News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-07-11
AMONG THE LoGGERs.
Hard Work of the Lumbermen in
Northwestern Forests.

Few persons who are not in some
way actually engaged in the lumber
business have any adequate idea of the
magnitude of the industry, and none
who have not been with the loggers in
the great pine woods of the north
west, and also seen the actual haul
ing, driving" and saving of the
logs, can realize the wonderful pictuer-
sequences of traffic which, as the
scientists tell US, is rapidly changing
the face of nature and the very climate
of our country.
The men who do the '1ogging" are a
race of giants. More than almost any
other, their work calls for a giants
strength and for almost superhuman
powers of endurance. They are not
long lived. The exposures and hard
ships of the calling are enough to break
down the hardest constitution, and
the temptation to dissipation after
winter in camp are as strong as those
that assail the sailor after long cruise
Winter is the time for the camp work,
for only over the snow can the great
logs, perhaps half q ton in weight, be
easily dragged from where they fall to
the waterway down which they are to
be foated to the mill, on the spring
freshets. The northern winter is Sc
we're enough, the cold being often
twenty degrees or more below zero, but
it is in the spring that the greatest Per
ills and hardships are encountered.
Then, the great logs having been drawn
by horses or oxen, or in some places over
rude railroads, from the neighborhood
of the camp to the "banking- ground, +"
fhn ho, Of hn CT WI Iah &c tn
carry them to the mill, the "drive" be-
gins, and this is the hardest of the work.
The sun has not yet loosened the bands
with which the frost tied up the water.
and the logs as well, and dynamite is
mass of logs and floating ice is started
down the stream, and the men follow it,
watching closely for jams and direlects,
and for days together, with very little
rest, guide, force, and control the float
ing mass. A jam is often perilous in
the extreme, and the pronptest action
is necessary to prevent delays, for if the
pressure Of the whole drive comes upon
gorge, it is Herculean work to break
the combination.
So in the freezing cold water waist
deep, or clambering over the logs them
selves in mid-stream, the loggers wrestle
with distractions, taking their lives in
their hands hourly. For five or six
weeks they travel thus, with no camp,
no change of clothing, and as little in
the way of luggage as possible. Stiff
and sore from over-exertion and the ter
rible soaking in ice-water, they sleep in
their blankets on the ground at night,
with only the comfort of a rousing bon
fire between them and the sleep from
which there is no waking. 1t is some
times almost impossible for one of them
to rouse the others in the morning; but
the drive is on, and there is no rest
| for them till the "boom" is reached, in
to which their logs are delivered, mixed
higgledy- -piggledy with others from
other camps.
million logs or ''piecss," belonging
it may be, to dozen owners, float in
confused mass within the enclosure
string string Of 1;tfi extra large logs: Ea6n Pfece
however, is marked with the device
its owner, and the sorting is not as dltfi
cult OF as hap-hazard an operation as
looks. They are made into RATS, ant
f1oated, or it may be towed, down tn
main river they have reached to the mil
where they are to be fed for the saws
Harper's Weekly.