Discovering a new breed: The Yakutian style knife

I have heard a lot about a mysterious kind of knife. It seems that these are very popular at the moment with the bushcraft crowd. It also seems that this style of knife originated in Siberia, with the indigenous people of the Yakuts. There seem to be a lot of dyed - in - the - wool bushcrafters swearing by it. Now there are some people who would call me the same, funny as it seems to me, but for the life of me-I had never heard of it until now. Now there is a bit of a special thing going on amongst bushcrafty people. Most of them are just awesome people enjoying nature in this our cozy wonderful way, helping each other and I daresay those are just and outright wonderful guys. (Not to forget the gals of course! 😁) But as is wont to be in these freakin weird times, there is also a lot of hype going on. So I was a bit sceptical. So many designs that were hyped as the next thing turned out to be just crap, especially those "survival" knives. To be fair, these Yakutian knives have little in common with those oversized shrapnels, and so I gave it a try. (wrote about it in a recent Post) 

Now this is a sort of Kunai I forged from an old file. Handle is just a wrapping of fox skin rawhide I got with permission of a local hunter. The fullers leave something to be desired, so to say, but it works. And it was enough to make me understand the type of knife. One side, the side with the fuller, is flat. The fuller in this case reduces friction and makes it easier to sharpen. The other side has a high convex bevel to zero. This layout makes for some really precise cutting and a smaller angle to the edge. Also it can be used similar to a Yarri - Kanna, a Japanese spear plane for traditional wood working. 

The layout got me somewhat intrigued enough to make a more traditional knife, too. I forged it from file steel, too, with a less conservative temper than on the Kunai, which will also be used in harvesting resin, digging and the odd digging for roots. 

 In the process I realized the similarities to Japanese knives. Now it seems to be that the indigenous people of the Siberian subcontinent have a lot in common with the indigenous people of Japan, the Ainu, so I think there will be some further research necessary. ☺️ I love that. 

Any which way, the knife needs a handle. So stay tuned!