Free Shopify theme · Sports & Outdoors · Adventure
Brule & Thwart
A rust and spruce storefront for a one person workshop on the North Shore of Lake Superior that builds ottertail canoe paddles from cedar and ash.
Published October 6, 2026. Built from a brief, no account needed to download.
The brief this store was built from
Brule & Thwart is a converted fish house in Grand Marais, Minnesota, where Ingrid Halvorsen builds canoe paddles after eleven summers guiding trips in the Boundary Waters. Each paddle starts as seven strips of northern white cedar and white ash glued into a blank, then she shapes the ottertail blade and the oval shaft with a drawknife and a spokeshave, sizing the shaft to the buyer's hand. Three coats of tung oil go on instead of varnish, so the grip stays warm and does not blister.
- Product
- Ottertail Paddle, $185
- About it
- Seven strips of cedar and ash, an ottertail blade, three coats of tung oil. Send your height and glove size and the shaft is shaped to fit.
- Brand facts
- Every blank is seven laminated strips of northern white cedar and white ash. The shaft is shaped by hand to the length and grip size the buyer sends in. Finished with three coats of tung oil, never varnish.
- Style
- Adventure. Outdoor brand — huge italic serif heading, no CTA
Who this theme is for
A one person workshop selling a made to order piece of outdoor gear: wooden paddles, snowshoes, ash pack baskets, hand forged camp axes. The buyer is spending real money on something they will carry for twenty years, so the page shows the water first, then the wood up close, then the hands that shaped it, and asks for sizing details at checkout instead of hiding them in a contact form. The Adventure layout opens with a large italic headline over a wide lake photo and leaves the call to action for the product block, which suits a shop that sells one thing well.
What was decided in the brief
The style is Adventure on its first variant. The primary is the rust orange of red cedar under oil and the accent is the dark spruce of the far shore, so the store looks like the dock in the hero. The brand facts lead with the seven strips because laminated wood is what tells a paddler the blade will not split, and the tung oil line comes last because it answers the question every canoeist asks about varnish blisters.
What is in the ZIP
- A single-product homepage: hero, trust strip, benefits, how-to-use or specs, reviews, final call to action.
- The whole store shell: product, collection, cart, search and 404 templates, header, footer, announcement bar.
- Valid Shopify 2.0 sections with schema, so every line of text is editable in the Shopify editor.
- The photos you see in the preview, ready to swap for your own.
Questions
- Is this Shopify theme really free?
- Yes. You download a complete Shopify 2.0 theme ZIP and no account is needed. In your Shopify admin go to Online Store, then Themes, then Add theme, then Upload zip file.
- I make every piece to order. How do I collect sizes from the buyer?
- Add a line item property or a short text field on the product page for the measurements you need, such as height and glove size. Say in the description how long the build takes so nobody expects it next week.
- Can I sell gift cards for a made to order product?
- Yes. Shopify gift cards are a product type in the admin, and a buyer giving a paddle as a gift can send a card so the person who will use it chooses the size.
