The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-03-28
LUMbERJACKS ARE
SURE BARON
ETERS
Large Numbers of Woodsmen
Are Now Arriving Daily
in Grand Forks.
PICTURESQUE PERSONS
The Type of Men Working in
Woods is Gradually
Changing.

The lumberjack is good baromet-
err. When he appears on Third street
In the fall with a large and varied
assortment of companions. it is a sure
sign of winter. When the same sort
OF a crowd is in evidence on the
street along this time of the year. It
is sure sign of spring. judging by
the number of woodsmen in Grand
Forks at the present time, spring must
be near at hand.
are to be seen along the streets lust
now as will be the case later on. for
the main exodus from the logging
camps has not yet begun. Operations
are still being pushed energetically in
most OF the camps, but restlessness
mas become apparent among the men
ana every day some of them are quit
ting their jobs and starting for the
city. Many will stay on the job until
winter logging is no longer possible,
but probably even more will desert
the camps in favor of the city before
the contractors call a halt to opera
tons.
The lumberjack is a picturesque
character, but with all that has been
said and written about him, he is
not very we'll understood by the gen
eral public. He is surrounded BY a
sort of haze of mystery and there IS
fascination about him that is rec
ognized by even tho busiest city
jewellers. AS matter of fact, it us
ually is more interesting to read stor-
les OF his doings than it is to hear him
talk about the woods or anything in
connection with his work. It is such
common thing to him that he can
not imagine any one else being in
terested in it, and, therefore, has little
to say.
Not Picture Book Kind.
Not all the woodsmen are of the
kind generally pictured in books.
Stories of the northern forest paint
him as jolly, care-free, FOSTERING
sort, always ready for a good time,
and of remarkably sociable DISPOSE
ton. Quite few will answer to this
description, and then there are many
that will not. There are fewer of these
thans there were eight or ten years
ago. This is because there are so
many foreigners employed in the
camps. The original lumberjack was
typically American, with enough Irish
and French-Canadian mixed in to
make it interesting. But now the
Americans are very much in the mi
nority. Austrians, Swedes, Norweg-
ians and Finlanders are in the major
ity. OF the four, there probably are
more Norwegian and Swedes than any,
thing else. They are excellent work.
men, and always give good account
OF themselves, but when it comes down
to the sociable side, the average woods
men of any of these nationalities is
not In the same class with the Ameri-
cans. Irish and French-Canadians.
They are not so eager after adven-
ture and excitement. What they would
call good time would not constitute
a good time for the other sort.
Adventurous Spirit.
There is not so much to appeal to
the spirit of adventure in man in
the logging camps today as there was
a few years back, which fact has some
thing to do with the change in the
class of men: The camps are easier
reached, and conditions of life are cas-
Ter than they were in the early days,
and men who are now glad to work
in the woods as lumberjacks would not
nave cared to undertake the same kind
Of work when conditions were differ
emf.
This is not saying that there are
just as coed men working in the
camps today as there used to be. for
there are. They are proportionately
much fewer in number however, so
far as Minnesota is concerned. Many
of the old timers have gone to north
western Canada, and to forest regions
of the western mountains. The fact
that there is less river driving now
than formerly has also had something
to do with thinning out the ranks of
picturesque characters. for man must
be something of a daredevil to engage
in the hazardous business of driving
logs, and when his occupation is gone
in one place he seeks work else
where.