Fiskars Norden N10 | Expert Review by Dk Thomas Outside

My name is Thomas Martzak, but you might know me from my Instagram account where I am known as Dk Thomas Outside. I am a Danish woodsman who finds joy and peace in the woods after a long day at work. I learned that you only have to carry out a couple of small tasks in order to end up enjoying a nice warm fire and something warm to drink and eat.

These ‘small tasks’, however, can only be carried out if you have access to the right tools. Yes a knife and a saw often play a large role, but the most essential tool when spending time in the woods is an axe! I bought my first axe 2.5 years ago. A small hatchet made by a Swedish brand. I saw it, fell in love and the rest is history. It is basically how my passion started. The Swedes are (world)renowned for making great axes. They use old forging methods and wooden handles and are basically producing axes the way they have been produced for thousands of years.

I have known the brand Fiskars my entire adult life and I can honestly say that my 15-year old bread knife is still razor-sharp. Throughout the years I came across a lot of Fiskars axes on the internet, on television and in hardware stores. But I never owned one. However, when my son came of age I decided I wanted to teach him all about axe skills and safety and got him a small orange Fiskars axe. We trained together and today it is his axe when we go camping.

I was approached by Fiskars and Knivesandtools to try out the brand-new Fiskars Norden Axe. There are a million ways to test an axe like this, but I am a woodsman and I do not like to overcomplicate things so I simply ran to the woods with my son as my camera man.

First impressions

The Fiskars Norden axe looks nothing like a regular Fiskars axe. It does have the strong metal head, but the handle is new. Fiskars produced a handle completely made from Hickory wood. Hickory is very hard, stiff, dense and shock resistant. There are a couple types of wood that are stronger than hickory and types that are harder. The combination, however, of strength, toughness, hardness and stiffness is not found in any other type of wood. It was a welcome change and brought the axe to a whole new level. It has a nice swell knob to make sure the axe stays in your hand when you are working with it.

The edge

I put the Fiskars Norden to the test after I dug up a large dense log of an ash tree. First I cut it into 5-7 smaller pieces after which I went to work. I always place a piece of wood on a large tree stump and kneel before it. Axe safety 101. If I miss, the axe will always hit the dirt instead of my leg.  The head of the Fiskars axe is wider on top than the head of a traditional Swedish axe. This aspect, combined with the sharpness of the edge makes the axe blast through the dense ash tree with ease. I was surprised to see how easy it was to use this axe and felt myself smile during the entire process. I split thick logs of ash wood and small kindling with the Fiskars Norden and it had no trouble carrying out anything I threw at it. The axe is razor-sharp upon delivery – this is very important when you are talking about axes in general and also great because it means you don’t have to sharpen it.

The design

The head of the axe is nice and black and the handle is made from stunning hickory wood. I am sure that, in time, this wood will start to  look nice and weathered. I can honestly say that this axe looks way more ‘at home in the woods’ than any other Fiskars axe.

Comparison

I decided to compare the Fiskars Norden to, what I believe, is the best axe money can buy: the Gransfors Bruks Small Forsest axe. The Fiskars Norden stood its ground compared to the mighty Swede. Both carry out tasks really well. The only difference between the two is that I don’t know if I can replace the handle of the Fiskars axe if need be. Perhaps this is something they can think about for future models.

The axe

After building a fire and hitting my axe in the tree trunk I often work with I sat down to simply look at it. All I did was smile! The Fiskars Norden is a great axe in my book and I have used some of the best axes in the world. I get sort of sentimental when talking about axes. I can tell when an axe will become a companion for life and if it is the right tool to help you create memories that will last a life-time. The Fiskars Norden is, without a doubt, such a tool!