The Walking Stick

"What d'you want to talk about walking sticks for?" You ask. "I don't have problems with walking and I am not some old guy, am I now", you say. That may be so but a third leg while hiking comes in very handy how ever old or young you are.

A walking stick is, however, very useful indeed even if you can walk well and are still young. How many of you, when playing around in the woods and especially when going on a walk or hike there have not picked up a dead branch laying on the ground or taken from a standing tree or have even cut a sapling in order to use as a walking stick? Most of you, I should think. So you already know how useful as stick can be as an aid in walking and hiking, whether on smooth ground or traversing rough terrain and making a hike easier and much more fun. A purpose made walking stick is even better still than one that has been quickly improvised. Therefore we are here this time talking about making walking sticks and the various kinds of those. Some time ago we talked about making a quarterstaff like the old Boy Scout Staff and this time we will be talking about the somewhat shorter walking and hiking sticks and staffs. Those are sticks that are still nearly as useful as the Boy Scout Staff, the Quarterstaff, only they do not make people in town and subdivisions give you strange looks. They still can be used as a formidable weapon if necessary but what we want to concern ourselves first and foremost here is for their use as third leg.

My most favorite walking stick is probably one of my thumb sticks, very closely followed by my knobkerrie made from Ash wood.

A little history of the walking stick

From the very earliest days people traveling on foot thru wild and inhospitable places would have used sticks picked up from the wayside hedges to support and protect themselves. In places where wild animals, bandits and outlaws roamed, a stout stick provided a useful weapon, while on uneven terrain it could provide a good and strong support. Such a stick did not need to be anything fancy and decorated; a stout, straightish, branch pulled from a tree, or found on the ground often was enough, but for the traveler it was crucial.

Early travelers sticks were long stout staffs, unlike the short walking sticks that are common today. Only such a stick could provide adequate protection against assailants along the road. The short stick was only adopted when road travel became safer. Country people adopted the fashion of the shorter walking stick not for protection (?) but as aids when walking, so the historians claim. I personally though do not agree with this belief by the historians. The shorter walking stick was adopted because of restrictions being encountered over the use of the Quarterstaff, which the long stout staff was being classed as in the 17th and 18th Century and therefore as a weapon and, the country people not wanting to be without their sticks and staffs reduced the size of those and passed them for "canes". All such sticks were made by the people themselves from locally found woods such as ash, beech, applewood, cherry, blackthorn, oak, and others.

Even though a walking stick or hiking staff may not be a real necessity for survival and backwoods living they are, as mentioned, very useful in various ways and to make good walking sticks and hiking staffs and knobkerries are good projects to undertake during the long winter evenings.

Veshengro