Red Cedar was sought after and known as Red Gold, other timbers such as Black Bean, Maple, White Cedar and Kauri Pine were used for cabinet making and also for building.

A variety of tools were used throughout the different stages of timber felling.

This here is a spring board and you can see here how they used it in conjunction with the axes. The broad axe wasn’t used for felling the tree but to shape and square the timber, notice the straight edge on one side to get a flat finish.

The giant cross cut saw was operated by two men and sometimes pits were dug with one man standing above the log and the other in the pit They used a sandstone grinding wheel to keep their tools sharp. The handle was turned and a tray of water underneath kept the stone wet.