As a tree lover, I pay close attention to the wooden handle. To me, the best knives are of traditional Scandinavian design, because their handles — or scales — are made of wood. They can be carved, but most often the maker leaves them smooth for a comfortable grip and a quiet beauty.
The most cherished wood for scales comes from the birch tree. Although there are 40 species native to the Nordic region, artisans most often use Masur birch, which has luminous, creamy golden-colored wood, studded with dark speckles that create patterns like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.
Norwegian knifemakers love this wood for its beauty and workability — and for its low thermal conductivity. That makes the handle feel warmer than any other types of wood, a welcome property when gloves come off for work in the northland cold.
Masur birch grows in Karelia, a region that borders Finland and Russia. Early on, woodworkers thought that its hallmark streaks were created by larvae of a boring beetle.
But foresters now know that this wood patterning occurs in several birch species and is actually hereditary, a feature carried through a particular genetic line. It’s a short, slow-growing tree with distinctive bumps and ridges, and it appears that the wood is bursting and cracking out of the trunk.
Due to the strong demand from woodworkers, that trait has been identified in certain selected individuals which are now grown as clones in plantations, to ensure that special wood is created for makers of knives into the future.
When I hold such an object in my hand, I think about the ancestors of today’s Scandinavian knife-makers. They were the people who emerged when the last Ice Age receded, 12 millennia ago. These migratory hunter-gathers followed the movements of reindeer, salmon and seals, harvesting them with knives whose handles were made of the ancestors of the trees that grow there today, still cherished by their descendants.
