The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-09-13
ON THE PENOBSCOT.
PERiLS AND PRlVATlONS OF THE
LUM3ERMAN'S OCCUPATION.

a Peculiar and Hazardous Work-where
the Trouble COmes-A Tremendous
Stampede of Logs-The ''Wangans," or
Commissary Departmental sad story.
Bangor, once the greatest lumber
market in the world, though doing q
much smaller business than in Penob-
scots palIny days, is still the nome Of ex-
pert loggers and drivers, and the head
quarters for the most approved kinds OF
lumbermen's implements. Such is the
fame of Bangor cant-dogs and axes and
batteaux that operators in the compare
lively new logging regions Of the west and
far-off Pacific slope send here for them.
But it is the men of the Penobscot who
are principally sought, not for cutting the
logs, for almost anybody can swing an ak,
but for the perilOus work Of driving the
logs through rapid waters and over roar
ing falls and swift rapids Every spring,
when the trees have been felled and when
the warm sun has transformed frozen
streams into rushing torrents, men from
the Kennebec and Connecticut come to
Bangor to hire crews who are clever with
the ak and cant-dog, and who are not
afraid to break a jam or sleep on the bare
ground in a single blanket They are es-
pecially anxious to get Bangor boys when
they have a hard drive in prospect, for
will pull them through if it is possible
thing.
A VERY HAZARDOUS WORK.
Not many people understand how logs
are driven from the wilds where they are
cut so many miles to the great boOms near
the mills where they are sawn into lum-
ber 1t is peculiar and hazardous work,
and when a lot of drivers start away for
the headwaters with their pick-pOles,
cant-dogs and axes it is just as natural to
expect that some of them never will come
back alive as it would be in case of a
company of soldiers starting for battle
field After the lOggers get through dump
ing the logs over into the frozen streams
but brief period ensues before the snow
and ice melt and carry the big spruce
sticks in great masses down stream
and create big jams, backing the water up
so that many of the logs are fiOated over
submerged flats, to be left high and dry
when the first detachment of drivers
break the jams and let the water loose.
Then the drivers work begins. The
grounded logs, in the upper country
where horses can not be used, must be
carried to the streams by the men, and
often it requires twenty strong drivers,
wading knee deep IN mud, to carry
single stick to the water. The farmers
whose meadows are thus strewn with logs
often claim the timber as recompense for
tions, and at times they appear with shot
guns to prevent the drivers from carrying
off the logs. But the boss driver orders
his men to bring that stuff down." and
the "stuf" generally comes.
Several crews are employed on drive
of any considerable size, or at the head or
lower end, others along the line or at the
rear. There are many rocks, rapids and
falls where the moving mass is likely to
jam, and these places must be carefully
watched to prevent a general hanging
up" of the logs. Sometimes one big stick,
caught on 2 rock, will hold back hundreds
of thousands of feet, and then some dar-
ing fellow is ordered out with an ak to
chop away the obstruction. 1t is at the
risk of his life. He must be quick, for at
the last stroke of his ak the big log snaps
asunder with a boom like that of q can
non, and then there is a tremendous
stampede of all the logs behind it, If the
driver is lucky and agile he gets ashore all
right, leaping from log to log, but one
uisstep, or little sIowness, is likely to
precipitate him into the seething mass, and
if it is ever found below, his body is
mangled almost beyond recognition. Gen
orally it is never found.
THE COSiAIIssARY DEPARTMENT.
AS the drive progresses the men follow
through the woods or along the rocky, I'M
even shores after it. and "wangans," or
gangs, going on before. The driver works
as long as it is light enough to see a log,
and when the moon is bright they often
go to work at o'clock in the morning and
continue until the last glimmer of twi-
light. They eat their plentiful but coarse
evening meal, and, wrapped in their
blankets, lie down to sleep. While they
sleep, which seems to them but an hour,
the "wangan" moves ahead five or six
miles, and when they awake there is that
distance to walk through the woods be-
fore breakfast.
l saw a Bangor man who had just re
turned from the Connecticut where he
had driven six weeks, Sundays included.
for 81 so day, and he brought a sad story
with him. After escaping several perils
himself he had seen one of his eamp-mates
go down to a cruel fate, while another was
barely saved alive. These twO,a Bangor boy
and an old driver from St. John, n. B., had
come up from the lower end of a drive near
North Stratford, Vt, to help break a big
jam above. They walked through the
woods to point just above the jam and
then started down stream for it on log
apiece Before they knew it they Were in
white water" around some rocks; one log
was lost and the two were left Clinging to
the other. When they reached the jam
the Bangor boy was crushed up against it,
while the St. John man was swept under
and lost beneath the wilderness of logs.
The young fellow, pinned by the big stick
to which he chung, cried in vain for help,
for the crew were out of hearing and was
just about to go under when another float
ing log struck his and swung it around in
such way as to liberate him. Then he
managed to struggle ashore and, terribly
injured, was conveyed to the nearest house.
River driving is a dangerous business, but
there are plenty of men here ready to take
it's chance.-New York World.
Sixteen Miles of Decorations.
A noted pyrotechnst of London has just
gone off to Lisbon, where he has con
tracted to sr1nnIv sixteen miles of decOra-