In the world of stick walking, there is a stick for all occasions. A rabologist is a person who collects, studies, or has a strong passion for walking sticks and canes. The term comes from rabology, derived from the Greek word rabdi (meaning stick or rod), combined with the collection suffixology.
– The hiking stick. These are strong hand around sticks usually with a leather lanyard through which your hand is passed to enable purchase when traversing steep ground. They are a bit longer than your elbow, (they need to be sized correctly) and are perfect for bushwalking. Some would say symbiotic.
– The dress cane. A stick more popular from the 17th to the 19th century. They largely replaced the carrying of swords. Elbow height or smaller, decorative, collapsable, fashionable and bursting with utility in unsavoury neighborhoods.
– The mobility cane. A stick to aid mobility after an injury or the aged.
– The Morning stick. There is a space in your stick collection for a lighter, springy, more novel companion on your morning or dusk walk. When you are not shouldering a rucksack with weight, your sturdy hiking stick with its alpine spike is overkill. The morning stick or rambler is the perfect choice for a wander on pavement or turf, when you require a stick in hand to act as a metronome for stride. Normally these sticks are lanyard free, though there are no rules.
Walking with man’s best friend
A dog walk is different to our more formal walking practices in so far as the outing is about exercising your hound. Any health benefits to you are incidental. Your attention is focused on her wanderings, her ablutions. When your pup wants to stop and sniff you will abide.
When walking your hound, the morning stick will be your choice. It is thin and light enough to be held in your hand with the leash and still exercise control of your charge.
In my workshop, I craft them from Broad Leaf Privet, Chestnut, Hawthorn and apple. The Broad Leaf Privet or Glossy Privet is a prolific weed tree in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT. When land managers cut them back and do not apply a herbicide, the coppiced regrowth makes for very strong, straight shafts. I harvest them at various thicknesses but usually at a diameter of 20mm. I will attach a small spike hidden by a rubber stopper, sand and finish the stick. No lanyard is supplied but there is still a 6mm hole in the case you wish to use a lanyard.
For the dog walker, the morning stick provides a third point of connection for you as you walk uneven ground, and should you come across an unleashed canine that means to do you or your hound harm you can wield the stick at the malevolent animal and bring it to heel. I am not advocating an Edwardian belting of the mutt but merely a touch up to reinforce the relationship at hand.
Of course we do not allow our dog to play fetch and drop with the morning stick.
You can view my crafted sticks at the Stick Gallery section or the Etsy shopfront.
