The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-07-03
DANGER IN LOG DRIVING.
Fearless Men Required for This
Work, for 1t often Results i'm Death.
Ranpnr ME \ Letter in Naxu Yorlr Sun

Bangor (Me.) Letter in New York Sun.
With the exception of going to sea in the
winter time in a leaky old coaster there
than that of driving logs in the quick waters
of the Penobscot, yet there is always a
plenty of men who are willing to take the
chances. Regiments of drivers have been
drowned between Bangor and the head
waters of the river in the past twenty years,
but there is never any lack of volunteers for
1t is at this time of year that the drivers
are started and the smartest men who ever
steered boat or handled a cant-dog have
been sent up the river in scores and hun
dredS to navigate the last winters log cut
to boom. To be driver one must be active,
fearless and equally Indifferent to cold
water, hard work and bad cooking served at
irregular intervals. Most of the Penobscot
drivers are strong and active Bangor boys
of Irish descent who are called the best log
navigators in the world, and there is lib
eral sprinkling of French Canadians. Tara
tine Indians and men from the British mar
here as Up. E. Is" although not all of
them ever saw Prince Edwards Island.
The crews, with their bosses. go by rail,
boat and on foot to the landings or places
where the logs have been tumbled into the
streams in winter by the choppers. Arriv-
ing at their destinations they start the logs
stream. If there were no falls, no rapids,
dams or Lodges, the work would be easy
enough but the numbering waters are thick,
If q single log catches upon the brink of a
dam or across rock in the chanel thou
sands Of logs are Immediately piled up at
that spot and a jam, the terror of the
driver, is formed.
The jam must be broken at all hazards,
and here is where the danger lies. In these
days a good deal of dynamite is used to
break jams, but ordinarily the breaking
away is done by men with cant-dogs, who
go out upon the tangled mass Of logs and
work like beavers to get it in motion again.
If the jam men have good luck they get
ashore all right, and are called bully
Sn06anlV without
warning, as it often does, and the men are
caught in the wild rush of timber and water
that follows, then the Bangor papers get q
story of somebody being drowned on the
drive. The body may be found weeks after
ward many miles down the river, but the
chances are that it will never be found. In
that case it is just as well, perhaps, for
when they take the bodies of drowned driv-
ers from the river nobody knows who the
The driver works night and day, as cir
cumstances demand. Sometimes two or
three men are sent ahead of the main body
to keep the logs running past point where
a jam is likely to occur. They are provided
with chunk of salt pork, a frying pan, a
salt Goldfish, and quantity of hard bread,
as the job may require some days They
cook for themselves whenever they get
time, and at night build big fire and sleep
as near TO ii as they dare. A good man is
supposed to be able to walk log as well
as a sparrow can balance on a twig, but
sometimes the best of them get a bath in
the icy water and go all day in frozen
clothes
The drivers work begins in April or May
and lasts till the middle of July or the first
of August. Time was when wages for this
kind of work were big-$3.50 to S. a day. out
now there is no more in it than in many
safer employments. A green hand now gets
SLIP a day, common driver $l75 to 81, and
experienced men $2.25 to $3.50, while bosses
get rather more. Woodsmen eat beans three
times a day, drivers eat them four times a
day, twenty-eight times week. with black
molasses for sweetness and dried apples for
anti-scorbutic
When the driver goes away, nobody feels
much interested in him, but when he re-
turns, with couple of hundreds of dollars
in his pocket, it is really touching to see the
number of friends who will welcome him
back These friends are generally saloon
cheap clothing. The return of the driver is
their harvest time. 1t is a harvest time for
the police too. for they are kept busy day
and night hauling drunken drivers to the
station. In a week or so it is all over. be-
cause in that length of time the money so
dearly earned has been foolishly spent
most of it.