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Parks and Recreation actor Nick Offerman brings his Full Bush show to Toronto on Saturday.Broadimage/REX

'Everyone has to find their own unique path to happiness in life and to whatever they consider to be success, whether that's in the pork aisle or the beef aisle."

Who said that? Gandhi? Mark Twain? My butcher?

No, it was Nick Offerman, the actor, humourist, canoeist, author and woodworker who arrives in Toronto to give his new one-man show at the JFL42 comedy festival on Saturday. Speaking from Los Angeles, the Parks and Recreation star was explaining the name of his book, Paddle Your Own Canoe, self-described as a guide to meat, manliness and "delicious living."

"It's a figure of speech," says Offerman about the titular adage. "I've heard it my whole life, and what it means to me is 'Go your own way.'"

Some comedy is more timeless than others – Jerry Seinfeld still marvels at cellphones and restroom automatic-flush toilets, if you can believe it – but Offerman's folksy brand of show is in the sepia-tone vein of Will Rogers, with an acoustic guitar substituting for rope tricks. "I've always really enjoyed a message delivered with a toe-tapping guitar song," he says. "I find it adds some warmth to my material."

Warmth, as fans of the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreations well know, is not a trademark attribute of Offerman's brusque, manly, fully mustachioed Ron Swanson character. Swanson's love of woodworking, however, is directly inspired by Offerman's real-life passion. In his early 20s, while in Chicago, he supplemented his acting income with jobs as a scenery carpenter. Today he has his own wood shop in Los Angeles. (At Offermanwoodshop.com, products such as baseball bats and mustache combs – not game-used, unfortunately – are available for purchased.)

"As long as my hands are working half-way decently, I'll keep making things out of wood," says the 44-year-old Illinois native, who recently crafted for himself a mahogany ukulele. "It's an incredible discipline in my life, and it's where I find the greatest solace."

In conversation and on stage, Offerman is not a spouter, streamer or ranter. He speaks in a measured, thoughtful tone. You can imagine him rubbing his beard (his show is called Full Bush, in part because of his current Zach Galifianakis-level grooming) as he offers thoughts on things that interest him.

On Neil Young, for example: "If I ever play Massey Hall, I'll work up a Neil Young cover and then throw in my own Peterborough canoeing lyrics. I'm a big fan of his Live at Massey Hall 1971 album. It doesn't matter what he sets his hand to, he somehow makes it sound awfully good."

On his Ron Swanson character, which he credits to Parks and Recreation creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, with some creative input from himself: "I'm thrilled to death to have the opportunity to use my strangeness and my face-making abilities to great effect. But I owe a great deal to our writers."

On the making of a documentary about one of his heroes, American environmentalist and writer Wendell Berry, which he co-produced: "I couldn't be more excited. I feel like a teenage girl getting to meet Justin Bieber, perhaps."

And would he like to meet that aspiring bad-boy? "I think I'm okay," Offerman says, after a pause. "I'll happily shake his hand if I ran into him. But, as I mentioned, I'm a Neil Young fan."

Offerman is indeed in full control of his own canoe. The woodworker has carved out a career that is handmade and particular. What do we call him? A Renaissance man? A Hollywood Hills coureur des bois?

"I think my dad would call me a lucky jackass," he says. There are worse things to be, as Mark Twain would likely have agreed.

Nick Offerman's Full Bush, Sept. 20, Sony Centre (jfl42.com)

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