Logging

“ Logging is felling and roughly trimming timber and transporting it, preferably by water but, if necessary, by rail, to its destination. The great rivers of the United States afford unequalled opportunities for logging. ”

“ After spending several days in scouring the wilderness in search of the Pines, minutely examining their quality (for an experienced lumberman can determine this with surprising certainty) , calculating the distance the logs may have to be hauled, and noting the surface of the land through which the logging roads are to be cut, &c., we retrace our steps to the landing, where the bateau has been left. Once more our frail bark floats upon the dancing current of the stream, gliding onward as if stimulated with the very joyousness of the "homeward bound" voyagers. ”

“ In the years of plenty—those wasteful years of frenzied logging, when white pine lumber brought from twelve to twenty dollars a thousand and rival concerns were laying down only the choicest of logs—Appleton's crews were ordered to clean up as they went. ”

“ The logging operations in some parts of the Black Forest are unique. On the steep slopes the large logs, scaling from 600 to 1,000 board feet, are let down to the roads by means of a long rope one end of which is wound a few times around a near-by standing tree and then fastened to the large end of the log, by a strong ringed spike. ”

“ Theoretically if a tract of timber were large enough, it could be opened up by logging operations which, instead of proceeding steadily from one edge, might skip every other landing or so until the most remote portion was reached after a few years, and then work back again, cleaning up the neglected portions after they had seeded the first openings. ”

“ Great care is required to prevent accidents during logging, and fatal ones sometimes occur. I was in conversation with the reeve of an adjoining township this summer, and he told me that two years ago he lost his eldest son, a young man of great promise, in this melancholy way. The poor fellow made a false step while driving his team, and fell right before the oxen who were coming on with a heavy log, quite a tree, attached to them. ”

“ But while the greater part of swamp life is more or less merry, there are occasional interruptions to the joyousness that abounds. Logging roads are generally laid out with due regard to the conveniences of level or gently descending ground. But in some instances the unevenness of the country admits only of unfavorable alternatives. Sometimes there are moderate rises to ascend or descend on the way to the landing; the former are hard, the latter dangerous to the team. ”

“ As one strolls in the woods about the logging camps, most of the lumbermen are found to be interesting people to meet, kind and obliging and sincere, full of knowledge concerning the bark and sapwood and heartwood of the trees they cut, and how to fell them without unnecessary breakage, on ground where they may be most advantageously sawed into logs and loaded for removal. The work is hard, and all of the older men have a tired, somewhat haggard appearance. ”

“ When he wishes to “drive” his logs to the mouth of the stream, he first accumulates a head of water behind his dams, and then, by lifting the gates, creates an artificial freshet sufficient to float his timber to the pool formed by the next dam below. The device is common enough; but it is expensive. People do not build dams except in the certainty of some years of logging, and quite extensive logging at that. ”

“ Logs belonging to various individuals and firms in the lumber industry of the North Western United States are identified and separated in a striking fashion. To illustrate this it will be necessary to outline briefly the routine of work connected with the great lumbering industry of the regions mentioned. Logging camps are established in the heart of a forest. ”

“ Hundreds make the trip on foot and it is by no means an arduous task, but many prefer to go horse-back or burro-back. In its upward beginnings the trail follows the course of an old logging chute for a distance of some two miles, the lake terminus of which is now buried in a nursery of white fir and masses of white lilac. There are a few cedars and pines left untouched by the logger's ax, but they are not prime lumber trees, or not one of them would now be standing. ”

“ At the banking grounds, which lie in and about the bed of the river, the logs are piled in a gigantic skidway to await the spring freshets, which will carry them down stream to the “boom.” In that enclosure they remain until sawed in the mill.
Such is the drama of the saw log, a story of grit, resourcefulness, adaptability, fortitude and ingenuity hard to match. Conditions never repeat themselves in the woods as they do in the factory. The wilderness offers ever new complications to solve, difficulties to overcome. ”

“ The logger went into the woods early in the fall, spent the entire winter snow-bound in a lonely camp with other men like-minded with himself, a dozen to a hundred or more of them. With the spring thaw they brought the logs down the river in a great drive, and then spent their winter stake in a blaze of glory among the bright lights of a sawdust town. ”

“ At lengthened intervals a log cabin, with its little space of cleared land about it, nestles under a rising ground, and sends its thread of blue smoke curling up into the sky. It stands in the corner of the poor field of wheat, which is full of great unsightly stumps, like earthy butchers’-blocks. Sometimes the ground is only just now cleared: the felled trees lying yet upon the soil: and the log-house only this morning begun. As we pass this clearing, the settler leans upon his axe or hammer, and looks wistfully at the people from the world. ”

“ When the troughs are steep, the logs rush down at more than railroad speed, leaving behind them a trail of fire and smoke. Such log-ways are generally to be seen about the lakes, and are so contrived that the logs leap from them into water of great depth, as otherwise they would be shivered to pieces and spoiled for use in the manufacture of lumber. ”

“ She found a green smother of forest, an ocean of greenness with emerald crests rising higher and higher like giant waves, and at the end of the long motor trip the Lodge at last disclosed itself as a low, dark, rambling building, set in a clearing behind a blue bend of sudden river.
And built of logs! Did people of position live yet in logs in America? demanded the girl's secret astonishment as the motor whirled [Pg 48] across the rustic bridge and stopped before the wide steps of a veranda full of people. ”

“ The first months of this year found us very anxious to get the log-house finished, which had been so well begun by our four gentlemen, and as soon as the weather moderated a little, and our means allowed us to get help, we had it roofed, floored, chinked, and mossed. It was necessary to get it finished, so that we might move before the great spring thaw should cover the forest-paths with seas of slush and mud, and before the creek between us and our domicile should be swollen so as to render it impassable for ladies. ”

“ Another day of wilderness wandering. A cabin sighted, but so far away that it was merely a vague dot upon a distant ridge; miner's shack or sheepman's or wood-cutter's? Housing an occupant or deserted for years? No smoke from the rock chimney; no sign of any human being near it. And all view of it so soon lost!... And, afterward, no other human habitation of any kind; no road man-made; only trees and rocks, gorges and ridges and brush, and a winding way to be chosen between them. With, always, Bruce Standing driving on and on, relentlessly on, ever deeper into the wilderness. ”

“ Upon those mighty and majestic domes no tree strikes root, no hearth is alight; humanity is an alien thing, and utility set at naught. Below, dense forests cover the massive, precipitous slopes of the range, and in the midst of the wilderness a clearing shows, here and there, and the roof of a humble log-cabin; in the valley, far, far lower still, a red spark at dusk may suggest a home, nestling in the cove. ”

“ Most of the dwellings were log-houses, but now and then the white villa of some wealthy planter might be seen gleaming through the evergreens. Sometimes the sandy soil was intersected by veins of swamp, through which muddy water oozed sluggishly, among bushes and dead logs. ”

“ It may be a long and circuitous route, but when one has lost his bearings in the forest, that is generally a safe rule to follow. Also in a lumbered country, where water is the only means of transportation for logs, all log-roads run downhill and ultimately lead to river or lake. We felt reasonably certain, therefore, that if we followed down Roaring Brook and should cross a log-road at any point, it would be quite safe to leave the brook and continue down the log-road. ”

“ Be that as it may, a small trail of smoke one day made its way aloft from a log cabin half buried in the snow; while a pack of a dozen malamutes played about the door. A pile of logs and sticks of firewood, an axe, a tin bucket, and dog-sleds near, gave undisputed evidence of the presence here of someone besides natives. ”

“ The front of the northland tilt is faced in with small logs set on end, as shown in the unfinished one (Fig. 189) ; this makes a substantial, warm winter camp. If the logs fit close together on the roof they may be calked with moss and dry grass. If the cracks are too wide on account of the unevenness of the log, cover them first with grass, fine brush, or browse and over all place a coating of sod or mud and you will have a house fit for a king to live in. ”

“ If he stops to ask a night's lodging at one of the farm-houses that are to be found at the junction of the creeks with the rivers, log-houses with their primitive out-buildings, their half-constructed rafts of lumber ready to float down-stream with the next rise, their 'dug-outs' for the necessities of river-intercourse, and their rough oxcarts for hauling to and from the mill, he will see before him such a home as that in which I passed the first twenty years of my life. ”

“ Some of the camps contain as many as 300 or 400 men, and this force is kept busy during the entire winter cutting down trees, sawing them into logs, and hauling them to the river. Here they are placed in huge piles, and it is at this time that the log-mark of the owner is placed upon them by an individual known as the "scaler," whose duty it also is to measure the diameter of each log and keep a record of it.
In this article we show a few of these curious log-marks—odd artistic inventions of the untrained minds of the lumber-camps. There is no attempt at uniformity in ideas. ”

“ He told them of the lumber mills down by the river, where brawny men, primitive in aspect, fought with a never-ending stream of logs which came down with the current and raised themselves like uncanny water-monsters, up a long incline, finally to meet their death at the hands of machinery that ripped and snarled and clutched. ”

“ The log-houses have fallen to decay—a growth of young pines, a waste of emerald turf with the charred logs that once formed part of the enclosure, now scarcely serve to mark out the old settlement; no trace or record remains of the first breakers of the bush—another race occupy the ground. ”

“ The side which furnishes timber rises in terraces of gigantic proportions, forming a succession of abrupt precipices and shelving table-land. There are three of these giant mountain steps, each of which produces lumber which challenges the admiration and enterprise of the logmen. The ascent to these Alpine groves is too abrupt to allow the team to ascend in harness; we therefore unyoke and drive the oxen up winding pathways. The yokes and chains are carried up by the workmen, and also the bob-sled in pieces, after taking it apart. ”

“ In the commencement, some unlucky log swings across the narrow chasm, striking some protruding portions of the ledge, and stops fast; others come on, and, meeting this obstruction, stick fast also, until thousands upon thousands form one dense breast-work, against and through which a boiling, leaping river rushes with terrible force. ”

“ The river foamed over rapids or ran darkling in pools and stretches. Along the roadside, rarely, we came upon rough-looking log cabins, or shacks of canvas, or tents. The owners were not at home. We thought them miners; but in the light of subsequent knowledge I believe that unlikely–the diggings were farther in.
We came upon the diggings quite suddenly. The trail ran around the corner of a hill; and there they were below us! In the wide, dry stream bottom perhaps fifty men were working busily, like a lot of ants. ”

“ When thus prepared, these people proceed up the rivers with the provisions to the place fixed on for their winter establishment, which is selected as near a stream of water, and in the midst of as much pine timber, as possible. They commence by clearing away a few of the surrounding trees, and building a camp of round logs, the walls of which are seldom more than four or five feet high; the roof is covered with birch bark or boards. A pit is dug under the camp, to preserve any thing liable to injury from the frost. ”

“ As the water rises suddenly, and falls as rapidly on the river, by which, in the first instance, many logs run upon intervale and meadow land, or upon high rocks and ledges, and, in the other case, from the rapid decline of water, there is necessarily much activity called for to clear such logs from the position in which they are placed, else they must be left behind, or require great physical exertion to disengage and bring them on with the rest. ”

“ By the end of the winter some four million feet of logs were piled in the bed or upon the banks of the stream. To understand what that means, you must imagine a pile of solid timber a mile in length. This tremendous mass lay directly in the course of the stream. When the winter broke up, it had to be separated and floated piecemeal down the current. The process is an interesting and dangerous one, and one of great delicacy. It requires for its successful completion picked men of skill, and demands as toll its yearly quota of crippled and dead. ”