Helle
No.671
Nordlys – 14C28N / Curly Birch

Nordlys is the ultimate all-round full tang knife for outdoor use. Even before Helle launched the Nord, they knew they wanted to make a smaller sibling. Something that retained the possibilities for multiple grips and preserved the utilitarian blade shape of their bushcrafting machine, but smaller, lighter and therefore easier to bring on your everyday adventures.

Nordlys means Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in Norwegian. Lys means both light and fair. Nordlys preserves all the innovative features of its larger sibling, but packs it in a substantially smaller package. The Nordlys handle is shorter than on the Nord, but you still have the space for a forward grip for finer cuts and a pommel grip when chopping.

The blade is also the same shape as its larger sibling, featuring a slight drop-point and a classic Scandi grind. It is notably shorter though roughly the same length as most Norwegian all-round outdoor knives. The overall weight of the Nordlys therefore clocks in at only 9.8 ounces, which means that you are left with a very balanced and lightweight knife for being a full tang knife.

Over the past few years, Helle has tested the Nordlys on long hikes, short hikes, camping and bushcrafting. The Nordlys has done food preparation, made kindling for fires, thrown sparks off ferro rods, sharpened sticks, carved spoons and much, much more. The feedback from our product testers has been uniform: With the Nordlys you are getting a knife that performs well at anything you throw at it, and at the same time does not feel heavy on the belt while you are moving from A to B.