The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1909-09-15
In a Washington Lumber Camp.

The Skagit river is a conside rable
stream having its headwaters some
where up in the neighborhood of
Mt. Baker. The county of Skagi
takes it's name from the stream,
which races at a turbulent pace
!. from the mountain heights to the
sound. with sufficient volume to
float steamboats, of considerable size
for sixty or seventy miles above its
; mouth
The camp we visited was on the
banks of this stream, and the out
put of the operations of the lumber
camp we visited had been rolled into
the river and made into large RATS
which were then towed by a river
steamboat to the big sawmills along
the coast.
The railroad part of our journey
ended at a railroad switch in the
woods alongside one of the Great
Northern mountain lines, the pro-
polling power being a petroleum
motor engine. Here we passed
through some fine stretches of tim
Der, beautiful specimens of fir and
cedar being the prevailing varieties.
After walk of two or three miles,
crossing the river on a ferry on
which the propelling power was the
current of the stream, we came to
a row of low buildings which had
been the living quarters of the forty
or fifty men employed in the work
of getting several million feet Of
logs felled, cut into suitable lengths
and "skidded" by dummy engines
into the waters Of the Skaget. That
the timber cut was valuable may be
indicated by the statement of my
friend, that the company for which
he managed were paid $4,000 for
logs put out from the camp in its
first sixty days operations.
The methods of logging on this
coast are almost wholly different
from those that have been used in
northern Wisconsin and Minnesota,
where heavy draught animals are
mainly depended upon for the work.
Here the trees are too large to be
handled by teams and powerful
donkey" steam engines are exclu-
siyely employed. There were three
of these in the camp | am speaking
Of, and the experienced and clever
loggers who boss them can make
them do almost anything in the way
of pulling, by the adjustment of
guide ropes at various angles which
draw the logs into the sideways
which every camp must make at the
outset of its operations. These high
ways for gathering the fallen mon
archs of the woods are planned so as
to converge into the river into which
the logs are dumped, and those |
saw were lanes, sometimes first
scooped out by hauling with strong
wire cable monster stick
of timber along the route wanted,
the end of the log being tapered
with an ak so as to constitute pom
derous sled which goes down into
the earth like an ordinary sleigh into
the first winter snow. The roadway
made, sticks of timber are laid cross
wise after the manner of railroad
ties, except that they are larger and
spaced at wider intervals. When
used for hauling, these cross pieces
are kept creased to lessen the fric-
ton of the logs drawn over them.
When | state upon the authority of
my guide through the camp that
two Of the trees logged during the
season sold at total of over 40, 900
feet, timber measurement, and
brought over a hundred dollars for
each tree, it can be taken for grant
ed that these woods have trees in
them that are entitled to respect. l
saw stumps from eight to twelve
feet across, and one can imagine that
when stick Of timber of such dia-
meter and loomifg up skyward be-
tween 200 and 300 feet takes a tum-
BILE, there is something doing. The
writer arrived in the lumber camp
too late to see the trees felled, but
&C nanv of orr roodorc probob |