I was most likely 23 years old before I had ever seen a single bit axe. My father bought me a double bit plumb brand cruisers axe when I was maybe in the sixth grade. I had been using his big double bits prior to that. The shorter 28 inch handles was just perfect fit for me then, as it is now. Back then, when we went camping, we always took one of the double bit axes, they were all we had. I grew up in Northern Minnesota, I suppose the double bit was the axe of choice, for the loggers in that area. The little town that I grew up near had at one time been know as the Cedar Capitol of the World. Along with the double bit axe we always took our 36 inch Swede saw too. These were the tools that we harvested our firewood at home with and they are what we knew. At home we cut the tree length firewood into blocks with a buzz saw mounted on the tractor. I doubt many parents today would let their child pitch blocks of wood, that were cut off by a whirling buzz saw blade a foot and a half away, while standing in a ever growing mound of saw dust.
I first saw a single bit axe when one summer when I was taking my first trips into the BWCA. During college summer vacation I had a summer job working in MN iron ore mines. I met a man there, who invited me to take a fishing trip with him, his son, and a couple of our co-workers. Bob had a Collins Hudson's Bay axe that we used that trip. I really liked it because it was light & sharp & had a 28 inch handle. I talked Bob into trading it to me for a Randall fighting knife, that I had bought while spending a year in Vietnam. The Randall was only good for stabbing thick chested men and small bears. Bob drove a hard bargain for that axe. He told me that it had been in his family for generations having the handle replaced ten times and the head twice!! I have replaced the handle a few times since, always with a 28 inch boys axe handle.
The only time I have camped since childhood, with the double bit axe was the spring that I trapped beaver with Bob. One week-end at the begining of the trapping season, we packed into the BWCA, to where we had earlier packed in a wall tent and stove along with the traps. We strung out some of traps up a drainage a few miles, then back to the cache. We then sledded our gear up a lake, to the outlet stream, where we set up the wall tent, spent the night. The next day we set traps near every beaver house on that lake, after which we hiked out of the woods. A few days later I returned alone, my Duluth pack lightly packed with food, sleeping bag and my childhood double bit axe. Bob had told me to go as far up the first creek that we had set traps on as I could. At the head of that creek was a small lake, where evening overtook me. I found the thickest grove of Balsam Fir I could and built a balsam bough lean-to in the middle. It was March which in MN is still late winter, and I knew I had to do a bunch of axe work, felling, limbing etc. nothing better for that than the double bit. The rest of that spring the double bit stayed in the lean-to to be used to rustle up a nights fire wood and to refresh our balsam bough bed. I now know that we are not allowed to make balsam bough beds and lean-tos but, I could never ever trade those nights for the worlds best hotel stays! We made a big loop of a trap line that started and ended at the lean-to. We would check those traps, then the ones between the lean-to and the main wall tent camp. At the main camp we had two other loops to surrounding lakes that each took a day to cover. I have never walked so much in my life, before or after, even on back packing trips. I also doubt that I have ever been in that fine of physical condition ever again. We caught 99 beavers that spring, along with 7-8 otters, sold them to the fur buyer and split the take. I loved the outdoor life of a trapper, but didn't like trapping.
BB
