This Montrealer forged medieval axes used to rebuild Notre-Dame cathedral

The axe head, heated by the flames of Mathieu Collette's forge, glows white hot among the coals. 

Collette, a blacksmith who uses traditional methods to fashion tools from iron and steel, pulls it from the fire and, with a series of hammer blows, moulds it into shape. 

Meanwhile, in France, possibly at this very moment, carpenters are using axes he fashioned to carve logs of red oak into roof trusses for Notre-Dame-de-Paris, the world's most famous cathedral. 

The axes had to be as close as possible to the originals used by the carpenters who first built the cathedral in the 12th and 13th centuries — so that the new wood beams would bear the same markings as the old. 

Collette and the other toolsmiths who went to France to help with the project were uniquely positioned to make them. 

"We're the only ones left," Collette said in an interview this week at his Montreal forge, located in an old pump house in the Peel Basin. 

"We made the axes the same way, using techniques, materials and tools of the time."

After a 2019 fire destroyed part of its roof, walls and spire, officials in France decided to reproduce the church exactly as it had been built some 800 years ago.

It's an undertaking that requires meticulous attention to detail.

To know what types of axes to make, Soumia Luquet, the director of the Maison Luquet, a traditional workshop near Munster, France, and her team analyzed the markings that remained on wood oak beams salvaged from Notre-Dame. They also looked at old engravings that showed workmen of the time hoisting axes and using tools.

It was a forensic investigation, of sorts, as they tried to create axes which, in the hands of modern craftspeople, would leave the same marks on the wood as those of the 13th century. 

They decided on five models of axes — some built for chopping, others for finer, finishing work. But to make enough for the team of craftspeople, they needed to make multiple replicas of each axe, 60 in total. 

Given that it takes nine to 14 hours to make one axe, Luquet knew they needed additional manpower.

Enter Cossette, who, in the world of toolsmithing, is seen as a master.