The first crooked knife I held was given to me by Michael Kohout, as I and some friends began helping him build his 25th birch bark canoe. I didn’t know what it was, had never seen one before, and did…
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  I often dream of doing things that have been done a million times before.  Actually, in general, that’s mostly what I want to do.   I’m not really into innovation, or discovery, or whatever.  I just want to walk on…
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I’ve been wanting to make a toboggan by scratch for a few years now. No power tools, no sawmills. Just hand tools – ax, draw knife, crooked knife, and hand plane primarily – and rawhide. My desire to make a toboggan…
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My finished snowshoes I am currently reading “The Survival of the Bark Canoe,” written by John McPhee in 1975, about Henri Vaillancourt, the most well-known modern birch bark canoe maker. I have been looking at it for many years, and…
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  About three weeks ago, I went to a shaded, mossy creek in far northeastern Minnesota to check on the sucker run.  Incredibly, there was still ice on the banks of the creek, so the water was still told cold…
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