Montreal blacksmith forged axes for Notre-Dame Cathedral restoration
Posted December 4, 2024 8:26 pm.
Last Updated December 5, 2024 8:17 am.
The Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is reopening after the devastating 2019 fire and a Montreal blacksmith made some of the axes featured in the historic church.
After spending years in Europe as an apprentice to learn blacksmithing, Mathieu Collette returned to Quebec with the idea of founding Les Forges de Montréal, with the help of his father, Pierre Collette.
Mathieu wanted to pass on his vanishing trade by creating a blacksmithing school and a place to preserve intangible heritage.
They completely restored and refurbished the old Riverside pumping station, and in 2000, the organization was founded.
“And that’s an issue that we will have worldwide. If we don’t pass on that knowledge and we don’t preserve it, we’re going to lose the techniques capable to restore and rebuild the type of building,” said Collette.
The 2019 fire damaged the Cathedral’s roof, walls, and spire. French officials chose to restore it to its original 800-year-old design. Mathieu forged 60 axes, allowing modern craftsmen to recreate the 13th-century wood marks.
“We know the techniques. We know what looked like the tools in that region in that time. We know what type of wood it is. But if you don’t have the blacksmith capable to do that type of tools, the carpenter won’t have the tools to make properly the right mark to put back the carpentry in place,” said Collette.
Les Forges de Montréal is one of the few schools in the world specializing in traditional edged tool blacksmithing. To date, 26 blacksmiths have been trained there and are now carrying on the craft, offering a sense of relief to the man entrusted with an important responsibility, which is often heavy on his shoulders.
“We blacksmiths work in the shadow since centuries, making our tools, tongs, hammers, to make tool for other trades. And the other trades use our tools to make architecture buildings and everything. That fire in Notre-Dame put a light on us. Otherwise not many people would know that blacksmiths make tools for the history of humankind,” said Collette.
