The Master — Toyon

In the Sakha language, Toyon means “master” or “lord” — the title once given to the man everyone in the settlement turned to. It is the right name for the all-rounder of the MUUS range: a single hand-forged blade meant to do everything well, from the kitchen table to the hunting trail to the edge of a fishing river. If you want one Yakut knife that never feels out of place, this is it.

The blade is forged from 40X13 stainless steel and runs 130–150 mm long and about 30 mm at its widest, with the whole knife balancing at roughly 350 g. Stainless is a deliberate choice for a knife that lives between wet and dry work: it shrugs off the moisture of fish, brine and rain and wipes clean with almost no fuss. Ground into one side is the single fuller, or dol, that defines the traditional Yakut knife — one flat, hollow-ground face and one gently convex face. That asymmetry lets the edge bite deep and release cleanly instead of wedging, and it means you sharpen essentially one bevel, so a few passes on a stone bring the edge back even far from home.

The handle is turned from Karelian birch, the dense, figured northern wood prized for its warmth in the hand when the temperature drops. It ships in a fitted leather sheath that rides comfortably on a belt and keeps the edge protected between jobs.

Toyon suits the person who refuses to own a drawer full of single-purpose blades: everyday cutting, dressing game on a hunt, cleaning fish at the water, and general work out in the field. If this is your first knife of this kind, our guide to choosing a Yakut knife walks through steel, size and handle so you land on the right one.

Ice-born, fire-forged, and finished by hand by a master smith of the Sakha Republic — every Toyon carries the small marks of the hand that made it, so no two are ever quite the same.