There is no more fundamental frontier tool than the axe. From the Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi River and from the Rockies to the Pacific Shore, this was the implement that shaped America. A professional woodsman has written a loving tribute to this fine tool, and it’s going to have to find a place on the Frontier Partisan Bookshelf. Are you listening, Badass Santa?
In the hands of lumberjacks, homesteaders, farmers, and foresters, the axe forged a path to a new way of life in North America. This simple tool — “a wedge with an edge” — cleared forest for farmland, delivered raw materials for housing and heat, and fueled the fires of industry. Explore the axe’s fascinating evolution from colonial innovation to today’s collectors’ obsession, from a hand-forged workhorse to a sleek modern specimen, from a weapon in wartime to a recreational pastime.
He’s a lumberjack and he’s OK…
Brett McLeod is the author of American Axe and The Woodland Homestead and an avid axe collector and restorer. Before becoming a forestry professor and coach of the woodsmen’s team at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondack Park, he was a professional competitive lumberjack in the Stihl Ironjack Series and competed in the Stihl Timbersports Collegiate Series. He lives in northern New York with his wife and his collection of 200 vintage axes.
I have a splitting maul, but my only axe is a Scandinavian hunter’s axe — a hatchet. It is a prized tool in my kit, perfect to lash to the pack. I’ve long had my eye on the Gränsfors Bruk American Felling Axe. It’s based on an American colonial pattern — an authentic Frontier Partisan tool.
I could easily start getting obsessed with axes. Oh, yes I could…
Paul McNamee says
There is something to be said for–and also something intangible about–the elegance of a simple tool. Their simplicity belies their versatility.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Oh, boy. Another one for the bookshelf. I, however, already have numerous axes, of multiple lengths and “power.” And a maul as well. Obtained over pretty much a lifetime of camping, plus for chopping the wood for the fires in the chimenea in the backyard. This makes me realize, however, that with all those axes I need to move to the backwoods!
Melodious Thunk says
Axes are getting a real work-out in Alone (History Channel) which I am steadily getting into,
love the “mouse guy”, very funny.
(got a bit of “curio” for ya: the strange case of William Anker_Red Dog)
J.F. Bell says
To paraphrase James Jones in From Here to Eternity, the three most beautiful utilitarian inventions of the American nation were the wood ax, the clipper ship, and the 1903 Springfield.
You might be able to add one or two in the decades since, but he may have a point.
Melodious Thunk says
Fender Telecaster !
Quixotic Mainer says
I think it was Mors Kochanski that said; “You can survive with a knife, but with an axe you can live like a king.” My friend has an amazing double bit axe, the head of which he found up in the big timber and restored.
Up until recently you could get locally made Snow and Neally pack axes, they are real treasures now.
JimC says
You are from the country of the axe.
Quixotic Mainer says
Yessir! During my post undergrad yondering years, I learned was how to sharpen an axe on a grinding wheel while working as an guide’s assistant. A favorite trick guides would pull for sports involved using a very sharp axe to prepare lunch, dicing up onions and taters. Good clean fun.
wayne says
I’m confident that with my vintage Plumb belt axe and Marble’s pocket hatchet I could build a new world.
tom says
an axe or in my case a hatchet needs a good handle. i’ve been using one of my hatchets since 1976 with a “custom” handle. it has never loosened. the handle is homemade from a very hardwood native to the sonoran desert, una de gato or catclaw. my hispanic father in law on one of the many trips i took him on in the desert, had me stop once while he cut about a 15 inch straight piece of the catclaw with a diameter about 4 or 5 inches. he had no power tools and hewed and rasped the product by hand. catclaw is not only dense but colorful. the color matches the book cover axe handle presented here.