The peoples' advocate. [volume] (New-Berne [New Bern], N.C.) 1886-188?, 1886-07-31
A LOGGER'S LEE.
Perils and PrivatiOnS OF the
Maine Lum bermen.
dow Logs are Driven From the Distant
Wilds to the Lumber Mills.

York World says: This city, once the !
greatest lumber market of the world, |
though doing much smaller business
;han in Penobscot's palmy days, is still
:he home of expert loggers and drivers
md the headquarters for the most APP
proved kinds of iumbermen'S imple-
nents. Such is the fame of Bangor
.aat- dogs and axes and batteaux that
operators in the comparatively new log
ging regions of the west and far-off Pa
.ific slope send here for them. But it is
:hc men of the PenobscOt who are prin-
:ipally sought, not for cutting the logs,
or almost anybody can swing an axe,
but for the pcrilous work of driving the
ogs through rapid waters and over roar
ng 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 Kennebcc and Connecticut
come to Bangor to hire crews who are
clever with the axe and cantdog, and
Who are not afraid to break a jam or
sleep on the bare ground in single
blanket. They are especially anxious to
get Bangor boys when they have hard
drive in prospect, Cor they know that the
Penobscot red-shirters will pull them
through if it is possible thing.
Not many people understand how logs
cut so many miles to the great bOoms
near the mills where they are sawn into
lumber. 1t is a peculiar and a hazard
Dus work, and when a lot of drivers start
away for the headwater with their pick
poles, cant-dogs and axes it is just as
natural to expect some of them never
will come back alive as it would be in
ease of a company of soldiers starting for
d battlefield. After the lOggers get
through dumping the logs over into the
Frozen streams but brief period ensues
before the SHOWS and ice melt and carry
the big spruce sticks in great masses
down stream and create big jams, back
ing the water up so that many of the
logs are foatcd over submerged flats, to
be left high and dry when the first de-
achment of drivers break the jams and
work begins. The grounded logs, in the
upper country where horses cannot 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 q single stick to the water
| The farmers whose meadows are thus
| strewn with logs often claim the timber
as a recompcnse for the obstruction 1t
causes to their operations, and at times
they appear with shotguns to prevent the
drivers from carrying Of the logs. But
the boss driver orders his men to "bring
that stuff down." and the ''stuf" gener-
all comes
Several crews are employed on a drive
|
or lower end, others along the line and
one 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
changing up" of the logs. Sometimes
one big stick, caught on a rock, will
| hold back hundreds of thousands of feet
and then some daring fellow is ordered
out with an ak to chop away the obstruc-
ton. 1t is at the risk of his life. He
must be quick, for at the last stroke of
his ak the big log snaps assunder with a
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 misstep or a
little sIowness is likely to percipitate
him into the seething mass, and if it is
ever found below, his body is mangled
almost beyond recognition. Genera ly
it is never found. As the drive pro-
| crosses the men follow through the
woods or along the rocky, uneven shores
after it, the ''wangangs," or commissary
departments of the different 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 90 to work at O'Clock in the
morning and continue until the last gliIn-
mer of twilight. Then 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 before breakfast.