The Wolf Point herald., 1922-06-15
Real Life in the Timber Not Much Like
Idea Scenario Writers for Movies Give

I between the logger and the manua
worker in town there are any mum
ber of minor differences of character
and disposition.
For one thing lumberjacks are ac
complished eaters and are better fed
At Stark, 40 odd miles northwest o1
Missoula, on the wooded slope of the
Bitter Roots, where several hundred
T of them carry on for the Anaconda
Copper Mining company one of the
largest timber operations in the
world, each man ate his own weight
in food every three weeks last win
ter.
For another thing they are better
housed. Whether they are in per-
manent quarters or in the peripatetic
camps built on railroad trucks, they
have electrically lighted dormitories
or barracks and bathrooms equipped
with hot and cold water.
Contrary to widespread belief, the
lumberjack, generally speaking, is
thriftier than his brother worker in
town. Missoula banks received as
savings deposits the major part of the
timbermen's wages every payday, ac-
cording to the A. c. M. accountant at
the camp.
Moreover the logger is far more
democratic Anybody is welcome who
1 can pass the tests of muscle and
thew. He drinks less moonshine,
prefers tea to coffee, snuff to chew
ing tobacco. He is more pacific than
stevedores or sailors, and fights less
than men of other categories des-
cribed as manual workers. Working
month in and month out for a year
or more at tretch, he cuts, trims
and loads his six or seven hundred
feet of timber every day In leisure
moments he reads books, newspapers
and magazines. If the printed word
is beyond his comprehension, as it
frequently is, he listens to more for !
tunate brother read aloud, or devotes
his brief evenings to cribbage or
checkers. He rises at 6 o'clock in the |
morning, and is asleep by at night |
All classes of men are to be found |
among the timber workers. The av-
erage lumber camp usually can show
types of all races, creeds and condi-
tions. Literate and illiterate, the |
man with ancestors and the man with !
none, live and work together, and /
peace and amity is maintained among
them by simple expedient-one fa-
miliar to every man or woman who
went through boarding school: Talk
ing at meal time is discouraged. The
lumber camp bosses long ago dis
covered, as did the mother superiers
boys schools, that noisy mess-hall
Af c&r;f
The camp at Stark, which in real
ity is collection of logging camps
known collectively as the Nine Mile,
has been in operation half dozen
years or so. 1t supplies the logs from
which the new A. G. M. mill at Bon
ner manufactures the 100000 feet
Of finished lumber required each
year by the company's mines, smell
,ers and metal refiner1es in Montana,
Idaho and Utah. The mill, which Is
considered the finest in the country.
capable of turning out half million
ieet of finished product daily, went
on two-shift basis June 10, and in
the lumberjack colony
At Nine Mile expects an even buster
season next winter.
Only skeleton crews are In the
woods now, gathering up and burn
ng the debris of last seasons opera
lions. Two hundred and fifty men
we're employed last winter, but twice
that probably will be the number
when cutting is resumed.
Production was at the rate of ap-
20,000,000 feet every
ninety days up to May l.
Food consumption amounted to
1900 pounds a month, or ZIG
ponds per man. Each Iumberjack
daily 6.97 pounds Of bread,
neat, fish, eggs, cereals, vegetables,
sugar, butter, tea, coffee, syrups and
pices One interesting item of the
amp commissary report was that
100 eggs we're the monthly allotment
or each employe, and another that
he buying had been reduced to such
scientific basis that meals, which
anywhere else would entail an ex-
,ense of at least rs cents, were serv-
ID to the lumberjacks at "a cents
ach For board and quarters the
nen paid s1.20 day, which after
Ieducting the cost of food, left 18
ents day each for the use of $12,
100 worth of army blankets and bed
with which the barracks
ave been supplied.
The story of the lumberjack as he
eal1y is at the Nine Mile is told
riefly by F. w. Mallory, a captain
f engineers overseas, who is now the
ogging superintendent.
"All the romance of numbering
) in the North Woods melodramas of
be screens" he says. There are no
illains among us, not at least of the
tage type, though undoubtedly
egg occasionally may
e found among the crews. In the
We camps operated during the win
sr there we're ESQ men, but no more
rder and decorum ever was obtained
an army cantonment or church
amp meeting.
I'VE have on hand simply a big
,b, one of the many activities of
reat mining corporation which oper-
tes on three continents. Mining re-
uires timber, and when the big
ute copper producers are operating
, they are now they need from 70
100 million feet of timber yearly.
is our business to cut 1t, get 1t