Logging in the Early 1930s

Transcription

1 Logging in the Early 1930s '32. My first experience staying in a logging camp was the winter of '31 - My older brother, Russell and I spent three winters in the same camp in the south end of Pine Hill on the west side of the Sable River, about four miles up river from the 9-mile road. This camp was very old at this time, I have no idea who built it, I think originally it was built for a hunting camp. Dad and Russell had stayed there for a couple of winters before I left school. On a modern map, Pine Hill is shown about 9 miles north of Sable... Dad s Pine Hill must have been one of the unlabeled hills on the west side of the river. Logging in the Early 1930 s Page 1 of 5

2 This is an old A.F.Church map of roughly the same area as the previous map and it does show a Pine Hill roughly about 4 mils north of the community. Russell and I would go in to the camp in the late fall and do a little repair work on the camp and barn, then we would saw down some logs, mostly pine (white) and a few spruce (black), this would take three or four days. After New Years we would move into camp with the oxen, with all our gear, hay and grain for the team, etc. The grain was called short feed. We would stay in the camp until some time in March, always coming out home on the weekend. Logging in the Early 1930 s Page 2 of 5

3 I was the teamster and Russ did the axe work - topping, limbing, cutting roads, etc. I will describe an average week. We would go in to camp Monday morning in time to dinner at the camp; we used sleds all winter as there was usually lots of snow. We would leave the oxen in the barn for a half day while we sawed down trees and topped some of them off. We used a two man crosscut saw with cutting teeth and drag teeth, four cutting teeth then one drag tooth to remove the sawdust and so on, this saw was about five feet in length. For the rest of the week I would yard the full length trees to the Sable River with the oxen using one sled. We called this tail dragging. I yarded most of the logs to the Lower Pine Hill landing about four miles up the river from the Sable River Bridge. There was a good high bank to roll the logs into the river. On Saturday mornings we would go down to the landing and saw the trees up in log lengths as they were easier to handle on the river drive in the spring. The trees ranged in length from 30ft to 45ft. The pine would be sawed up in 10, 12, 14 and 16ft lengths, nothing longer. The spruce would be left in tree lengths because they were going to be building timbers, wharf plank, etc., and would only be sawed up at the mill when we knew what they were to be used for. On Saturday afternoon we would came out home. I would spend most of Sunday filling bags with hay as we had no room for loose hay in the barn in the woods and it was only rarely that we would have baled hay. It would take about 30 bags for the week. Mother would also refill our "Grub Box" with white and brown bread, pies, also cooked salt pork and moose meat. This meat cooked and pressed made great eating and of course a large pot of baked beans. We took lots of potatoes. For fresh meat we had rabbits and deer, killed during the winter. Russell and I stayed in this camp for three winters, ending in the spring of An ideal winter for that kind of logging would be to have cold weather with only a moderate amount of snow, then it was easy to get around and the mud holes and brooks would freeze hard enough to carry the oxen and load. I remember one quite warm winter that it didn't freeze Logging in the Early 1930 s Page 3 of 5

4 very much, so every morning the oxen would break up the ice, it would be very hard on them. In the camp at night we would read some as we always took a few books with us. We had an oil lantern for light, but usually we were too tired to stay up for long after supper. The last winter we were there was very cold and the old camp was getting quite rotten. Snow used to blow in on one side and we had trouble getting enough heat to melt the snow, the old cook stove was so bad that we put a big rock in the oven then put wire around the outside to hold the stove together. Anyway a couple of nights before we were planning to move out in March there came a terrific rain-storm, also a very warm south wind. Sometime in the night there was this awful crash, we thought a tree had fallen on the camp. We lit the lantern to check the damage and discovered that because of the warm rain, the frost had come out of the wall of the camp and about three logs had rolled out! Your could nearly walk out through the side. The next fall we were hunting in the vicinity and on checking on the old camp, found it had fallen down completely. It had served us well and we were through with it. In April as soon as the ice went out of the river and while the river was high with the spring run-off we would roll the logs in and start the drive. Dad was well and able to go with us on the drive. We also hired a couple more men to help Steve Paul, boatman, and usually Duncan Labrador, he was very good on the logs. With good water I think it would take us about a week to bring the drive down into the log pond behind the island at the mouth of the Tom Tigney River. Some springs we would have other men from Sable bringing logs down at the same time, but as everyone had their own log identification mark, the logs were easy to separate at the end of the drive. Dad's mark which Russ and I continued to use was the rabbit track. If I remember correctly the spring of 1934 we brought the last log drive to come down the Sable River. One spring the water went down quickly and left our logs high and dry at the two-mile. We had orders to meet so we hauled all the logs out of the river that we could get, loaded them on the wagon to take to the mill. It was very hard work both for man and beast. In the fall when the water came up we drove the rest of the logs down. Logging in the Early 1930 s Page 4 of 5

5 We would have about 15,000 bd ft. of lumber far the winter work, plus 2 or 3 M that we picked up near home in the fall. The land where we logged in the winter was all land granted, by the Crown, to the people for their own use. In the mid '40's this land was all surveyed and taken back by the Crown. The land that was known as Old Located Land, is now known as Crown Land. Logging in the Early 1930 s Page 5 of 5