 Surjectivity of unit norms in unramified extensions

For a finite unramified extension of non-Archimedean local fields, the field norm on residue units is surjective: on a cyclic group of order $q^n-1$ it is exponentiation by $(q^n-1)/(q-1)$ and has image of order $q-1$. For a common uniformizer $\pi$ and $r\ge 1$, expansion of the conjugate product givesThe field trace of a finite finite field extension is onto: its polynomial $X+X^q+\cdots +X^{q^{n-1}}$ is nonzero of degree below $q^n$, so defines a nonzero linear map to the base field. Lift a residue norm and correct successively with elements of $1+{\pi }^r{\mathcal{O}}_L$. The infinite product converges by completeness, and its norm is the prescribed unit. This argument also works in positive characteristic and when $p$ divides $n$.