What I love about my axe

There are few tools as elegant to me as an ax. (Or axe; I’ll take either one since they’re the same thing.)

I don’t want to go all tool-geek and get tool-esoteric (of course I do, are you kidding me?!) but for the “one tool on a desert island” question that popped up in HGTV Magazine, my answer is: “ax.”

Harvest food and fuel? Whack.

Build a cabin? Swing time.

Pound, split, smash? Bring the thunder.

For life in the woods like the Yukon Men on The Discovery Channel, a double-bit ax is the go-to tool. One blade (or bit) is honed for felling trees, the other for “swamping” (i.e. whacking at stuff like roots or other items near the ground.) But my “Yukon” is my backyard—and not a very big one at that. For me, that mostly means splitting wood, which I like to do with my ax because it’s light, small and fun to use.

I have a Fiskars felling axe—a straight-handled, elegantly compact tool with a keen bit and uber tough design that pays homage to the history and lore of a tool that, one might contend, built a continent. Unlike a long, heavy, dull, curved handle hardware-store hitter, the Fiskars has a straight handle and integrates the head with the ax-head so it’s unlikely that I’ll break it in my—or my kids’—lifetime.

Big enough to split a straight-grained, seasoned log and small enough to one-hand kindling, it’s a tool I wish I could use more often but one I am glad I get to use at all to harvest heat and happiness not from a far away land, but my own neighborhood, even if it is just for a cozy backyard blaze and not continent building.