Recognize that asking forum dwellers for knife advice is like asking a surgeon for surgical advice: you will be tend to be told that you need a very expensive one. Much of this land was pioneered with green river knives, an unadorned and metallurgically unsophisticated blade that seemed to do the job. Note the knife in askdamice's picture post to your right. Highly functional, carried by someone who seems to go into serious wilderness and has come out every time: not a boutique blade, i think, tho I may be wrong. Townsend Whelen carried a knife that he made out of a kitchen blade in his youth. It is lots of fun to talk about how many blacksmith angels can dance on the head of a san mai 3 layered steel blade-but the thrift shop kitchen knife will serve you well, and position you to make future purchases and join the ranks of the cash-poor, blade-rich community of which many of us are members.