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Saw this article that asks "Where Have All the Axes Gone?". Seemed like a decnt read for fans of the axe.
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Article about the axe
- Thread starter Sharp Steel
- Start date
Thank you for this! The author definitely did his homework. Good read although it gets overly philosophical here and there. Certainly homesteaders of 200-300 years ago would have been very possessive of their axes because without one progress, building, land clearing and cooking/heating would have slowed down to a crawl.
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It's a good read. I think the philosophical question is important given the state of the world today. With the question of danger, you can see that if people do not experience danger directly they will often force its indirect experience: drugs, gambling, promiscuous sex, etc.
As well, a lot of lumbermen at the end of their lives had a deep feeling of disgust for what the lumber industry had become. Their comments that the industry had turned to 'destroying the world' certainly cannot be solely attributed to their loss of work either. Machines like tree harvesters can be horrifying. There is something not quite right about this sort of technology, there is no potential for human experience with such a machine. Skill is reduced, along with the connection to the object ('vade mecum' they call it in the essay), while destructive potential is maximised. They are basically world-destroying machines.
For those of us interested in axes, the lumber industry, homesteading, etc. I think it is important to consider what these lumbermen felt with the loss of their work. Many of them were declared redundant, rendered obsolete, much like the axes which have largely wasted away for 40 years in barrels, fields, and collapsing barns. The lumbersexuals are like the husk of these men, picked up off the ground without a thought or care. It's a bit of an insult really.
That's not to say that the lumber industry and the axe should be romanticised. As Alexis de Toqueville wrote of them,
"The bell which the pioneers hang round the necks of their cattle, in order to find them again in the woods, announced our approach to a clearing, when we were yet a long way off; and we soon afterwards heard the stroke of the hatchet, hewing down the trees of the forest. As we came nearer, traces of destruction marked the presence of civilized man; the road was strewn with shattered boughs; trunks of trees, half consumed by fire, or cleft by the wedge, were still standing in the track we were following. We continued to proceed till we reached a wood in which all the trees seemed to have been suddenly struck dead; in the height of summer their boughs were as leafless as in winter; and upon closer examination we found that a deep circle had been cut round the bark, which, by stopping the circulation of the sap, soon kills the tree."
Much of the destructive nature of technology is within man himself, employed by the techniques he uses. In other words, saving power itself can become dangerous, which is opposed to much of what the article is saying. It is a bit ironic that the article ends with a line about smartphones and how all we must do is treat today's technology as if it were an axe: carry it with us at all times, adapt to the dangers of its use, depend upon it to live, and develop a lifelong connection to it. None of these things are possible with a phone, nor any technology today really. Most objects are now throwaways, they arrive and then become obsolete so quickly that we are left in shock. We can have no connection to the objects and are left with a neverending cycle of connecting only to this displacement, the replacement of one object for another.
I think we see this a lot in bushcraft. For most people there is more time and effort put into skillfully consuming bushcraft items than actually going into the bush or learning how to use those items. A knife or an axe gets used once and then is forgotten in favour of consuming a new object, researching it, finding it, waiting for it to arrive in the mail, testing it, storing it or selling it, and on and on. One is always preparing for the adventure, but never in it.
Individuals like Heidegger, Tolstoy, and Thoreau warned of this problem 100-200 years ago, and now we are all living it. They all advocated something of a return to peasant lifestyles, even adopting the dress and abandoning much of their intellectual lifestyles. They were all looking for deep meaning, or as Thoreau put it, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
I don't know that this is the answer. Many of them did this because they felt something was lost, and there is an aspect of nostalgia to their acts as well, they essentially exaggerated the feeling and importance of their acts as it was not something they had directly experienced themselves. It wasn't a practical necessity for them, they elevated the 'saving power' into a dangerous concept, which in many ways gave way to the nostalgia and hipsterism so prevalent today. Christopher McCandless may be the best example of this, his story is so romanticised that the spiritual power of change essentially buries any sense of knowledge and skill. For him, the saving power of danger was so great that he invited it, and then forgot about it, no longer cared where it came from or how he should respond to it. And he basically sacrificed himself to nature.
Common men don't tend to romanticise their work, or even living in nature, it is simply something they are thrown into and experience every day while making the best of it. It can be just as ugly as it is beautiful. And similarly, the axe is not romanticised as an object except by those who do not use them, or those who want more than just their superficial use but don't know how to go about it. This essay about axes is much like the Best Made axes, just a decoration for someone who feels a lack of experience with the axe, but enjoys the idea of it, or the elevated feeling it gives him. Little practical use until it gets torn up a little.
Mors Kochanski has a better perspective of the axe. It is used precisely because it is the most important tool of the northern woods. And further, because of its importance you can only ever learn to survive without an axe after becoming an expert with the axe. This is not meant to be philosophical, it is more his straightforward and pragmatic outlook. But there is a Platonic similarity, as in "I know that I know nothing." It is a strange perspective as it seems contradictory. The axe is the most important object but the ultimate goal would be to learn how to live without it. It is the most important object but you should be able to go without. This perspective means that the axe is neither a fetishised object, nor a throwaway; and nor is it just an in-between 'I could take it or leave it.' It is simply an object best used to advance one's skills and better one's experience when living in the bush, and to progress towards surviving in the woods without any technological needs. To become neutral to the woods environment without destroying it or it destroying you.
It is both ugly and beautiful. It saves us and relegates us to a relationship of dependence. Reminds us that if we do not master it we will never truly be skilled. And the same if we continue to depend on it. It is a give and take. And I think that perspective is quite opposed to Heidegger and Thoreau, and even what the author of this essay says.
Hopefully that makes sense. I didn't want to get too philosophical, those are just my thoughts after reading the essay.
As well, a lot of lumbermen at the end of their lives had a deep feeling of disgust for what the lumber industry had become. Their comments that the industry had turned to 'destroying the world' certainly cannot be solely attributed to their loss of work either. Machines like tree harvesters can be horrifying. There is something not quite right about this sort of technology, there is no potential for human experience with such a machine. Skill is reduced, along with the connection to the object ('vade mecum' they call it in the essay), while destructive potential is maximised. They are basically world-destroying machines.
For those of us interested in axes, the lumber industry, homesteading, etc. I think it is important to consider what these lumbermen felt with the loss of their work. Many of them were declared redundant, rendered obsolete, much like the axes which have largely wasted away for 40 years in barrels, fields, and collapsing barns. The lumbersexuals are like the husk of these men, picked up off the ground without a thought or care. It's a bit of an insult really.
That's not to say that the lumber industry and the axe should be romanticised. As Alexis de Toqueville wrote of them,
"The bell which the pioneers hang round the necks of their cattle, in order to find them again in the woods, announced our approach to a clearing, when we were yet a long way off; and we soon afterwards heard the stroke of the hatchet, hewing down the trees of the forest. As we came nearer, traces of destruction marked the presence of civilized man; the road was strewn with shattered boughs; trunks of trees, half consumed by fire, or cleft by the wedge, were still standing in the track we were following. We continued to proceed till we reached a wood in which all the trees seemed to have been suddenly struck dead; in the height of summer their boughs were as leafless as in winter; and upon closer examination we found that a deep circle had been cut round the bark, which, by stopping the circulation of the sap, soon kills the tree."
Much of the destructive nature of technology is within man himself, employed by the techniques he uses. In other words, saving power itself can become dangerous, which is opposed to much of what the article is saying. It is a bit ironic that the article ends with a line about smartphones and how all we must do is treat today's technology as if it were an axe: carry it with us at all times, adapt to the dangers of its use, depend upon it to live, and develop a lifelong connection to it. None of these things are possible with a phone, nor any technology today really. Most objects are now throwaways, they arrive and then become obsolete so quickly that we are left in shock. We can have no connection to the objects and are left with a neverending cycle of connecting only to this displacement, the replacement of one object for another.
I think we see this a lot in bushcraft. For most people there is more time and effort put into skillfully consuming bushcraft items than actually going into the bush or learning how to use those items. A knife or an axe gets used once and then is forgotten in favour of consuming a new object, researching it, finding it, waiting for it to arrive in the mail, testing it, storing it or selling it, and on and on. One is always preparing for the adventure, but never in it.
Individuals like Heidegger, Tolstoy, and Thoreau warned of this problem 100-200 years ago, and now we are all living it. They all advocated something of a return to peasant lifestyles, even adopting the dress and abandoning much of their intellectual lifestyles. They were all looking for deep meaning, or as Thoreau put it, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
I don't know that this is the answer. Many of them did this because they felt something was lost, and there is an aspect of nostalgia to their acts as well, they essentially exaggerated the feeling and importance of their acts as it was not something they had directly experienced themselves. It wasn't a practical necessity for them, they elevated the 'saving power' into a dangerous concept, which in many ways gave way to the nostalgia and hipsterism so prevalent today. Christopher McCandless may be the best example of this, his story is so romanticised that the spiritual power of change essentially buries any sense of knowledge and skill. For him, the saving power of danger was so great that he invited it, and then forgot about it, no longer cared where it came from or how he should respond to it. And he basically sacrificed himself to nature.
Common men don't tend to romanticise their work, or even living in nature, it is simply something they are thrown into and experience every day while making the best of it. It can be just as ugly as it is beautiful. And similarly, the axe is not romanticised as an object except by those who do not use them, or those who want more than just their superficial use but don't know how to go about it. This essay about axes is much like the Best Made axes, just a decoration for someone who feels a lack of experience with the axe, but enjoys the idea of it, or the elevated feeling it gives him. Little practical use until it gets torn up a little.
Mors Kochanski has a better perspective of the axe. It is used precisely because it is the most important tool of the northern woods. And further, because of its importance you can only ever learn to survive without an axe after becoming an expert with the axe. This is not meant to be philosophical, it is more his straightforward and pragmatic outlook. But there is a Platonic similarity, as in "I know that I know nothing." It is a strange perspective as it seems contradictory. The axe is the most important object but the ultimate goal would be to learn how to live without it. It is the most important object but you should be able to go without. This perspective means that the axe is neither a fetishised object, nor a throwaway; and nor is it just an in-between 'I could take it or leave it.' It is simply an object best used to advance one's skills and better one's experience when living in the bush, and to progress towards surviving in the woods without any technological needs. To become neutral to the woods environment without destroying it or it destroying you.
It is both ugly and beautiful. It saves us and relegates us to a relationship of dependence. Reminds us that if we do not master it we will never truly be skilled. And the same if we continue to depend on it. It is a give and take. And I think that perspective is quite opposed to Heidegger and Thoreau, and even what the author of this essay says.
Hopefully that makes sense. I didn't want to get too philosophical, those are just my thoughts after reading the essay.
Square_peg
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Let's not forget the other ritual of first time axe owners - writing and/or filming an 'expert review' after using & owning the tool for 30 minutes.
And it's a good thing I read that article because I didn't realize the Mann Edge Tool made axe patterns called the Black Raven and Perfect. That's new to me. I'll keep an eye out for those.
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It's too bad there are no references. But I saw this book mentioned in the comments, "Boys Book of Woodcraft". Sounded pretty good from the description.
Let's not forget the other ritual of first time axe owners - writing and/or filming an 'expert review' after using & owning the tool for 30 minutes.
And it's a good thing I read that article because I didn't realize the Mann Edge Tool made axe patterns called the Black Raven and Perfect. That's new to me. I'll keep an eye out for those.
yeah, i had to laugh reading that last night. i disagree with 300... if he did his homework on this, i imagine he probably didnt do well in school... typical modern "writer" bull****ing his was through life. todays eggspurts... ha!
i did thoroughly enjoy chignectos words though.
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Good readings, thank you. I do believe I should've stayed in school a little longer, some english words looks greek to me! 
I found this piece very thoughtful.
"Woodchopping exemplifies a form of attention often ignored and even denigrated in a world enamored by technology as a means to an end."
I found this piece very thoughtful.
"Woodchopping exemplifies a form of attention often ignored and even denigrated in a world enamored by technology as a means to an end."
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Ok article. First point is the error in reference to Mann Edge Tool Co and the date - they started in 1892-93 after Joseph Mann left AATCo. I sent him an email and let him know.
Axe misinformation at this time in society is rampant. On the instagram "Axe and Tool Works" companies or guys that I follow that "restore" axes, I would say none of them have any axe knowledge besides being able to clean up a head and mount it on a haft and make it pretty. Shame really.
Axe misinformation at this time in society is rampant. On the instagram "Axe and Tool Works" companies or guys that I follow that "restore" axes, I would say none of them have any axe knowledge besides being able to clean up a head and mount it on a haft and make it pretty. Shame really.
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I though it was interesting how they mentioned that the Eurpoean axes were considered insufficient for the wood growing on the American Frontier. Requiring a different design.