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Woodcrafting is mostly advice aimed at the lumberjack or forest ranger, rather than the ultra light wilderness hiker.

Axe, froe and hand maul, beetle, wedge, brush hook, adze, two man crosscut saws, (AKA misery whips, don’t drag your feet ), hand brush hook, Pulaski’s, sawbucks and bucksaws, draw knife and shaving horse, barking spud and crooked knife, and yes, a smaller personal knife was carried.

This was written in the days when old fashioned logging was a pragmatic business. Set up a camp, build a bunkhouse and tool shed and camp kitchen, make everything you can from the materials at hand. You had to, because labor was still cheaper than materials. Buying stuff cost the company money. The right tool for the job, without unnecessary ornature, was the rule.

I understand this way of thinking because I used to make my living in construction. By my day the work was high tech compared to working in the woods in the 1940’s. But the hard line pragmatism was identical.
Thanks for the info, Implume. Good stuff! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I read a biography of a couple who retired to live in the Main woods in the ‘60’s. The husband once took a job for a logging outfit, rafting logs down the river to a sawmill. The company hired an old logger to ramrod the operation. At one point somebody dropped a peavey, and it fell between the logs. The innocent newcomers hesitated to recover it, amidst the boiling whitewater. All they saw was finger-smashing danger. The sourdough would have no truck with such nonsense. “Don’t let it get away! That cost the company money!”