VanCamp Ax ?

[Saki]

Greetings. I am new to the forum and look forward to talking with everybody. I am a park ranger in the midwest. My wife and I have 3 years worth of scotch pine Christmas trees planted as a side business. I enjoy woodworking - specially ornaments, pine cone wreaths, and bird houses. I also enjoy auctions and that brings me to my actual reason for my first post. Picked up a " boys ax " ( 2&1/2 pound head camp ax ) at an auction. Looked old and rough, but for a couple bucks, what the heck. Got a new handle for it and started to clean it up and found the name " VanCamp " - Like the pork and beans logo. Could this be an old promotion of some kind? Anybody know anything about it at all? Thanks for the chance to jaw a little bit. - Saki

[Paul_H]

Welcome Saki,I hope you stay awhile and join in on the knowledge,and the banter.I hope you have a camera,and can post some pictures.It sounds like you have a lot of interesting things on the go.

My wife and I have a small landscape tree nursery on our property.We grow mostly native species,Red&Yellow Cedar,Aspen(very poplar) Maples,Spruce,Mountain Hemlock,and Birch.It's been quite a learning curve for us both,and it gives us something in common to argue about ;)

Can't help you on the ax.

[Bro. Noble]

Glad you joined,

I live in the midwest too-----S. Mo.-----how bout you?

Maybe that's a prehistoric can opener you got!

Noble

[CHARLIE]

Welcome to the board SAKI!  I enjoy woodworking too and just plain like wood and wooden things. 8)

I wonder if a letter and a picture to the Van Camps Company might reveal some information.

[Tom]

welcom to the Forestry Forum, Saki.

Try this link for the history of Van Camp
http://my.voyager.net/~mfhaston/vancamppage.html

The Hardware Companies Kollectors Klub ( THCKK) would also be of interest I'm sure.  www.thckk.org

[RobK]

You might also try Boy Scout forums. I'd bet that it was a promo item, where you ate lots of Van Camps beans, sent in the labels, and for x many labels you got some item. It sounds like the kind of thing that might have been targeted at boy scouts.

-Rob

[Saki]

Thanks guys for all the replies. I will check out Vancamps and the hardware collectors sites when I get a chance. For those wondering I am an Indiana Park Ranger and Purdue University Forestry Grad - B.S. 1991. My grandpa owned a sawmill as well as farming, and restored furniture on the side. Got a lot of my interests from him. Miss him a lot these days, but think he would approve of the path I am on.

Saki - Many of the folks here on the forum have usernames directly related to forestry, and this one may take some explaining. Purdue had a practical training camp that every forestry grad had to attend. Ours was in the michigan UP at Camp Filibert Roth on Golden Lake near Iron River. This nickname was hung on me there somehow. I had a 1963 ford galaxy and somehow it became refered to as the red dragon, my favorite college weekend beverage was the deadly southern comfort and mountain dew mix. This got to be known as the " red dragon crush " from there it somehow progressed to where I was Saki - pilot of the red dragon , mixer of the famous red dragon crush, and finest sumo wrestler of all the UP. Ah, for the fun of years gone by. To this day I am certain that there were and are other purdue foresters who did not, and do not know my real name. It was a great time, and I absolutely LOVE the UP. If anybody has a favorite spot to see there and would not mind telling me about it, I would love to hear about it. We normally vacation there sometime in Sep or Oct. Particularly enjoy out of the way places. Been to crisp point lighthouse, taq falls, many of the state parks, loved the logging camp restaurant in taq falls ( especially the root beer ) and those types of places. Thanks to everybody for the welcomes. Look forward to talking again. Saki

[Bro. Noble]

Saki,

Speaking of favorite places,

Spring mill state park is one of our family's all time favorites.

Attractive reasonable lodge with good food----beautiful trails through awsome timber----restored village with working demonstrastions of old-time crafts-----and a working waterpowered sawmill.

One of the most relaxing places I've ever been.

Indiana has some very nice state parks and this is the best of them.

Noble

[Jeff]

Favorite place in the U.P.? Either on the way to the cabin or the cabin.

Detour Village area.

Saki, next time you go you should take in the sawmill tour on the way up. Ask Whitepe about it. ;D

Also Old Mill creek. A water powered sawmill only minutes from Mackinaw city. Recontruction of the mill that sawed the lumber for the fort in the straights are including Mackinaw Island. Theis is a resiprocating saw {SP?) each board was sawn almost clear through but not quite, the log was then backed out and the next board sawn, until the whole log had been sliced into boards, but with a few inces still holding them all together. The sawn end was then bound, and the lumber was floated to Mackinaw Island still in log form. Once it arrived at the island, the connected end was wopped off with a crosscut saw and walah! Lumber!

[Bro. Noble]

Jeff,

We went right near that place a coulpe of years ago .but didn't know about it.

Last summer we went on the Blueridge parkway.  We found out later about the Old sawmill and Railroad in Cass WV.  I'm still pouting because we didn't know about it. We could have easily visited it.  The parkway is wonderful, especially in late May when everything is in bloom.

Next trip we take, I'm going to post our route on this forum
and beg you all to describe the have-to-see places in the area.
 
I think it would be neat if everyone else did this also.  With a
few pictures and descriptions of the places,  it would be the next best thing to going ourselves.  Might help us plan our next trip as well.

Don P  and I have discussed the posibility of a place on the forum for this sort of thing.  

Whadda ya think?

Noble

[Jeff]

Thats possible. Kinda think out what you would like to see or need for your ideas.

 I watched on the travel channel last night an old boy thats marking the Chisolm trail with 4 by 4 posts painted white.

[RobK]

For those wondering I am an Indiana Park Ranger and Purdue University Forestry Grad - B.S. 1991.

Hey, you were leaving just as I got there! I went for computer science, but I'm looking at going back for a forestry degree now.
Where do you work?
-Rob

[Ron Wenrich]

Van Camp Hardware and Iron Co. out of Indianapolis, IN.  Here's a great link that takes a while to load, but you may find you ax here:

http://my.voyager.net/~mfhaston/vancamppage.html

I'm a Penn State grad, and they did away with practical camp about 35 years ago.  Seems they didn't want the foresters and technicians to overlap.  

Besides, they went the route of teaching foresters to become more of a manager than a mud forester.  Not a particularly good move, since most guys became mud foresters, since that is where the jobs were.  

.  

[RavioliKid]

Hi, Saki!

I can't add anything except a warm welcome! 8) 8) 8)


Kim-the RavioliKid

[Jeff]

Here is another picture taken at old mill creek

[Corley5]

Welcome Saki!!  The area around Munsing and Grand Marias is all really nice.  Of course I'm a little biased as I spent a good part of my summers there as a child.  My parents still have the cabin.  I don't get up there as much as I would like but as Zach, my three month old, gets older he'll get a taste of U.P. fishing. ;D

[woodman]

You can try The Old Tool Nut Journal[/color]

[Ron Scott]

When in the eastern U.P. visit  Whitefish Point and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society Museum north of Paridise, MI.

Also visit the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie.

Saki,
Did your visit Al's & Sal's in Iron River?

[Saki]

Howdy. Got a couple of replies I need to get out. Hadn't got to get back on the forum. Was busy this week attending the tri-state tractor and gas engine show at Portland IN. They sure do a nice show. Have a small mill set up there and use different steam engines and tractors to power it by belt. Have a huge display as well as for sale area and I walked so much thursday that it felt like my butt was diretly joined to my feet. :D
I work at Shades State Park. Located in west-central Indiana. It is one of the only true back-to-nature parks. Has 14.5 miles of great hiking trails, many scenic overlooks and waterfalls, and a primitive campground.

In Iron River as to Al and Sals. I am not sure if we were there or not. I do remember one night that we loaded 11 of us foresters into that 63 galaxy of mine and had a great bunch of pizzas and brews in a place in iron river. That would have been summer 1988. The place we went was sort of on the curve on US 2 right in town. Sound familiar? See you later. Saki

[Corley5]

That's a tractor show I've been wanting to get to for a long time.  Next summer I'm going.  Everything I hear about is great and I've been told that they've acquired more ground to expand it for next year.  

[Ron Scott]

Saki,

You were at the Riverside Pizza Bar. The home of Dina Mia Pizza. It's been there 50 + years, and when in Iron River one needs to try a Riverside Pizza.

[RobK]

Shades is one of my favorite places to hike! Fewer people than Turkey Run and not an unreasonable drive from Lafayette. My wife and I hiked the Pine Hills Nature Preserve there at Shades a couple of months ago with our two kids (4 years and 10 months) intending to skip the Devil's Backbone. I wasn't reading the map well that day, took a right when I should've gone left, and ended up on it. We turned around and went back the way we came.

Is that the Portland with the Portland Arch Nature Preserve? I'll have to try to make that tractor show next year, too.

-RobK

[Don P]

I'm thinking Saki and Whitepe need to get together and get us some maps and pictures with a description written on the  back of each one to tell what it is to be used for... 8)

[OneWithWood]

Hi Saki,
My favorite spot in the UP is Fayetteville.  We sailed in there one stormy day from Wahington Island.  The next day was beautiful and we had the whole place to ourselves.
Sometimes I feel I am the only IU grad growing and nurturing trees  8) 8)- Seems like I am always surrounded by boilermakers! :D