Sticks and humans have not always been friends.

But change is possible.

Together, we can help them become friends,

and maybe even friends-friends.

Yellow and white camping tent with a brown wooden stick on green grass.

But the relationship between humans and sticks is also more complex.  Sticks have held deep symbolic and ritualistic meaning in various cultures. Sticks have been used as raw materials for art, especially things that you see in a museum and say out loud that you totally could have done that. They are also crucial in making many musical instruments, from simple drums and percussive instruments used by streetside hippies to woodwind instruments used by skilled concert nerds.

In sports, sticks are used in games like hockey, lacrosse, and polo. They are integral to many children’s games like “Throw the Stick” and “Run and Beat Down”, a violent off-shoot of tag made popular in Pittsburgh.

Reason for Hope?

Blue reclining lawn chair on a wooden deck with a walking stick leaning on it, sunny day with green trees in the background.

The story of human and stick goes back hundreds of thousands of years. For most of history, the relationship was characterized by violence and subjugation.

Sticks and branches have long been used in the construction of human shelters and dwellings. Sticks as young as 12 months are routinely exposed to extreme weather such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and those artificial rain storms that we’re making by shooting bombs into clouds (editor’s note: check Wikipedia on this, it might be something China is doing?); infestations of stick-flesh-eating insects such as termites; and ferocious wild animals like goblin sharks, if they were to evolve to be able to walk on land.

In agricultural practices, sticks have been employed as simple tools for planting seeds, fencing, and in those YouTube videos where two people construct a shelter in the woods by hand in 24 hours without secretly using an off-camera crew and heavy-duty machinery. Sticks are made to stay awake all night to protect human-planted crops, like rutabaga, despite no one in history ever having liked eating it.

A Long History

Famous sticks in history

  • Black and white photo of Gene Wilder on the set of Willy Wonka, wearing a top hat and carrying a stick, with film crew and equipment in background.

    Woody Will: played Willy Wonka’s walking cane in “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". Had a contentious relationship with co-star Gene Wilder, due to his insistence on being called Willy on set, causing confusion, and infuriating Wilder who wanted to be the only Willy. The two famously resolved their differences in the 1980s.

  • An elderly man with a beard and a hat holding a walking stick outdoors in a mountainous landscape with snow-capped peaks and trees.

    Eliza Mason: accompanied John Muir as he explored the Sierra Nevada. Quite literally saved his life when he lost his footing on a slippery edge, which Muir famously acknowledged in later writings. They maintained a writing correspondence until her death from a lightning bolt in 1908. Historians have characterized the correspondence as “slightly flirty.”

  • An illustration of Noah, an older man with a white beard, wearing a headscarf and medieval clothing, nailing wooden planks to a large wooden ship under construction. In the background, another man is sawing wood, with mountains and birds in the sky.

    Jeff: used in the construction of Noah’s Ark. Was reportedly not happy about it.

  • A hockey player in a blue Toronto Maple Leafs uniform with the number 28, skating and controlling the puck on the ice during a game.

    The Predator: trained and made it as a hockey stick to infamous NHL player Tie Domi, who remains the Toronto Maple Leafs’ all-time leader in penalty minutes. Unlike his lethal on-ice persona, the Predator was known by his inner circle to be quite the philanthropist in retirement.

  • An older man with a gray beard and hair, dressed in a brown robe, holding a wooden staff, on a film set with cameras and crew in the background.

    Harry McCormick: appeared in the "Star Wars" series as the Jedi Master’s walking stick. Was unfortunately injured toward the end of the shoot, forcing him into early retirement.

  • An elderly man with white hair and beard, wearing glasses and a straw hat, holds a magnifying glass with a miniature scene of a mosquito encased in ember inside, set against a blurred outdoor background.

    Sam Stickler (stage name): played the stick of character Dr. John Hammond in "Jurassic Park.” Sam was fitted with a prosthetic of a mosquito encased in amber, supposedly the source of the park’s dinosaur DNA. The prosthetic took 2 hours to put on before every shoot.

  • A black and white photograph of a speaker's podium on a stage, with a tall, thin, leafless branch standing upright on it, surrounded by microphones. The stage has a backdrop of curtains, and an audience of sticks in the foreground.

    Rowan Fox: was cast as Gandalf’s staff in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" series. Sued the studio for discrimination due to a sizeable pay gap between sticks and metal swords. After a drawn-out, 6 year battle, she eventually won the lawsuit and became the face of stick rights in Hollywood.

  • An illustration of a fierce samurai in a battle scene, wielding a wooden staff against soldiers with swords, amid falling cherry blossoms and a cloudy sky.

    New Katsura Kai: a stick infamous in Japanese history for having been carved into an oar, and subsequently carved into a bokken, a Japanese wooden sword. Was famously used by the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, in his winning duel against Sasaki Kojiro.

  • A man sitting in front of a drum set, holding a pair of drumsticks, wearing a black beanie with clocks printed on it, and a black t-shirt.

    Dewey Smith: rose to fame as Neil Peart’s left (stage left) drum stick. Toured with the band Rush through the height of their fame. In the late 1970s, the lifestyle caught up with him and he checked himself into an undisclosed celebrity rehab in upstate New York. He stayed sober through the end of his life.

Did you think that the Education tab meant educating your stick?

Rather than fix our website, we have decided to monetize this confusion! For a limited time, you can purchase our digital stick training sheet, complete with commands you can teach your pet stick! Visit our shop today.

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