NOBODY exactly knows when Scottish carpenters started making camans. But everybody knows they might stop doing so soon.

The ancient craft, its roots lost in the ancient Celtic history of shinty, has been passed from father to son for uncountable generations.

Now the skill of chiselling, smoothing and bending and the metre-long, bladed sticks is so rare it has been listed as “critically endangered” by the Heritage Crafts Association (HCA).

It is not alone. Along with camans, HCA has added Orkney and Shetland’s signature kishie baskets and the Fair Isle’s straw-backed chair-making to its red list of things soon nobody will now how to make.

South of the Border the body is also desperately worried about nearly lost crafts such as hand-making clay pipes, clogs, spinning wheels, fans, horse collars and even watches.

The timeless art of wainwrighting – making and repairing carts – is now believed to be almost lost.

One family, the Blairs in Kames, on the Cowal bank of the Kyles of Bute, is determined to keep caman-making alive.

John Blair, 45, and his son Christopher, 25, make the sticks on the side of their full-time joinery and builders business.

John’s father, Neil, now 71, started making shinty camans more than 40 years ago and now the firm is only among a handful left in the country.

The problems facing the traditional trade include a lack of trained craftspeople and not enough money from making the sticks to employ full-time staff. Other makers still producing the wooden sticks include Tanera Camans, Munro Camans and A.B Camans – all based in the Scottish Highlands. The closure of any one of those businesses could prove devastating.

John said: “We’ve been going for over 40 years and are now a third generation of makers – my father started making them.

“It’s not a trade we do all the time, we’re a business of joiners and builders.”

The business sources sustainable hickory wood from the US, which is cut into four or six lengths, called “laminations”, that are planed and arranged into sets before being glued, clamped and put in an oven.

When placed in the clamps the sticks are bent into shape – an important process as there are different head shapes for goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards.

The last process is to treat the caman with varnish and bind the top with thin leather or strong tape to ensure a good grip.

All shinty clubs must conform to a certain shape, as the curved head – or bas – as it is called in Gaelic.

They must be triangular in shape and pass through a two and a half inch diameter ring. No nails or metal of any kind are allowed to be used in the making of the caman and the edges are slightly rounded to reduce the possibility of an injury to an opponent. The specialist techniques and skills have to be passed down from generation to generation.

The family use an array of improvised equipment, including a hydraulic press from a combine harvester.

John said: “There’s not a set shinty stick machine, so a lot of them are modified, but the workshop’s fully set up for making them.

“Everybody who’s made shinty sticks with us have played the sport, but it’s not something there’s an apprenticeship for.

“My son’s working alongside me and gluing some sticks, but most of the time we’re out doing joinery and building work. It’s a craft you can’t just pick up overnight.”

Tanera Camans in Inverness makes the majority of the shinty sticks for the sport.

But John believes if the company were to fold it could collapse the industry due to the overwhelming demand that would swamp smaller makers.

John, who used to play for local club Kyles Athletic, said: “It’s maybe been put on the endangered list because if one of the big manufacturer’s stops making them it might end the industry.

The business has now stopped making shinty sticks individually, only producing them in batches. But given the critically endangered status of the craft, John and his family are not prepared to stop any time soon.

He said: “We’ve got no intention of stopping doing it. It’s a labour of love.”

Shinty dated back to pre-historic Scotland, but is now played mainly in the Highlands. Although its exact roots are unknown, the game is thought to derive from Irish hurling which dates as far back as the fifth century.

However, a Scottish caman for shinty has developed rather differently to an Irish “hurley” for hurling.

The Irish version has a wider “bas” making it more suitable for playing a ball in the air than on the ground.

Five years ago a new hybrid stick was developed with a view that it could be used when Scotland’s shinty players meet Ireland’s hurlers for international cross-code matches.

Camans, meanwhile, can be quite expensive. Players usually part with more than £60 for an adult stick. This, however, does not make caman-making lucrative, as relatively few people play outside the Highlands of Scotland, and demand is not huge.