In the early 1970s I
was living in Southern Michigan spending most of my free time wandering the
deciduous forests and visiting the few people I could find knowledgeable in
primitive technologies. I was supposed
to be in college but found traditional education boring and, besides, I was of
the type who preferred being left alone to read in a library than to sit and
endure a professor’s lecture. Having
grown up in the Dark Ages when kids had to make their own fun instead of buying
it at the store or fixated to some computer game I built my own push carts and
model rockets and made knives and tomahawks (I grew up next to a blacksmith
shop) and as a teenager I roamed the woods learning to identify native plants, hunt
and track animals, and everything I could on woodcraft and primitive skills.
But oh how I wish I
could have met César Newashish. César
was a Cree Indian who made birch bark canoes. And just to think that when the
following film of him making one of his canoes was made I was living only a few
hundred miles to the south. I could have
driven to his home in a day. Maybe he
would have allowed me to watch him make a canoe. Perhaps I might have even been given a chance
to help. If you watch the film, then
please note his expertise at using a crooked knife. Also note that he uses no sophisticated
electronic machinery but only hand tools.
His equipment consists of a pocketknife, a butcher’s knife, a handsaw,
hand drill, hammer, awl, axe, and his crooked knife. His crooked knife looks traditional in that
the blade appears attached to the handle with cordage and the blade itself was
probably a mill file annealed, shaped, heat treated and then tempered into a
knife. The “crook” looks well used. The handle is crude and seems to have been
made from a piece of board. The blade
length looks around 4.5 inches or thereabouts.
Actually, I think he was using two crooked knives in the film. One of the knives seems to have been made
from a six-inch mill file and the other from an eight-inch mill file. See if you can tell the difference. Some have suggested he might have used two
pocketknives but I have not seen that when I’ve watched the film. Some years back I ordered the DVD and I have
watched the documentary dozens of times.
I learn something new each time I watch.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
You can watch the film
here:
Or here:
