canadian workshop making custom CNC-carved wood signs from solid timber. It started with mountains, and it still starts there.

I'm Barry, and I've spent 47 years living for the mountains. I started ski racing as a kid and never stopped. I could see the local artificial ski slope on the outskirts of Edinburgh from my bedroom window. Through university, I raced competitively and ran our ski club for seven years — even after graduating, because the mountains had me hooked. And the après wasn't too bad either. For a while I switched to snowboarding for six years, until it became clear that shaped skis weren't just a fad.

At 17, I started teaching skiing, qualifying first in Scotland, later getting my Telemark certification, and then qualifying in Canada. I spent a full six-month season in the French Alps, during which time I ran my own website about Alps life as a seasonnaire. For decades, I've explored every corner of BC's mountains — from Whistler's legendary terrain to Big White's champagne powder.

*Mountain Host @ Whistler Blackcomb for 5 seasons (and village host for 3 summers)*

As a ski instructor and racer, I've always been drawn to the trail signs that mark our adventures. They're more than directions — they're markers of challenges met, runs remembered, and moments that stay with you. After thousands of days on the slopes, I asked myself: what if those memories didn't have to stay on the hill?

*Racing since age 12 - skiing has always been my life*

That's when I combined my two passions — a lifetime in the mountains and the craft of woodworking. Advent Wood Products wasn't born as a business opportunity. It was born as a way to hold onto what those of us who live for the mountains actually feel.

Every sign I make comes from real experience. When I carve a ski trail inspired sign, I can picture looking over the edge and what lies ahead. When I design a cabin sign, I've woken up in those cabins with the kind of views that stay with you. After nearly five decades on the slopes, I still get that feeling when the first snow falls.

This isn't a trend I'm chasing. It's a life I've lived — now carved in wood.

Missing In Adventure

Over time, I started using the phrase Missing In Adventure to describe the feeling behind the work. It's not a separate brand or a slogan for the sake of it. It's simply the best name I've found for that pull back toward mountain places — the runs, trails, lakes, cabins, roads, and memories that become part of who you are.

Advent Wood Products is the workshop. Missing In Adventure is the reason a lot of these signs exist.

More Than One Season

For me, mountain life has never been limited to ski season. Winter may be where a lot of the story started, but the pull of the mountains carries through the rest of the year too — hiking trails, bike routes, lake roads, cabin weekends, summer ridgelines, and all the little places you keep coming back to.

That's the heart of Missing In Adventure: not one sport, one season, or one product category, but a way of noticing the places that shape your life. The signs we make reflect that — ski trail inspired signs, lake and cottage signs, cabin name signs, trail markers, and custom pieces for the places that matter most to the people who order them.

The Craft

Every sign is precision CNC-carved from solid timber sourced from Canada and the USA, then finished by hand. We don't print on wood or apply surface graphics. The design is carved into the material — deep, clean, and built to last.

From a single solid block of timber, we can carve a sign and its frame in one seamless piece. That's not a shortcut — it's the point. The goal is something that feels as permanent as the memory it represents.

Note: ski trail inspired signs are original designs inspired by mountain trail signage. They are not official resort signs or exact replicas of any resort's proprietary signage.

The Storyteller

Long before Instagram, before "content creator" was even a term, I was documenting the mountain experience.

In 2001, during a season in Méribel, French Alps, I ran a daily blog called "raveaboutit.com" — sharing snow reports, weather updates, and that indescribable feeling of waking up every day to ski.

I didn't earn a cent from it. I did it because I couldn't not share that passion.

Twenty-five years later, I'm still telling mountain stories — just in a different medium. Now I carve them into wood.

If there's a place that matters to you — a run, a trail, a lake, a cabin, a road you keep going back to — this is where you make something for it.

Thank you for letting me be part of your mountain story.

— Barry Thomson
Ski instructor, racer, mountain adventurer, woodworker
BC, Canada