The axe is the one necessary tool of the woodsmen; the axe occupies the
same position to the wilderness man that the chest of tools does to the
carpenter; with the axe the woodsman cuts his firewood; with the axe he
makes his traps; with the axe he splits the shakes, clapboards, slabs
and shingles from the balsam tree, or other wood which splits readily,
and with the shakes, clapboards, or slabs he shingles the roof of his
hogan, his barabara, or makes the framework to his sod shack or his
dugout, or with them builds the foundation of a bogken. With his axe he
cuts the birch for his birch bark pontiac, for his lean-to or his log
cabin. Without an axe it is most difficult for one to even build a raft
or to fell a tree to get the birch bark for one's canoe, or to "fall"
the tree to make a dugout canoe. A tree may be felled by fire, as the
Indians of old used to "fall" them, but this takes a wearisome time.