CE980 MISTAHIMASKWA (Big Bear)

OVERVIEW

Tough - Functional - Elegant, your CANADA Enduring - CE980 MISTAHIMASKWA is fundamentally the knife that you should carry in your pocket, everywhere, at all times. Handmade in Canada and holding a revolutionary locking system, there is nothing to compare it to. Your CANADA Enduring - CE980 MISTAHIMASKWA pocket knife is so unique, no other knife operate or look quite like it. Its unique look comes from the innovative mechanisms it carries. Those inventions dictate the final result.

The quality of the material and the simplicity of the design are what makes your CANADA Enduring knife solid and reliable.

Your CE knife is the result of countless crafting hours on our family ranch located on the Cowboy Trail between the beautiful villages of Pincher Creek and Waterton, Alberta Canada. It can take up to 2 weeks from start to finish for a single knife to be crafted. If you would like to purchase one of these exclusive knives in person, you can find them at the Tamarack Outdoors outlet in Waterton.

All components of your knife (from the blade, handle, pins, rivets to the pocket clip) are individually made, shaped, and/or adjusted to fit your unique CE knife.

For durability, the blade is hand-crafted from the best knife grade stainless steel.

All CANADA Enduring knife handles are made of hard Chokecherry or Saskatoon wood (Depending on resource availability). Both woods carefully harvested, by hand in the wild, at the foot of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

The first part of the model name CE980 comes from the blade length 98.0mm / 4". The second part of the model name MISTAHIMASKWA is in honour of the great Plain Cree chief Nimosom Mistahimaskwa (Big Bear) 1825-1888. I remember my good friend, Plain Cree Fred Cardinal (from Goodfish/Whitefish Lake First Nation 128 Band, Alberta, Canada) telling me, among many other North American Indigenous accounts, the story of Big Bear. He could render these stories more genuinely than any history book. Mistahimaskwa is best known for his refusal to sign Treaty 6 in 1876 and for his band’s involvement in conflicts associated with the 1885 North-West Resistance. Chief Mistahimaskwa was concerned with the impossible treaty conditions that seemed to ensure perpetual poverty and the destruction of his people's way of life. Missionaries and traders described Mistahimaskwa as an “independent spirit” who did not like taking direction from outsiders, such as government officials or other Indigenous leaders. The invasion of his ancestral territories taking place simultaneously to the tragic disappearance of the Buffalo (American bison) was a complete disaster.  The Buffalo was the living foundation of the Plain Cree and of many other Indigenous nations across the plains.

Creating your CANADA Enduring knife, we were inspired by true heroes of our Canadian history. Professional voyagers, translators, trappers, hunters, Coureur de bois, fur traders... All Indigenous, Metis, Canadiens, and settlers’ extraordinary beings. True legends of this unforgivably hard, but incredibly beautiful land. Therefore, the traditional look of your knife. It feels like you traded furs for it, at Fort Kaministiquia, in the 1700. A lasting contemporary message... from another time.

Many years from now, when the time comes, we are hoping you will pass down this amazing knife to your descendants... because this is just how tough we made it

We warranty every CANADA Enduring knife, for the life of the knife - See our Lifetime Enduring Warranty.

*Please take note that the wood grain and colour of your knife handle will be different from the above pictures since all CANADA Enduring knives are made from individual tree collected in the wild.

**Our Canadian knives are famous around the world and they leave our ranch almost as soon as they are crafted. If a knife shows SOLD OUT contact us and we will arrange for your knife to be crafted on our next availability.