Outdoor Sports and Games

by Claude Harris Miller

Some people think that to know woodcraft, we must take it up with a teacher, just as we might learn to play golf or tennis. It is quite different from learning a game. Most of what we learn, we shall have to teach ourselves. Of course we must profit from the experience and observation of others, but no man’s opinion can take the place of the evidence of our own eyes. A naturalist once told me that chipmunks never climb trees. I have seen a chipmunk on a tree so I know that he is mistaken. As a rule the natives in any section only know enough woods-lore or natural history to meet their absolute needs. Accurate observation is, as a rule, rare among country people unless they are obliged to learn from necessity. Plenty of boys born and raised in the country are ignorant of the very simplest facts of their daily experience. They could not give you the names of a dozen local birds or wildflowers or tell you the difference between a mushroom and a toadstool to save their lives.

The wilderness traveller

On the other hand, some country boys who have kept their ears and eyes open will know more about the wild life of the woods than people who attempt to write books about it; myself, for example. I have a boy friend up in Maine who can fell a tree as big around as his body in ten minutes, and furthermore he can drop it in any direction that he wants to without leaving it hanging up in the branches of some other tree or dropping it in a soft place where the logging team cannot possibly haul it out without miring the horses. The stump will be almost as clean and flat as a saw-cut. This boy can also build a log cabin, chink up the cracks with clay and moss and furnish it with benches and tables that he has made, with no other tools than an axe and a jack-knife. He can make a rope out of a grape-vine or patch a hole in his birch bark canoe with a piece of bark and a little spruce gum. He can take you out in the woods and go for miles with never a thought of getting lost, tell you the names of the different birds and their calls, what berries are good to eat, where the partridge nests or the moose feeds, and so on. If you could go around with him for a month, you would learn more real woodcraft than books could tell you in a lifetime. And this boy cannot even read or write and probably never heard the word “woodcraft.” His school has been the school of hard knocks. He knows these things as a matter of course just as you know your way home from school. His father is a woodchopper and has taught him to take care of himself.

If you desire to become a good woodsman, the first and most important thing is to learn to use an axe. Patent folding hatchets are well enough in their way, but for real woodchopping an axe is the only thing. One of four pounds is about the right weight for a beginner. As it comes from the store, the edge will be far too thick and clumsy to do good work. First have it carefully ground by an expert and watch how he does it.

If I were a country boy I should be more proud of skilful axemanship than to be pitcher on the village nine. With a good axe, a good rifle, and a good knife, a man can take care of himself in the woods for days, and the axe is more important even than the rifle.

The easiest way to learn to be an axeman is to make the acquaintance of some woodchopper in your neighbourhood. But let me warn you. Never ask him to lend you his axe. You would not be friends very long if you did. You must have one of your own, and let it be like your watch or your toothbrush, your own personal property.

A cheap axe is poor economy. The brightest paint and the gaudiest labels do not always mean the best steel. Your friend the woodchopper will tell you what kind to buy in your neighbourhood. The handle should be straight-grained hickory and before buying it you will run your eye along it to see that the helve is not warped or twisted and that there are no knots or bad places in it. The hang of an axe is the way the handle or helve is fitted to the head. An expert woodchopper is rarely satisfied with the heft of an axe as it comes from the store. He prefers to hang his own. In fact, most woodchoppers prefer to make their own axe handles.

You will need a stone to keep a keen edge on the axe. No one can do good work with a dull blade, and an edge that has been nicked by chopping into the ground or hitting a stone is absolutely inexcusable.

To chop a tree, first be sure that the owner is willing to have it chopped. Then decide in which direction you wish it to fall. This will be determined by the kind of ground, closeness of other trees, and the presence of brush or undergrowth. When a tree has fallen the woodchopper’s work has only begun. He must chop off the branches, cut and split the main trunk, and either make sawlogs or cordwood lengths. Hence the importance of obtaining a good lie for the tree.