Knife Sharpening Using Traditional Methods: Visit to Newfoundland

Hello,
I've been travelling in Newfoundland for the last 10 days and had the opportunity to see and sharpen a lot of hard working knives. The place I stayed was a small fishing community called Ming's Bight, when I say small, I mean a population of 400. This is common for the province of Newfoundland though, a lot of small communities and all filled with very friendly people.

As you can see, the place is quite beautiful and I went out fishing one day right in the spot of this photo, fishing for cod.

As you may know, I have always firmly believed that men, most men, have all had the urge and the need to sharpen a knife or a tool and in the case of places like this it is a need. The fella I went out with has been fishing in this exact same spot for 38 years and every day he comes back and cleans the fish, 2 feet from where I was standing. So knives are important of course and I can honestly say that I didn't see one sharp knife, I mean one that was really nice and sharp.

When I wake up, every day, the first thing I think about, (besides coffee) is knife sharpening, so that urge I felt over 35 years ago has long ago developed into an obsession and obsession leads to discovery and eventually a skill at whatever it is one is obsessed with. In the case of my new friend, the passion is fishing and making a living from it and knowing where the fish are. The last thing he thinks about is sharpening the knives he uses daily. When I asked him what he sharpened his knife with he showed me a Steel, a well worn steel that, as we know does not make a dull knife sharp.

When we got back to the dock to clean the fish he took out a dexter boning knife and went to work and kept commenting on how the edge was gone. I suspect that this is a common them at the multitude of communities like this.

Now the one thing they do share is beauty, truly majestic scenery and I was in awe at the scenes that unfolded before me.

Anyway, we talked knife sharpening and of course I had my water stones with me and they were fascinated by the process. They just didn't know the process, what was involved, what a burr was. It was all pretty cool and I managed to get about 15 knives done, a lot of them hunting knives. (Moose hunting season was just a week away)

Now some of them wanted to buy water stones and I told them I would guide them but it's a lot to deal with. We are not talking about using a $150.00 knife on 4 fish, they are using knives ranging in price from $2.00 to $40.00 and cleaning 15 to 500 fish, a day. So the edge is going to fail despite a persons best efforts, keeping on top of it will be a challenge.