The objects most often used within the frontier setting during the eighteenth century were made of metal. The blacksmith was instrumental in repairing and producing metal objects required to support daily life. At the French, and subsequently British, militarized trading post of Fort Michilimackinac, the diverse community residing within and surrounding the fort would have relied upon the blacksmith to maintain axes, traps, saws, and other metal implements within the isolated frontier setting. Archaeological data and historic documents describe the use, trade, and demand for iron products at the fort and are used here to better understand the blacksmith and his work within the fur trade and frontier contexts of the 18th century. Spatial and portable X-ray fluorescence analyses of recovered axes are used to examine the complex civilian and military relationships with the blacksmith at Fort Michilimackinac.