"Pioneers who settled America and built homes, and cut farms and roads out of a wilderness, depended more on their axes and knives than on any other equipment except their guns. A knife and axe still are a woodsman's most useful tools."I'm not suggesting that these eight pages, crafted over 60 years ago as a primer for young Scouts, are either comprehensive or conclusive. The information is, however, fundamentally sound and has aged well.
Her prize was a whimsical electric chandelier destined to hang over our patio. I was rewarded with a tattered-but-intact copy of the 1948 Boy Scout Handbook.
In the back of the Handbook, among pages devoted to "Books to Read" and the Index, are advertisements aimed at boys of Scouting age. To me, these are just as interesting (and perhaps more significant, culturally) as the rest of the book.
A few of the others: Lionel Trains, Evinrude and Johnson outboard motors, Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Coca-Cola, Baby Ruth and Tootsie Roll.
"For Campers" (right) comes from the pages of Outing magazine. It was aimed squarely at families and young couples caught up in the out-of-doors movement sweeping the U.S. during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Marble's Safety Axe Co. placed an ominous pitch (right) in a 1908 issue of Recreation. It tells of a misfortunate whose broken knife (not a Marble's, presumably) kept him from repelling an attacking bear.
It's worth noting that in 1918 a Marble's Ideal cost between $2.25 (stacked-leather handle, five-inch blade) and $3.50 (stag handle, eight-inch blade). The cocobolo-handled Expert, offered only with a five-inch blade, was priced at $2.25.
We will teach good-practice dos and don'ts and use of woodcraft tools, encouraging responsibility and safety. We know this will be challenging for our Scouts, but we believe it will help develop responsibility and maturity.
Early in 1916, Forest & Stream magazine announced a new regular feature called "Nessmuk's Corner And Camp Fire." Its purpose was described (with feigned puffery) as being "For the Alleviation of the Woes and Troubles of the Camper and the Entertainment and Exchange of Views of Outdoor People Generally."By 1917, "Nessmuk's Corner And Camp Fire" had become simply "Nessmuk's Camp Fire." Its masthead would evolve, too -- the three examples below chart the changes through 1919, when The Camp Fire warranted a two-page opening spread."If you have any troubles or tangles growing out of your experiences, bring them to The Corner and we will endeavor to untrouble and untangle 'em. If you have had any curious adventures or have hit on some short-cut way of accomplishing things, let The Corner know about it, and the more 'cur'ouser' the story the better.
"Please remember that this is your Corner. The great army of Forest and Stream readers can keep it going only by contributing to it, for while 'Old Camper' may be able to stand up for a time under the burden of writing questions to himself and answering them, The Corner would quickly fizzle out under one man's editing."
The first article that caught my attention today was "The Scout and His Equipment," penned for the February 1934 issue of Boys' Life by the incomparable Dan Beard."A boy without a knife is as bad as a canoe without paddles, a lumberman without an axe, or a girl without a compact."Uncle Dan was right about that, of course. Knowing that present-day Scouts are explicitly discouraged from carrying knives, however, his words have almost a poignant ring.
Last I landed on the June 1919 issue of Popular Science, where I found reader Rodney Bryson's advice on what to do with old inner tubes (pictured at right).
Grabbing the hatchet and a folding saw, I walked back to the edge of the woods. I'd had my eye on a dead hardwood, probably an Ohio Buckeye, for a while now. At four inches in diameter and about eight feet long it'd be easy to process. And because it was a "leaner," held off the snow-covered ground by surrounding growth, it was ideally dry.
I made one more trip back to the tree line, harvesting a couple of resinous pine stubs to serve as a natural firestarter. Less than 45 leisurely minutes after I began, I had the makings of a respectable fire.
I laid out my tools and got to work on the edge, first with a double-cut file and then with a single-cut. Next came the oiled stone, coarse side followed by fine, the sanding sponges and a leather hone loaded with black stropping compound. I sanded most of the poly coating from the face and removed all of it from the poll. The latter was left shiny, the former with more of a satiny finish.
Some hours later I squinted through a magnifying glass at the faint letters -- first name and surname, postal route, town and state. A quick bit of research, colored by a splash of speculation, gives me a story to tell.Use it up, wear it out;That's certainly what my father and his father would've said. There is indeed a story in this humble hatchet, and the telling of that tale isn't finished quite yet.
Make it do or do without.
While taking some hard-won time today to unwind, I stumbled across a digital edition of a turn-of-the-(last)-century magazine called Outing. Published from the 1880s into the 1920s, Outing ran the gamut of outdoor sports, notably hunting, fishing, hiking and the like.
"Neither as a weapon nor as a means of giving his prey the thrust of mercy has the knife any claim to a place on the belt of the wilderness adventurer. And right here the knife serves, if one may borrow some from the Book of Rites of the Boy Scouts, as a ready guide to the three preliminary degrees of woodsmanship.
In the 1880s, "Nessmuk" was the by-line of stories penned by George Washington Sears for Forest and Stream magazine. The Massachusetts native wrote of camping and paddling in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, and his 1884 landmark book, Woodcraft, has never gone out of print.
Kephart was born a Pennsylvanian, but he's best known for writing of his life in and love of the Smokies of western North Carolina. He was an early and avid proponent of establishing Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
These days many of us are preoccupied with chasing the do-it-all knife, and that's fine as far as it goes. There's nothing wrong with nurturing the skills required to survive if limited to a single blade.I'll admit to getting a kick out of that third passage -- it seems that "tacticool" knives were as prevalent in the 19th Century as they are today. Thirty-three years later, Kephart echoed his predecessor:"The hatchet and knives shown...will be found to fill the bill satisfactorily so far as cutlery may be required. Each is good and useful of its kind, the hatchet especially, being the best model I have ever found for a 'double-barreled' pocket-axe."
"Before I was a dozen years old I came to realize that a light hatchet was a sine qua non in woodcraft, and I also found it a most difficult thing to get. ... I had hunted twelve years before I caught up with the pocket-axe I was looking for."
"A word as to knife, or knives. These are of prime necessity, and should be of the best, both as to shape and temper. The 'bowies' and 'hunting knives' usually kept on sale, are thick, clumsy affairs, with a sort of ridge along the middle of the blade, murderous looking, but of little use; rather fitted to adorn a dime novel or the belt of 'Billy the Kid,' than the outfit of the hunter. The one shown...is thin in the blade, and handy for skinning, cutting meat, or eating with. The strong double-bladed pocket knife is the best model I have yet found, and, in connection with the sheath knife, is all sufficient for camp use."
That's great stuff, isn't it? It's nothing short of essential, elemental woodcraft -- but if we use Nessmuk's and Kephart's philosophies only as our springboard for nostalgia or mimicry, we miss the point."A woodsman should carry a hatchet, and he should be as critical in selecting it as in buying a gun. The notion that a heavy hunting knife can do the work of a hatchet is a delusion. When it comes to cleaving carcasses, chopping kindling, blazing thick-barked trees, driving tent pegs or trap stakes, and keeping up a bivouac fire, the knife never was made that will compare with a good tomahawk."
"The conventional hunting knife is, or was until recently, of the familiar dime-novel pattern invented by Colonel Bowie. It is too thick and clumsy to whittle with, much too thick for a good skinning knife, and too sharply pointed to cook and eat with. It is always tempered too hard. When put to the rough service for which it is supposed to be intended, as in cutting through the ossified false ribs of an old buck, it is an even bet that out will come a nick as big as a saw-tooth -- and Sheridan forty miles from a grindstone!"
"The jackknife has one stout blade equal to whittling seasoned hickory, and two small blades, of which one is ground thin for such surgery as you may have to perform (keep it clean). Beware of combination knives; they may be passable corkscrews and can openers, but that is about all."
Sure, we can plunge headlong into the wilds equipped with modern copies of Kephart- and Nessmuk-pattern fixed-blades, along with duplicates of their axes and jackknives. Truth is, that wouldn't be a bad place to start -- but it's only a start.See, it's not heresy to differ with Nessmuk or to stray from Kephart's model. In fact, I contend that challenging these standards -- based on personal experience -- is the whole idea."I like to have...a four-inch blade and a smaller knife (fixed or folder) for fine work, and either a mini-axe or Golok. With that set, there isn't much that can't be accomplished -- from basic camp chores to shelter building.
"While I agree with the concept of the three-tool set (like Sears), I don't agree with his selection of cutting tools. In practice, I actually expand the three-tool set into four by carrying a small fixed-blade and a folder in my pocket. I can't imagine not having a folder in my pocket at all times."
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