Keith Berg is a strong supporter of economic diversity.

If a couple hundred people could do their own thing in the Robson Valley, the community would have a stronger economy. And he’s doing his part.

Nestled down a dirt road and up a muddy hill in Dunster, B.C. sits Berg’s home and workshop, where some of the world’s best French horns are built.

But these aren’t the musical instruments you’ll find at your local school band’s collection – if your local school still has a band. Berg markets his horns to the best of the best; professional musicians, orchestra and symphony players, and the odd amateur who has a little extra spending money.

Berg began playing the French horn at age 14 in the Lion’s band program in his hometown of Saskatoon, and has now been playing the horn for over 40 years. But it wasn’t until after 14 years of working as a machinist in the metal working industry that he got the chance to take a three month apprenticeship with Daniel Rauch in Oslo, Norway, that Berg began to learn the process of horn making. He hasn’t looked back.

“The first horn I built, I finished in 1988, and last I heard that horn was still being played professionally,” he says. “I still had a lot to figure out on my own, too. I had a lot of experimentation and that sort of thing to do. It worked out pretty well right from the start, because of the previous metal working experience I had and the previous horn playing experience I had.”

The result has been about 110 high-end, hand-made and very detailed horns with a top quality sound that Berg has built and sold mostly to the US, although his international market is expanding to countries such as Germany, Iceland, Spain and Israel.

All Berg’s horns are meticulously hand crafted, and the average horn takes up to three months to build. But his customers are willing to wait, which is good, because Berg has a waiting list of up to three and a half to four years.

Sometimes it rests heavy over your head, knowing you have so much work to do, but it’s also reassuring that you have guaranteed work, he said.

Unlike mass produced instruments – Berg says there are some great horns that are mass produced – much of Berg’s equipment is handmade, personalized for his shop and unique to himself, which cuts down some of his costs, but also takes time to use – heating up tubing, softening the metal, making sure there are no kinks or wrinkles in the bends, giving the tubing just the right taper and polishing the brass, which, when unraveled, extends up to 12 feet long.

By the time all that work is done, one of the biggest challenges for him is to make sure the horn still looks like it’s new when it’s finished, he says, adding that it’s very easy to mark or dent the horn during the building process.

Hand crafting each instrument takes time and can become pricey, but in his workshop in the forest, with only an elk or deer to see through the windows, Berg is humble but confident of his work.

“The market I’m aiming at, you can’t afford to let anything get sloppy, because bad news travels faster than good news,” he says. “I’ve been building a reputation for consistently building good instruments.”

Berg says he’s heard from other horn players that he has the best reputation in the business for consistency and high quality – all coming from a little town in B.C.

Berg has hardly done any advertising since starting 22 years ago, and says it’s all word of mouth that has attracted his customers, which is good, because as he puts it, “If you don’t have customers, you are pretty much dead in the water.”