And Peter Buchanan-Smith, a graphic designer to the stars, was the champion of the fancy ax.

In 2009, he started a boutique ax line called Best Made Co., for which he sourced high-quality axes from another maker and painted the handles with colorful block and stripe motifs, evoking both Pendleton and Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom.” They were a sensation.

Today, the brand’s brick-and-mortar stores in New York and Los Angeles stock all manner of nostalgic but purposeful camping gear. Stalwart offerings are axes ($228 to $398) and hatchets (similar but smaller, $98 to $228). In-store events serve to culturally align the ax with third-wave coffee, houseplant collecting and listening to vinyl.

Alexa Laniak, 33, has been manager of the Best Made store in Los Angeles since it opened in 2017. She said that for the most part, the approximately 500 axes and hatchets sold in the store this year were given as gifts or bought as home design pieces.

Her own ax leans up against a fake fireplace in her apartment. It reminds her of summer camp in North Ontario, and that Joshua Tree and Sequoia national parks are only a couple of hours away.

“Just because so many people live in cities doesn’t mean your internal desire to get out into the wilderness has been completely bred out of you,” said Craig Roost, known as Rooster, who is a salesman and tool designer at Council Tool Co., a legacy American ax maker. (He is also moderator of the 35,000-member Facebook group Axe Junkies.)

“I think owning an ax gives some of these people the idea, at least, that they’re connecting to their heritage, and to places outside of where they feel they may be trapped,” Mr. Roost, 49, said.