“My sister Sarah and I grew up making brooms with our parents in the Kootenays in Eastern BC,” says Mary Schwieger, who co-owns Granville Island Broom Co. with her sister. “It’s an old Shaker tradition of broom making that my parents learned from someone they knew and we were just lucky enough to have it passed down to us.”
Today, Sarah and Mary have built a business around making beautiful, high-quality, artisanal brooms in the traditional style. These functional works of art are equally well suited for intensive use and giving floors a thorough sweep as they are for gracing a wall as a decorative accent to tie a room together.
“We like the idea of functional art. It’s something that’s very practical,” Mary says. “It’s a very long-lasting piece, but it’s also decorative and beautiful.” Combining the utilitarian functionality of traditionally made brooms with a creative, artistic flair, Granville Island Broom Co.’s brooms range from classic, straight dowel models to more complex and intriguing examples made with beautiful, gnarled Manzanita wood. Each broom is made with high-quality materials like broom corn sorghum and British Columbian birch and fir using techniques passed down for centuries, resulting in an end product that is durable and elegant.
