Meet the Maker: Duane Evans

Duane has saved more than 2,500 lobster traps from the landfill and turned them into art. Photography by Elizabeth Kaiser Confiant

When you visit the shops at the Big Fiddle, you may notice picture frames that look like they have already lived a life before reaching the shelf. Weathered by salt water, hard work and years on the ocean, the wood once formed part of a working lobster trap.

To date, Duane Evans, has reclaimed the wood from more than 2,500 lobster traps, transforming material that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill into handcrafted picture frames. Each frame is unique with weathered wood of Cape Breton’s fishing industry.

Long before Duane launched Cape Breton Lobster Trap Frames, he was no stranger to life on the water. He worked aboard the Great Lakes Freighters as a deckhand and as a lobster fisherman. He was always handy, comfortable with tools and willing to figure out how to build something himself.

“It really started with my sisters around 2020,” Duane says. “I made the table with our mother’s recipes for one sister and then my other sister wanted something handcrafted too.”

For the second piece, Duane turned to a material he knew well. Using wood salvaged from an old lobster trap, he created a picture frame for a photograph of his son for his sister.

She shared the finished frame on Facebook. Before long, an old friend from Ontario reached out to say how incredible it was. Family and friends began encouraging Duane to make more and consider turning his work into a business.

“I didn’t set out with a business plan,” he says. “I made something for my family and people connected with it. They could see the story in the wood.”

At first, he worried that friends might laugh at him for going from the fishing industry to pursue art. Instead, many of the people he once worked alongside became some of his biggest supporters. The lobster traps come from friends in the fishing community and rather than paying fees to dispose of traps they can no longer use, the fishermen pass them along to Duane. It gives the materials a second life and keeps them from going to the landfill.

Each trap carries the marks of its time on the water. The worn wood, nail holes and weathered surfaces give every frame its own character. No two pieces are exactly alike.

What began as a gift for his sister has grown into a business built around craftsmanship, family and a practical form of recycling rooted in Cape Breton’s fishing heritage.

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Photographs by Elizabeth Kaiser Confiant

In 2024, Duane brought his work to the Port of Sydney. His frames now give visitors an opportunity to take home something that is not simply made in Cape Breton, but made from a genuine piece of its working coastal history.

“I like that the traps aren’t just being thrown away,” he says. “They worked on the water and now they get to become part of someone’s home, holding a photograph or a special memory.”

Visit Duane at the Port of Sydney and discover how more than 2,500 lobster traps have been transformed, one handcrafted frame at a time.