Axes, Trees and Consciousness
Zachary Davis

   A short light metallic scrape sounds, similar to the noise a fingernail makes when drawn quickly over
a chalkboard, as Alexandra lifts the latch of the stove's door and takes a quick glance at the fire. She selects
a few pieces of dry spruce from the neatly stacked pile to the left of the stove and tosses them through the
stove's door and onto the bed of hot coals. A quick push with a finger to align one better and she shuts the
door. The pot of water increases its sputtering and hissing as it feels the heat of the new dry spruce. Along
with the thick smell of bacon and the lighter smell of spruce boughs, is just a hint of the sharp tangy smell
of wood smoke that escaped as the fire was fed. Those smells combine with fluffy down sleeping bags and
wool socks to create contentment while staring out into a world of rolling hills covered in powdery snow
and spruce trees. It is March in central Labrador. The thermometer reads twenty degrees Fahrenheit and
there is six feet of snow on the ground. The sun is emerging from the crest of the hill and is beginning to
cast shadows of alder branches on the tent's canvas walls. I push the door flap aside and breath the cold
thin air. Smoke has just begun to rise from the other tent's stovepipe and people are waking up.

   What is a group of middle and upper class white Americans doing in thin canvas tents in Northeastern
Canada in the winter, burning one hundred or so year old trees to keep themselves warm? I don't
know if I should even try to defend our position but maybe I can try to state it. We are seeking adventure
and also escape, from the fast paced world of industry and computers and the noise of progress. Many of
the participants on the trip are searching for time to just be. They have fit this trip into their busy schedule
to give themselves time to think. The five guests invested over $3,000 each in this trip, and about $500 of
that was in personal gear. They did this because they wanted to go on vacation and escape into a simpler
way of life for a few weeks? The whole thing seems kind of ridiculous. Shopping carts full of food, a 12
hour drive north (from central Maine), hotel rooms, diners, airports, a 12 hour train ride, all this to escape?
Some of the guests are interested in the culture and landscape of the Quebec North Shore. Some want to
see caribou and northern lights. Others hope to see Naskapi or Montagnais families being let off the train
at trackside to get on their snowmobiles and zoom off into the bush with their wool lined canvas hats,
brightly embroidered with ric-rac, creating a streak of color in the otherwise bleak landscape. The five
guests as well as the two guides and myself are out here for many reasons and some reasons we can't really
put into words. That is my explanation as to why we are here in thin canvas tents in the winter, but that
doesn't explain what this trip has to do with human ecology and why I have chosen to write about it.

   This is one of the many trips that Alexandra and Garrett Conover (graduates of COA) lead each
year as part of their guide service. I am doing my internship with them to learn about guiding and how
and why they use canvas tents, titanium stoves, pack baskets, wood and canvas canoes, and hand carved
canoe paddles, as opposed to the modern synthetic options. One might say this trip is not very ecological.
We are in fact cutting down and burning old trees and we keep our eyes out for ptarmigan to kill and eat.
We used many gallons of gas to get here. On the way up here we ate food that was cheap and laden with chemicals. Because of this trip we have contributed to the unsustainable actions of humans. If they are not
sustainable are they ecological? I doubt it. If they are not ecological could they be human ecological?

   I think human ecology has more to do with being informed and conscious about the choices and
their implications rather than the actual choice itself. It is focused more on process rather than product.
Thinking about the positive and negative aspects of a decision compared to another is what I think is the
essence of human ecology. Any decision that affects any life on earth can be thought of in a human ecological
way. I would say that a human ecological decision is one that much of the time is ecological as well but
that it is not required to be ecological. The outcome also would most likely contain the least harm for the
greatest good. Take the Labrador trip for example. We used many resources transporting the group up and
back from Labrador but when in Labrador we probably used much less resources than we do in our day-today
life. There are ways in which to compare these resources used, one being the ecological footprint
method, but I tend to think that life is too complicated even in a purely energy type way to compare and
make generalizations. Thinking about the trip in a human ecological way could involve thinking about what
a trip would give me or why I wanted to go on the trip. It could be thinking about the fact that we as white
people from the US will be traveling across the land of a people totally different from our own and the
implications that has. How will the Naskapi or the Montagnais feel having us tromp around in their backyard?
How will we feel tromping around in their woods knowing that they will never tromp around in the
woods behind our houses? The outcome of the decision to go on the trip does not govern whether the decision
was human ecological. The way the decision was reached contains the human ecology aspect of the
decision and in the reaching of the decision and weighing of the outcome human ecology would be practiced.

   Many of the aspects of the decision I thought about had to do with how the trip itself was carried
out. The Conovers use equipment and ways that emphasize connection with the natural world and respect
for all cultures. They choose natural fibers whenever they find it practical (which is most of the time) and
items that are easily repairable and will provide many years of use. In the buying of these products they like
to support companies or individuals who have similar values to theirs. The use of lightweight trail stoves
and axes are a good example of that. On the Labrador trip we brought along two wood burning box
stoves. When the stoves are packed up all the stovepipe, legs and accessories fit inside the stove so the stove
itself makes a nice little bundle that fits well lashed on the back of a toboggan. The stove, in total, weighs
only fifteen pounds because it is made from titanium. As well as cutting down on weight, compared to steel,
the titanium enables the stove to last longer without melting and getting too thin to have a fire in anymore.
Those particular titanium stoves have been around for about eight years, and so far none have burned out.
A steel stove that is similar would burn out after three years of guiding use. A man in Minnesota welds the
titanium stoves. The Conovers know him by his first name and have visited his shop. The stoves are a quality
product and the purchasing of them creates a personal connection for the Conovers. The titanium stove
costs twice as much as a steel stove but for the Conovers it is well worth the extra money.

   We carried those stoves both for heating the tents during the time we were awake in the tents, and
for cooking our food and purifying water. As well as accomplishing cutting down the gear we brought, they
also allowed us to carry less food because we could relax in comfortable temperatures each evening in the
tents and therefore burn fewer calories compared to using food as our sole heat source. To fuel those stoves
we cut standing deadwood, primarily black spruce that porcupines had chewed the bark off to eat the soft
layer of tissue just under the bark. If the bark is chewed all the way around the tree, which porcupines usually
do, the tree dies. To cut those trees down the group carried two lightweight trail axes made for chopping
down three to four inch trees and splitting them into firewood.

   The axes we used are hand forged in Sweden by a company that has been in business since 1902.
Seven smiths work in the smithy of this company and each head that a smith forges he stamps with his initials.
One would hope that this would imply a well-made product with personal integrity involved. The
company believes in ...#339;Total Quality." Working conditions, quality of the product, and concern for nature
are some of what they say make up their responsibility for total quality. If well cared for, the axe should last
a lifetime even if used quite often. Over the course of its life it will need to be sharpened using a small file
and a pocket oilstone. The leather sheath might need to be mended at some point and the handle might
need an occasional oiling, but if those small tasks are attended to the axe will always serve its owner well.
The wood that they use for the handles is American Hickory and probably is not grown in Sweden. Does it
make sense that in order to buy a good quality trail axe it has to be shipped from Sweden?

   This combination of axe and stove enabled us to burn wood and therefore caused us to have direct connection and interaction with resource extraction. We chose the trees that we cut. We chopped them and
turned them into fuel for our stoves. The stoves warmed us and cooked our food. I have never been on an
outdoor trip that was as long as the trip to Labrador where there was no use of oil-based fuel. I have also
never been on a winter trip where I have been as comfortable. For this trip to be as pleasurable and meaningful
as it was, much thought had to go into its design. In every situation one encounters decisions and
each decision that is made has positive as well as negative consequences. The same decision is rarely right
for everyone. Thought must be given to the outcomes and the options weighed. If we do that in our daily
lives we can create a life for ourselves that contains meaning and fulfillment, creating a world full of connection
and awareness.