The Biscayne trade axe dates back to the 16th century Jean-Mathieu Berube

This article was taken from the November 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

In a small, nondescript building near the old manufacturing heart of Montreal, a collective of artisan blacksmiths is working to save its trade -- and give it back to the world.


Les Forges de Montréal aims to address the dwindling number of masters of metalcraft. "Our mandate is to preserve and share traditional blacksmithing techniques," explains Mathieu Collette, founder of Les Forges. "[We] conduct research and host demonstrations, inviting masters to share what they know."

Collette's main area of research is in recreating edge tools. "I'm researching the Canadian Biscayne trade axe," he says. "It was exchanged with the natives for fur, which was taken to France.

Unfortunately, the Industrial Revolution killed the blacksmith, so now I have to rediscover how those axes would have been made."

The ultimate aim is to build an online archive of blacksmithing knowledge, accessible to all, and built from crowdsourced information and metalwork "recipes" passed from master to apprentice. Time is not on the project's side, though. "We're going to lose blacksmithing if we don't link together," Collette warns. "There are no [new] masters, so if this is not done in the next ten to 15 years, it's going to be too late to collect the knowledge from the old masters. The desire is to assemble the expertise gathered so far into a framework for an encyclopaedia of blacksmithing, a resource that blacksmiths everywhere could consult and contribute to."

Les Forges de Montréal is currently looking for funding to allow those who run the ambitious project to spend more time establishing and populating the online framework. Collette is optimistic about the future: "The success of the encyclopaedia of blacksmithing will rest in the hands of blacksmiths throughout the world -- via the internet, of course."