have a look at the big knife that Byrd posted in my size V.S calories post.i'll bet that there are not 100 people in the USA who know how to really use that knife,it's just not a whopping big blade but a tool kit.at least that's what struck me when i first saw it.i had never really thought about these old trapper and traders knives much before outside of their being large butcher and wood choppers.now looking at Byrd's knife it comes to me thats it's sort of a Leatherman of it's day.just off the top of my head i'll bet it's made to be held with the edge tword you for gutting a big animal without cutting into the stomach,spleen and so on.the point besides used for small work could be used to carve or "drill" holes in planks,the rocker shape to the blade for mincing by rocking the blade over meat or whatever and bearing down on the back of the blade.scraping hides come to mind as well as sharping the blade so the back section is more like a ax and the forward part kept very sharp for cutting meat.
scaling a fish should be easy too.maybe i don't know much about knives and their history and use as i just use mine for camp chores on canoe trips but thats what came to me looking at that new copy of a old "work horse" knife. any ideas????

Hudson Bay and/or Green River knives were pretty much the quintessential blades of the early United States. The designs actually come from European butcher's knives, but they found favor with later American hunters and trappers (who were mostly of various European ancestry). They were meant to be reasonably priced work horses. Often they were sold/traded as bare blades, which an individual would then have to complete with handle scales (such as wood, antler, bone, metal, ect).

If you're familiar with skinning and quartering big game (especially in the field), you can see how those designs would be useful for that. In fact, you can still see similarities in modern butcher's knife designs.

Ontario knife works has an inexpensive line of knives known as the "Old Hickory" brand. Their designs date back to the late 1800's, which was towards the end of the major hunting/trapping/mountain man era. Still, they're quite similar to what was typical of that period. I'm sure a lot of Bison meat was prepared using knives almost identical to those in the Old hickory line. If you know who Nessmuk is, his knife of choice had a blade profile strikingly similar to an Old Hickory skinner with a broken and worn tip (Which, as many recognize, is a common occurrence in knives that lead a hard life).

Also worth noting, around the same time (mid-1800's), there was a 'Bowie knife' craze going on thanks to the newspaper report of Jim Bowie's Sandbar fight and other exploits. The original Bowie knife is lost to time, but was reported to be a large butcher's knife.

There are books written as to what that blade might have looked like, but more than likely it was a much simpler blade than what we recognize as a Bowie knife. Later commercialization and trends likely gave us features that would be appreciated in a fighting knife....like stronger blades and swaged clip points.

All in all, the knife Byrd posted looks like a modern interpretation of a Hudson Bay/Green River knife with a hint of Bowie thrown in for good measure. I bet it would have been well used and appreciated in the hands of a 19th century outdoorsman. I don't know how many people could truly put it to good use today, but I'm sure they're out there. Unfortunately, they're probably stereotyped as ignorant hillbillies. So, they likely don't get much opportunity to share their methodology and history with the general populace.

Paul..great post,lots of good solid info.i do know about the sandbar fight and i have Nessmuk's book.i always assumed that the last guy who knew how to get the most out of a "tool box" knife like that passed away 100 years ago,i hope i'm wrong.

I concur, often survival tools are misused or the skills evolved in using them correctly have been forgotten by most. A good survival knife (Big or Small) always has a flat top so that you can use a baton to make it 20x times as effective and reduce the calories you use.



The Baton makes a good knife better. Knife handling is a skill that must be practiced and you need to understand the correct techniques to use any survival tools well.

And Wedges Make a good baton better.