Minnesota Made Saw Voted One of State’s Coolest Products
The Sven-Saw recently ranked well in the “Coolest Thing Made in Minnesota” competition. The iconic saw was invented in the Boundary Waters and is manufactured in Minnesota.
The origins of the collapsible saw go back to a portage trail in the BWCA in the 1960s. We spoke with Linnea Swenson-Tellekson about the recent competition and the history of the Sven-Saw.
Paddle and Portage did a feature story on the Sven-Saw earlier this year. We shared the story of when Richard Swenson saw something that didn’t make sense, he went practical.
Such was the case in 1960 on a portage trail in what is now the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
“My brother and I met two men on their way out,” Swenson said. “One had a bandaged foot. He had cut his foot badly with an axe and was on his way back to the Ely hospital. I thought to myself, ‘There has to be a better way.’”
Indeed there was. And it came in the form of a saw.
Richard “Dick” Swenson, a lifelong Minnesotan who now lives in Duluth, is the inventor of the Sven-Saw. He invented the compact folding saw in 1961, one year after seeing the wounded paddler between Knife and Carp lakes on the Boundary Waters portage. The saw can fit into a portage pack and features a blade protected by its handle. In other words, the teeth of the saw aren’t exposed when it’s in the collapsed state.
Not long after making the first model, Swenson patented the design and founded Swen Products. It’s worth noting that the original name for the saw was the Swen-Saw, but so many Scandinavians in northern Minnesota called it “Sven-Saw” that Swenson let the name stick. The company continues to be family-owned and operated to this day, and the parts are still manufactured and packaged in Minnesota.