It’s nearly impossible to walk past Vancouver’s Granville Island Broom Co. without stopping for a closer look. The quaint shop is a spectacle in straw: handcrafted brooms with twisted wooden handles, whimsical miniatures and sweeping brushes that look as much like folk art as household tools.
For founders and sisters Mary and Sarah Schwieger, however, the brooms are much more than decorative curiosities. They’re the latest chapter in a family tradition that stretches back decades.
View this post on Instagram
The sisters grew up on the east shore of Kootenay Lake, where their parents made handcrafted brooms using techniques rooted in the Shaker tradition—an 18th-century religious movement known for popularizing the flat broom, along with inventions such as the circular saw and the one-piece split wood clothespin. Though Shaker communities, as they were, have largely disappeared, their broom-making techniques survived through many artisans before eventually reaching Mary and Sarah’s parents in the Kootenays.
After each leaving their hometown for university—Mary studying geography and anthropology at UVic, Sarah creative writing and women’s studies at UBC—the sisters found themselves reunited in Vancouver. Neither felt particularly suited to the corporate life. “I could tell I wasn’t really meant for an office environment,” says Mary. “I’m way too active to sit still and work at a desk.”
In 2010, they opened Granville Island Broom Co., bringing a piece of their rural upbringing to the city. Today, every broom is still handmade by the dynamic duo and their two assistants using antique equipment—some even dating back to the 1800s. The process is labour intensive, yet they still produce an impressive 4,000 brooms a year.
The family connection remains strong. Their parents’ original Kootenay business, North Woven Broom Co., lives on under their cousin, and at times, as a family activity, the clan will go and collect wood together. That support network matters in a craft few people practice. Family gatherings often become informal business meetings, with ideas and challenges exchanged across generations.
View this post on Instagram
Still, neither sister sees succession as a duty. Just as their parents never pressured them to take up broom making, they believe the next steward should arrive naturally. “Family is not an obligation,” says Mary. “It’s really about finding someone who just gets it.”
