A Sharp Axe

Journal 2006 07 20
A Sharp Axe

Yesterday Sgt.’s Gass and Ordway met at the Great Falls of the Missouri as the Corps recorded its first successful rejoining of forces. The mosquitoes in the area of the Great Falls are much worse, or “troublesome” than last year. Today, both Sgt.’s record that after they test the ability of the horses to draw, or pull, their makeshift carts the horses are almost completely covered with mosquitoes and flies. Can you imagine? Clark also noted a long stretch where grasshoppers had stripped the land of vegetation. Insects. Almost invisible yet capable of vast destruction when massed in hordes.

Have you ever traveled cross country in a national park or wilderness area without a map, compass or gps? It is not easy to find each other if the woods are thick. We know the story of this expedition even as we reread it today, but it is still with a sense of relief that I read the journals of Gass and Ordway recording their finding of one another. I’ve been within two hundred yards of my friends hunting and realized that finding them is not as easy as it sounds. Especially when everyone is trying to remain stealthy.

Clark’s men are busy scouting for a tree big enough for a canoe. Finding none, they settle for building two small canoes and lashing them together to carry men and gear down river. The canoes will be 28 feet long, 16-18 inches deep and 16-24 inches wide. Long, low and narrow. These guys were good rivermen. In order to make the canoes Clark assigns the men to find choke cherry wood for handles to the axe heads the men carried. After that task is complete Clark “…had handles put in the 3 Axes and after Sharpening them with a file fell the two trees…” The men who will take the horses to the Mandan villages will let the horses rest their hooves while the men “will dress their Skins and make themselves Clothes to bare, as they are nearly naked.” And three other men returned from an attempt to retrieve four elk they killed earlier in the day. One elk hide was all they had to show for their efforts after their constant companions, the wolves, beat them to the kill and feasted.

Lewis records rough going for the horses “where it has been trodden by the buffaloe when wet has now become as firm as a brickbat and stands in an inumerable little points quite as formidable to our horses feet as the gravel.” Fewer mosquitoes probably because of less water. “…there is scarcely any water at present in the plains and what there is, lies in small pools and is so strongly impregnated with the mineral salts that it is unfit for any purpose except the uce of the buffaloe. these animals appear to prefer this water to that of the river.” Ever been around bad water? You don’t want to drink it. I took a bath in it several years back and still have the bacteria dogging my body. These guys didn’t have Sweetwater, Pur and MSR to make filters for them.

Three parties instead of four making their way east still makes for a lot of activity to sort through on these pages. My mind is rattling around several. Like bad water, good water and the water of life. Like the predators, the wolves, who are more opportunists and terrorists than predators. Like the mud dried into ankle busting tufts making travel difficult when only weeks before it had been wet and moldable. However, the thought that keeps jumping to the forefront is much simpler. I’m picturing Clark unwrapping three of several axe heads, fitting the handles and then using a file to restore a sharp edge. “If your ax is dull and you don't sharpen it, you have to work harder to use it. It is smarter to plan ahead.” (Ecclesiastes 10:10 GNB)

Hard work vs. smart work. Oh boy, do we have to go here? How many of us are working hard. Have we, as King Solomon said above, been smarter and planned ahead sharpening our tools before setting about our work? Speaking for myself, many times I just forge ahead and end up stopping work because I haven’t adequately thought ahead. My contractor friend, Dave Minor, can put a dollar value on the cost of forgetting to plan ahead. If he has to stop the work, run to Home Depot, buy the proper tool, and restart the job it decreases his profitability. It is easy to see the cost in this example.

How about the cost to our families, cities and nation if we don’t have the proper tools to fashion those items that allow us to advance under the protective banner of good government and infrastructure? Even if we have the proper tools do we take the time to hone their edges that our labor is efficient?

Could it be time for us to look at our work and ask God to show us where we need to stop, get the right tool, sharpen it properly so we can be productive in our work? When we see a good reward for our work it fuels us to do more. May we find the file and put a fine edge our axes that we might see advance.

Proceed on.