Our Story

Stook is a new and unique brand, built on a history and a feeling. If you'll allow me, I'd love to tell you the story....

Stook was created out of a pure love of farming and country life. More specifically it was born on a tractor in central Alberta in the spring of 2020, when the world was more or less shut down due to Covid-19, but as it always does the farm work continued. A lot of thinking gets done while sitting for hours and hours in farm equipment. On this particular day a father and business owner from the big city was back working on the farm he grew up on that is now run by his brother with the ever present helping hand of their Dad. While this city dweller has spent the past 20 years living in various large cities around the world his heart has always been back at the farm. He gets back as often as he can but sadly its only for a weekend here or there, a couple frosty mornings helping with chores over Christmas, a few days to help process cattle or a couple days on the combine if he lucks out with good weather. While short, these visits always bring back the comfort and familiarity that the farm provides.

For anyone that's driven the country roads you'll immediately recognize that rattle you feel once the truck tires turn off the pavement onto the gravel and you chatter across the washboard as you accelerate. Nowadays that chatter is more like a shiver, a shiver that unlocks the memories and feelings taking me back to to the past. I wish my son could feel that washboard rattle the same way I do, with the same feelings. Riding bikes to the neighbours miles away to play as children, sitting on a shaky wooden wagon behind the tractor helping haul bales home, driving the old red Chevy grain truck back and forth and back and forth through the autumn dust and heat trying to finish harvest before the snow comes, and making round after bumpy round through the fields in the tractor watching the seagulls circle the newly exposed earthworms and mice. There is indeed something very special about growing up in the country or on a farm. Smells, sounds, sights and memories that stay with you forever. They seem so vivid to this city dweller. Surely others must feel this as well? So, as he often does when back at the farm, the city dweller found himself reminiscing about his life connected to the farm. About the work he had done alongside his Dad, Grandpa, and brother while growing up, and what his Grandpa and Grandma's life must have been like when they carved this farm out of the central Alberta land decades before their grandkids would be privileged enough to grow up there. He marveled at how much farming had changed even in the 30ish years of life that he can remember. What would those early farmers think if they could see things now? Tractors that drive themselves, combines with fridges, and equipment bigger than any building they would have even had. It's a far cry from horses and plows, wood burning stoves and outhouses....and stooks.

So as the city dweller spent the spring and again the fall at the farm that year, and spent many more hours thinking in the tractor, he decided that he wanted something that would help preserve that connection that he felt to the farm and the country. To the smells, the sounds, the long hours, the people, and the memories. He wanted to be around farmers, mechanics, and truck drivers. He wanted to create a brand that would bring back these feelings for him, and hopefully for others. For those that live, have once lived, or can only dream about living the farm and country life. To create a brand that recognizes the history of country life, that stands for hard work, quality and care, and can be a part of whatever amazing memories the future will bring for those that are fortunate enough to live it.

This is why the Stook brand was created. If you've lived it, or you've fallen in love with this little story, we hope that Stook resonates, inspires, and becomes as much a part of you as it has been for us.