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Thank you for your interest in The Great Northwoods Trading Company. We are truly
a “ Mom and Pop” business, consisting of two people, Mike and Nancy Patek. We began our careers in folk art in 1992, and currently, in addition to attending select folk art shows, supply reproduction décor items for the Famous Dave’s Restaurant chain.

The first part of our working lives was spent designing and building scenery for theatre, film and video; first working for a local dinner theatre, where Mike designed and built the sets, and Nancy painted scenery and found the stage props, and later owning our own scene business, with clients such as Mc Donald’s, Allstate and Motorola. Many of the techniques that we employ have evolved from our work on the stage or behind the camera.

We took Mike’s love of fishing, and along with our love of antiques and the Northwoods, and created “The Great Northwoods Trading Company”.

As you may see in the accompanying photo ,the lodge look signs represented here are a small portion of what we offer in our log cabin style booth at retail shows. Other items we produce for sale at shows include reproductions of vintage lure boxes, aged creels, coat racks, carved fish and mache  boxes painted to resemble old tins, and decorated with reproductions of vintage advertisements or holiday postcards. We collect the originals of antique signs, fishing magazines, old books and antique postcards. These all serve as inspiration for the designs. To maintain the period flair in our reproductions, we often employ multiple techniques, which include hand cut and printed silk screens, brush and sponge work, airbrush, multiple glazes and aging techniques. A minimum of 12 steps and as many as 20 may go into the finished product.

All of the work is done by the two of us in our workshop in the beautiful Northwoods of Wisconsin.