005: Shoulder to Shoulder: Men’s Sheds in Canada
In this episode, we explore a simple idea with surprisingly deep impact: Men’s Sheds. Across rural Canada and around the world, men can slip into loneliness: after moving to a new community, after retirement, after losing a spouse, or after moving off the farm. Most don’t ask for help—they quietly retreat, isolate, and slowly disappear.
Men’s Sheds offer a different path; one that starts with coffee, a workbench, and an open door. We hear how the first Shed began in Australia, as a daughter watched her father slide into depression after losing his job, and decided to do something about it. Since then, the movement has grown to thousands of Sheds across Australia, Europe, and now Canada.
Punch Jackson and Brian Sawyer, leaders in the Men’s Sheds movement, tell host Merle Massie why men stand shoulder to shoulder, repairing tools, building picnic tables, sorting donated clothes, even working on giant jigsaw puzzles. These simple jobs help build a sense of purpose, connection, and belonging.
Further north in Peace River, Alberta, community advocate Marc Boychuk shares how his town's Men’s Shed formed as a response to what he calls a “sick” community — one where suffering is too common. He describes how this small, informal group of men, united by tools and a shared mission, has become a dose of fresh air: lifting moods, strengthening families, and showing that when men find a place to belong, everyone finds a reason to smile.
As a bonus, Hay Are We Okay? listeners share moments or places of connection and joy on their farms. Want to share what works for you? Send your e-mail or audio story to feedback@domore.ag.
We’ve included the full transcript below.
Podcast Transcript: Yellow Feathers: Courage at the Rodeo
Theme music: 00:00
Merle Massie 0:03
Hey, I'm so glad you're here. I'm Merle Massie, come on in
Merle Massie 0:11
Today on Hay Are We Okay? Why are so many men lonely, isolated, at risk? How much could that change if they had a coffee pot, power tools and a shed?
Punch Jackson 0:27
Someplace to go, something to do, somebody to talk to. And when you're there, something happens.
Brian Sawyer 0:36
We leave work behind, we have fun, we build stuff. We get together every week, so you know we're going to be together. It's like a home away from home a little bit.
Marc Boychuk 0:46
It’s just a dose of fresh air. It's, it's refilling, it's happy. It's a place where I can let my shoulders down.
Merle Massie 0:59
I'm Merle Massie. I'm the executive director of the Do More Agriculture Foundation. We're a national charity that helps farmers and rural communities cultivate a culture of connection for mental health. And I'm a farmer. The whole idea behind Hay Are We Okay? is to inspire communities with ideas. Share what's working. Share what helps. Because communities can do a lot when it comes to mental health, when we connect and care, when we show up, when we say this matters, not just through words, through action. And Men's Sheds are definitely a place where the action happens.
Merle Massie 1:54
It sounds too simple. Got a lonely man or two? Get them together, give them coffee, give them a work bench, give them something to do. To hear about how Men's Sheds got started, I picked up the phone and called Punch Jackson.
Punch Jackson 2:12
An 80 year old retired guy who is the co chair of the Alberta Men's Sheds Association.
Merle Massie 2:22
Punch thank you so much for joining me on the Hay Are We Okay? podcast.
Punch Jackson 2:29
You're welcome. (laughter) Thanks. Thanks for inviting me.
Merle Massie 2:34
Punch, can you tell our audience how -- actually WHY you first got involved in Men's Sheds?
Punch Jackson 2:42
The first thing to always remember is it was a woman who started the first Shed in Australia.
Merle Massie 2:50
Really?
Punch Jackson 2:51
A daughter saw what was happening to her dad after he was made redundant. They were in an economic downturn, and she watched what happened to him. He slowly was sliding away on her and what happened during that economic downturn was rate of depression went up and suicide rates skyrocket. So she said, I can't let this happen to my dad. So she found a couple of other women who had dads or brothers or uncles, or whatever. And they decided, look, we got to get these guys talking to each other. They need companionship. They need to be able to talk about what happened to them, how they feel, and do something. So they rented a garage, double big double garage. They put a bunch of old machinery in it. They stocked it, with a coffee pot filled with coffee and snacks. And they invited 10 guys to come in, and her dad was one of them, and they said, “Look, can you guys help us out? We got to get this stuff fixed up and we got to get it moved out. Can you help us?” So again, first day, nada, just the coffee disappeared. Second day, nada, coffee disappeared. Snacks too. So then, by the third day, the guys started talking, talking to each other. Then they started to tinker with the machinery. And then they noticed, the women noticed that the guys were happier when they left. They were actually smiling. So then a few more days went by, and so then they started to check back with the families to say, “Well, what's going on? You know? What's happening to Dad, what's he doing when he gets home?” Well, in most families, the men are not the big talkers at the dinner table. Women have lots of stories to tell us about. Their stories in the day, from all their activities, they're involved, but what these families noticed was that “Dad” started to have stories. He had stories he wanted to tell. He was kind of excited about what was happening in this garage. And then the other thing they noticed was he wasn't slow to get up in the morning. He was eager. He was eager to get going. Now he had a purpose. He had a place to go, he had stuff to do, and he had guys to talk to. So this went on and week after week after week, the guys kept coming back and were happy. Depression seemed to disappear. They were just back on track. That was in, about 33 years ago. In Australia today, they have 1200 of those sheds, and they, the women eventually started to call it the Men's Shed. And so now there are over 1200 of those men’s sheds in Australia. There's 135 in New Zealand. There's 1000 in the UK, almost 500 in Ireland, the highest per capita in the world. We now have 45 men’s sheds spread out across Alberta, from the top of the province to the bottom of the province, and our goal is to have 120 sheds in place by between 2030 and 2032, so it’s a little ambitious.
Merle Massie 6:43
I love that ambition, though, that's that's shows that you really believe in in what a Men's Shed can do.
Punch Jackson 6:50
Well we hope so. We hope so. (Laughter). The variety of men sheds and the variety of men, it's quite amazing. And when I go into a dark place and bang my head against the wall, when people don't get it, my wife says to me, “Punch, it's just too simple."
Punch Jackson 7:14
It's too simple a concept for people. Someplace to go, something to do, somebody to talk to. And when you're there, something happens. You make new friends, you learn new skills. You may share skills that you've got with somebody else. You may work on projects. And when you're working on projects, you're usually working shoulder to shoulder with some guy, and men usually talk shoulder to shoulder. They don't talk face to face like women.
Merle Massie 7:49
Shoulder to shoulder, okay, that makes sense. But who is actually walking through the door of a Men's Shed? Punch says he sees guys who retire, guys who lose their social circle, guys who get uprooted.
Punch Jackson 8:10
You know, they decide, oh, the kids are all gone. We're going to downsize. So they do, they downsize and they move into a condo or an apartment or something. But the thing that's missing is that the workspace that the man had is gone. And I was talking to an old friend from Rockglen, Saskatchewan. And they retired from farming, active farming. But the moving into town was the big jump, because then he didn't have the workshop. He didn't have his machinery to work on. So there's, that's another stream of guys. Their wife has passed away, they're there by themselves. They're all alone, and they don't know what to do. And in some cases, it might manifest itself in that they don't eat right, because they never learned how to cook. Then there's people who are just new to the community. They just arrive and they have no, no connections at all in the community, so they're looking for something. Then there's another group of men who are referred through the social prescribing process from a medical person, from a doctor who's saying, “Look, I'm not letting you have any more pills. You got to get off these pills. I think you just need to be more active. You need to be more involved. You need to talk to some guys. I'm going to send you to the Men's Shed. You. Here's your prescription. Men's Shed. Go!” And they don't always find their way to the Men's Shed right away because they have certain barriers that they’ve put up, and sometimes, many times, their wife or partner is the instigator in terms of getting them to go to the Men's Shed. Some we've had, we've seen them drive their husband up to the front door and drop them off. (Laughter) And drop them off. And one fellow describes that process where he said he was just deathly afraid of going in there, going in, “What are these guys going to be like? You know, am I going to fit in?” And then how it evolves that it's a very friendly place. You know, hey, welcome. Have a coffee. Sit down. It's an easy break-in process.
Merle Massie 10:51
So how do you get guys through the door? I put that question to Brian Sawyer. He retired from his job just before the pandemic, and he went looking for guys to hang out with and started a Men's Shed. And now he works with Men's Sheds Canada.
Brian Sawyer 11:10
If you've noticed, if any of your community organizations have noticed, you put on a lot of programs for seniors and everybody in the community. And it's mostly women who show up. The guys do not show up. No matter how hard you try, you can't drag them in the door. And most community organizations… the women, they're run by women. And so the community then needs to get their men involved. Because guess what happens if the men, especially the older men, if they don't get involved, you know what they do? They watch TV, drink beer, complain about the government and probably go downhill pretty darn fast and end up in the medical system, uh, somehow costing us all a lot of money. And not feeling a purpose in life. So I talked to, I say, you need a Men's Shed in your community. And most of them say, “Yes, we do, so let's start one.” And that's how we went from 100 a couple of years ago to 160 now.
Merle Massie 12:08
That's 160 Men's Sheds across Canada. Brian's job is to connect them with small grants, with tools, with support.
Brian Sawyer 12:19
Just today, this morning, I had a woman and a man phone me up and say, “Can you use some tools? My husband's retired. We're moving out of our home and into an apartment. He'd like to see his tools go to a good place.” So, you know, I get calls like that all the time, and it's, that's connecting me to my community. And if there's one positive thing that I can do in this world, it's do things in my community. There's so much out in the world that I can get frustrated about and feel powerless about. But here in my community, I can do stuff. I can, you know, work towards planting trees or helping out the local shelter or all kinds of positive things that I can actually do and feel constructive and feel purposeful, instead of just watching TV or complaining about the government. Which is what I see, unfortunately, a lot of seniors doing, especially men, in the local McDonald's or the A&W or the mall. If you listen in on the conversations, it's usually complaining about something. Well, when we get together in a Men's Shed and everyone I visit, we're doing something purposeful, and we're feeling good about it, and that gives us maybe a life after retirement. It gives us purpose, and so I'm very lucky. I can afford to be retired. I am not desperate about anything, but I do meet a lot of men who retired, and now they're economically challenged. They've lost their spouse, maybe they've lost their physical capacity. They can't get out. They can't do the things they were going to do anymore. They've actually suffered a lot of loss in life, especially friends and support networks and feeling kind of alone, alone and isolated. And some of them, it's not so bad. They can get by. Some of them, they can get quite desperate and say, “Well, I'm glad I found you guys, because I had nothing. I had no one after work.”
Merle Massie 14:26
Is it that hard to find guys to hang out with? Men's clubs have been around for ages, Rotary Club, Lions, the Elks, Knights of Columbus, Kinsmen. I asked Punch Jackson what makes Men's Sheds any different?
Punch Jackson 14:44
There must be hundreds and hundreds of men's groups. But this one, it's very informal. Guys… you can be there and you can join in, in terms of working on a project, or you could just be sitting there having your coffee, talking to the next guy. We try to steer guys away from talking about politics or religion, and in Alberta, that's quite a chore. (Laughter) So it's just, it's too much of an inflammatory area. So it’s, we try to steer away from that. All of the sheds have a common thread. They usually do projects for the community, and they can be little projects. They could be simply being the guys that show up to do the barbecue for you. Or they could be more complex in terms of developing garden space. Could be raised garden boxes that they make. They could make cribbage boards for cribbage clubs. They could make dog houses, the Second Chance Rescue, animal rescue asks the sheds in Edmonton if they would help them make dog houses for northern Alberta. They may be the guys who prepare the ice rink. They may be guys who paint an Information Centre or repair an Information Centre in a community. Lots of sheds make little libraries. You've seen them on a four by four?
Merle Massie 16:36
Yeah, I love those.
Punch Jackson 16:38
Well, they're all over the place, and the shed guys make them. So there's this wide range of stuff. Now, we had a fellow start a shed downtown in Edmonton. He was 82 when he started it, and he told me, “Punch, we're not doing power tools. Our hands aren't steady enough. But we'll, we'll, we'll tell you what we're going to do.” A couple weeks later, he invited me in and what they were doing was, they decided that, if they were going to have shoulder to shoulder conversations, they had to have something in front of them. And what that “in front of them” was, was big puzzles. You know, these thousand or million piece puzzles? Well, these guys had ‘em, and when I was looking at it, I think my eyes rolled, because one of the fellows, who was 85, looked up at me, pointed his finger at me and said, “Young man, you don't understand the conversation that goes on around this table. It's pretty important stuff.” So the range of activities is pretty wide. The same guy came to me and he said, “Punch, what are we, what are we going to do? Like, how can we give back to the community, you know?” So we talked about some ideas. And again, a couple weeks later, he comes up to me, he's got a big smile on his face, and he says, “We did it. We did it. We did something for the community.” And so, well, what was it? And he said, “Well, we live in a 16-storey building, that's a lot of people there. There's a lot of extra clothes there. We collected enough clothes for both a women's shelter and a men's shelter.” And he was just beaming. He was so proud that they had been able to do something for the community just the same as those other guys. So it's pretty neat.
Merle Massie 18:49
Men's Sheds ARE pretty neat. They're an excuse to get together, to hang out shoulder to shoulder, to quietly build friendships, build your community. That sense of community is what drew Marc Boychuk. He helped start a Men's Shed in Peace River.
Merle Massie 19:13
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Hay Are We Okay? podcast. Marc, thanks for coming.
Marc Boychuk 19:26
Not a problem. It's my pleasure to be here.
Merle Massie 19:28
Tell me about you. Who is Marc Boychuk?
Marc Boychuk 19:32
That's somebody I'm still trying to discover like, aren't we all? But I've been working for the same organization for 35 years, and about 10 years ago, I just thought I wanted to give back to my community in some way. And so I started looking at what, what needs were there, and I got into the homeless field. And so I've, I've done some research, I've tried my hand at presenting different strategies and stuff. And now I'm working closely with the government, different agencies, like the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Rural Mental Health project, just around how the community can close gaps and be more of a community. And the importance of being a community, and how literally that affects people's personal health and the whole health of a town. And we can see how many of our communities are sick and how we just need a little bit of guidance on how to help people in need. So that's kind of where the journey I've been on the last couple of years.
Merle Massie 20:40
When you say a community is sick, what does that look like?
Marc Boychuk 20:46
Well, what it looks like to me now is people are so used to seeing people on the street now. Somebody could be laying there, either unconscious, in an overdose, violently ill. They're walking around in distress. And there's thousands of people that will walk by these people, without giving it a second look. Whereas before, when somebody called 'Help!', there was 10 people that would be there, you know, to help a person, right? But we're, it's become so prevalent, we're kind of becoming immune to it, and hardened to seeing people in distress and actually getting angry at them for how dare they be that way in public, or something like that, right? And so, when I see, what I mean by a community starting to get sick is when they start to react to it wrong, and it causes more harm to more people. And that's kind of what we're doing. I believe we have a very complex mental health situation going on in our country, in the world, but it's quite solvable if we work together at it. And that's, that's where I see the division coming in and hurting a lot of people. And, you know, all the dispute over what, what community should even do. “How is it my problem? Why should I worry about that? They're not my children, they're not my people. They're not even from my country. Why should I help them? Why? I didn't bring them here? I didn't ask them to come here.” These, these are a lot of the comments I hear a lot of times when we're asking different organizations, to step up and people, so it's just, we see encampments coming up. We see so many people struggling and asking for food, and the poverty is just growing. And, you know, we have hospital waiting rooms that are overrun, and people are not getting help, and more people are getting sick. So that's kind of what I mean, in a nutshell, of a community's health is deteriorating.
Speaker 1 22:48
So you've been working, and I love that you framed it this way, that you've been really dedicating to helping communities have some ideas. What are some of the things that you've seen? What can a community do, to do better for mental health?
Marc Boychuk 23:06
Well, I think it's important to tap into the community leaders, church leaders, town council and municipal and get them, you know, involved in working together at the issue, you know. So one thing I discovered is, say, for example, the churches. We have lots of people that go to church that want to help out in different ways. But if they're duplicating a service, you know, it's actually not helping each other as much as of, “how about you guys feed people on Monday and we'll feed them on Tuesday?” you know, and kind of along that line. “Or we'll do a clothing drive and you guys do a food drive”, you know, work together like that. Or, you know, we need men that are good with carpentry or mechanical skills. So let's pool all our resources and have those that are struggling with finances, maybe get some guys with mechanical skills to change some oil for them, or look at their tires. Or, you know, give them a little heads up on some mechanical issues that may cause them grief, just kind of stuff like that. Like it's, we, men get slipped through the cracks a lot, because when I started looking into suicide rates, it's just mind-boggling how, you know, how many men are struggling alone. And then, so when you start looking in your community of what's going on there, and meeting these men and seeing and looking in their eyes at the loss, loss of hope and just trying to cling on to anything.
Merle Massie 24:46
Marc heard about Men's Sheds and figured, why not try? He applied for a rural mental health grant to kick start the first one in Peace River.
Marc Boychuk 24:55
So, got a couple men together, we had our open house. We had 25 people attend, and so some of these men that were from our community. I've been in my community almost 40 years, and I've never seen a lot of these men that grew up and were raised there. And they're talking about how they're isolated after work and they have nothing to do. And I literally got an email from a grandmother: "I have an 18 year old grandson. I'd love to connect them to men that are, you know, that could be a peer for him". And that's exactly what it's about. It's getting men out there. You know, it's not a, it's not a support group. It's not a therapy session. It is a community group where you build friendships, you share what you want to share. You don't have to go there and say, I'm struggling with anything. You just go there for the friendship. We have food, we have snacks. We have water, pop, you know, sometimes when the Oilers are doing good, we'll watch a game, you know? But we're doing service projects. We're getting more and more people involved, and we're looking at getting youth and just having special programmes for all youth, men, girls and boys, and just doing things. We build bird houses, you know, we're just out there trying to re-establish a community of men and expand it from there, give them opportunities to serve, to meet new friends. You know, because too often men struggle alone. And I've never met four of these men there, and I could call every single one of them a good friend. You know, only after a couple months. You know, just by starting and sitting there and being there and knowing why we're there. So, you know, I guess the one thing about the Men's Shed is there's the silent agreement that we're there for support of each other, whether we want to admit it to each other out loud or not. We are there as a men's support group, and that's kind of the bottom line, it’s what builds a brotherhood and a friendship. So I'm super excited. I haven't been to the last couple and I see they're building picnic tables and just getting tools and stuff. And I just like, this is amazing. This is just amazing.
Speaker 1 27:03
Why do you think a Men's Shed program like this or something similar? What does it do to your community? How does it change a community?
Unknown Speaker 27:13
We all leave every single time happier and more uplifted and glad that we came every single time. And that's going to carry back home, to our homes, to those we associate with, you know, and it's just, every single person, when they serve others, comes away feeling better. And that's what we're doing. We're serving others in our community. We're doing it together, many hands make the work light. You know, people are coming to us and just so grateful that there's a group of men willing to fix things and do things. Like, we're, it's almost a little overwhelming. We're a tiny little group, and, no, we can't, you know, fix every problem in the community. But we're, we're going to be out there fixing park benches and gazebos and youth camps and seniors' flower pots and, you know. So we're, I'm pretty, pretty proud and happy to be part of this group, because it's, it's one of the happy things I get to be involved with, right? You know, because walking on the streets and seeing a lot of this suffering and dealing with a lot of people that are geting, trying to get into housing and families struggling, it's pretty hard to bear some days. And so the men's group for me is just a dose of fresh air. It's refilling, it's happy. It's a place where I can let my shoulders down, and if I have something that is bothering me, I could probably pull a guy aside and talk to them. But it's just a place to come laugh, we joke, we eat. I love it. Yeah, it's, I highly recommend every single community get a men's shed going.
Merle Massie 28:46
I can hear what it's doing for you.
Marc Boychuk 28:49
Yeah, if you're a man, and you know some men that, and I would highly recommend: what I did right off the get go is because if you're looking at me to fix something, you came to the wrong guy. So I went, found some very good work, worker guys, and seen, planted it in their ear and saw their interest. And you get, you know, there you go. You get people that can help others. And, you know, just, just get out there and start this little fire in your community that will spread and spread happiness and joy to a lot of people. You know, not just the men, like I say, they go home, and it impacts them with feeling a lot better, and it impacts their co-workers, their family members, everybody.
Merle Massie 29:31
So that might be my favourite quote of the week. I love it, starting a fire.
Marc Boychuk 29:35
Gotta be careful with that terminology,
Merle Massie 29:39
All those northern fires. I know, but still, no. We Canadians can be a bit touchy about wildfires. But that spark, that community feeling, really does spread. Punch and Brian have a message for anyone who feels that spark: put the coffee on, open the doors, see what happens.
Brian Sawyer 30:02
And every shed that starts up, once you get three or four guys, they start to have a lot of fun. We want to hear about it. If a shed exists by itself, I guess I get it. If a group is totally self-sustaining and doesn't need anybody else, terrific. But I'd love to hear about your shed. Or share what you're starting in your area, because there's no, we're aiming for 1000 men sheds in the next eight years. We're now at 160, …. should be 10 times that. Maybe there should be 100 times that. But what I do think is really important is that we as older men show other older men that life can have purpose, that we can do stuff together. We can still do things together, and really can give back to our community. We don't have to retire into the, into the sofa or into the rocking chair. You know today, today's 80 is the 60 when I grew up, sixties. If I retire at 65 I have a heck, I'm planning on another 25 years. So it's like the fourth quarter, and let's do this together, guys. Let's have a great fourth quarter, and we'll do it better together than alone.
Merle Massie 31:19
That's a brilliant way to finish up. Thank you so much.
Brian Sawyer 31:22
Okay, Merle. Well, thanks.
Punch Jackson 31:24
Thank you for being another voice.
Merle Massie 31:26
Oh, happy to be so, like I said, I think I shared that I posted about this idea, and within an hour, I had, you know, local guys in my inbox saying, “Yes, this, we're doing this. Let's get busy.” So sounds like I might be helping a local shed get up and running.
Punch Jackson 31:45
Well, I'm going to be looking for that spot on the map with the "Biggar, Saskatchewan".
Merle Massie 31:50
That's exactly right.
Merle Massie 31:52
Loneliness is a health problem. It leads to all kinds of health issues, and it's an epidemic. Punch Jackson and Brian Sawyer say Men's Sheds are health by stealth. They quietly help people and communities. So what would it take to get the coffee going? To get your own shed going? I'll put a link to Men's Sheds Canada in our show notes. You? You get to go share this episode with someone who needs that spark.
Merle Massie 32:33
So recently, I was in Alberta, at the Rural Women's Conference in Lac La Biche, and I threw out the question to the audience, what do you do on your farm for fun?
Corina Paré 32:55
My name is Corina Pare. We live in the Lac La Biche area, county, and we don't actively farm anymore, but we did for many, many years. And it was probably about three or four generations of farming, but now it's kind of fallen apart. But anyhow, during Covid, we have all this land. Treed, beautiful property, big field, lots of wildlife. And my husband took the bobcat and started blazing random trails that all interconnect throughout our property. And so, yeah, we ended up making a map because we get a lot of company that likes to camp in our yard in the summer, and in the winter. And so, we ended up naming all of the trails. And we have little signs out there. We give them a map when they come and they can enjoy the property, hear the birds, see the animals, and we also, well, we quad on there. We walk. We have a side by side, whatever, yeah. And so it's just beautiful. We also have a tree stand out there for hunting. And so that is how this process started. My husband made a trail to the tree stand, and then it just grew from there because, you know, it's and it's so beautiful all year round. We can go through there and all the different smells, all the different sights, all the different, like, it's just beautiful. I love it. So, yeah, so that's what we do for fun and leisure. And during Covid, it felt so spacious and beautiful because we were not, thankfully, confined. We had this beautiful property, so we were able to really embrace it and enjoy it. My husband grew up on this land as well, so some of these trails existed, but had grown over. So he just started playing, and that's what it developed into.
Merle Massie 34:35
Absolutely amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing it.
Corina Paré 34:39
Okay, very welcome.
Merle Massie 34:40
Thanks, Corina. What do you do on your farm just for fun? Email us feedback[@]domore.ag. Now even better, if you'd like to join me on this podcast, this is how you do it the easy way. Grab your phone, hit your voice recorder and tell us what you do on your farm for fun. We want to hear. And then send your story to feedback [@] domore.ag.
Merle Massie 35:11
Hay Are We Okay? is brought to you by The Do More Agriculture Foundation, with generous support from the AGCO Foundation. To learn more about what we do, visit domore.ag and give this podcast a follow or a review. Together, we can build a culture where we ask Hay, Are We Okay? Because together is a good place to be. I'm Merle Massie. Take care.