Cloice R. Howd

“ In the camps they served to while away many a weary hour and to lighten up the seriousness of many a knotty problem. They brought the gigantic tasks of the great woods down to manageable proportions and saved many a logger from an inferiority complex. Since they have come into civilization many a task has been made easier by their rare humor.
Perhaps it is pendantry to try to find in these impossible tales of the illiterate lumberjacks anything except what they consciously put there; a beautiful fancy to brighten the weary days and nights of the long winters. ”

“ But the stories reflect the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the loggers and of the industry. This is best shown in the story of the Death of the Blue Ox, which pictures Paul as a poor business man, opinionated and headstrong, three traits which were by no means rare in the lumber industry. After all, Bunyan never really did grow up, he was always only a boy, with great loyalty to his immediate group, but with but little social responsibility or provision for the future. He was a primitive man, never fully civilized. ”

“ Many tales are told about it, how it grew so very high,
That the tops were broke and shattered where they rubbed against the sky.
And no man had ever ventured in that forest deep and dark
Till old Noah got to thinking he would build himself an ark. ”

“ Their religion, their whole life, was to cut and haul as many logs as possible, and then in the spring to drive these logs down river to the saw mill. And he was greatest in the camp who could fell a tree most accurately and quickly, pile logs highest on the sleds, or ride a log in the roughest water. And the camp boss had to really be boss: he must be able to handle obstreperous loggers, he [Pg 17] must provide for all the needs of his crew without any molly-coddling, and he must be able to get out the round stuff. In all of these ways Paul Bunyan is the idealization of the lumberjack. ”

“ But sometimes the unconscious contributions are of more significance than the conscious, for we often do more than we mean. Such seems to have been the case here, for these uncouth story tellers have given us some insights into their lives and their industry. Unconsciously these tales reflect the absorption of these men in their tasks. The men who made these tales were men with a far greater interest in the woods than the stake they were to take out in the spring, whatever might have been true of those who repeated them. ”

“ In fact elaborate precautions are taken to establish their veracity and citation of proof is nearly universal. Sometimes the evidence cited is the word of one from whom the story was heard, for few of the tales are told as the personal experience of the story teller. The story came direct from one of Bunyan’s loggers, from a pioneer, the Bull Cook, or some one else equally well informed and reliable. Sometimes the proof is to be found in the continued existence of something connected with the story. ”

“ And just a trick of Bunyan’s had brought us all our woe.
’Twas long and crooked skid roads that made our logging late,
And Bunyan took his old Blue Ox and pulled his skid roads straight.
Now when you slick shod loggers call this here logging fast,
It sure makes us old timers just hanker for the past. ”

“ But clear to the end of history and wherever the loggers may go,
You’ll hear how perished the Blue Ox in the year of the great Blue Snow.
Riding Sunset Falls
This story is one of the minor cycle, dealing with Bunyan’s helpers, but one in which Bunyan himself does not figure. It is the absence of the great hero which makes it possible to introduce the love note here. ”

“ Many of them had been told to impress the tenderfoot, while many others had been wish projections, a sort of day-dreaming in which one was able to do that which he never could accomplish when he had to work with stern reality. ”