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THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF
CAPT. STEPHEN B. HANKS,
FIRST WINTER IN A LOGGING CAMP
June 18, 1921
The farm and the mission were the only
improvements in that section, which was a country of great
natural beauty, at least to me. We were in what is now Pine
Country Minnesota, and apparently at the top of the country.
It was a level country with numerous little lakes and a number
of swamps and thickets interspersed with ridges of which was
some hard wood timber and, speaking generally, pine
everywhere, of the finest quality and size, many of the trees
being from four to six feet in diameter. The lakes and
streams were well stocked with fish and we had game in plenty.
We were about one hundred miles nearly
due north from Stillwater. It was now November and I had been
continuously on the move since early in September, except a
few days at St. Croix Falls. The most of the crew had reached
camp before us and were making our winter quarters habitable
and comfortable. We at once commenced to help them and
prepare roads for loading log to the bank of the river. Our
home was log building some twenty-five by forty feet, with a
big open in the middle to keep us warm and also by which to do
our cooking, thee was a big hole in the roof over the fire
with a box like chimney that extended a little below the roof
and was finished at the top in the roof as a stick chimney.
The walls were well chinked with sawing moss, which was
abundant, and it was really a warm place. The beds were
ranged along the sides of the fire place with heads to the
wall and feet to the fire. They were on the ground but
raised, with an abundance of balsam fir boughs, at lest a
foot, and then well covered with hay making a very comfortable
bed. Each end of the room was used for storage, the table
being across one end. A row of stationary seats known as
“deacon” seats were on one side of the table and stools on the
other. Our cooking was necessarily primitive but with open
air and hard work there was no lack of appetite and as we had
plenty to eat there was no complaint. Beans were the staple
article of diet. They were put in a large iron kettle called
a “dutch oven” and buried at night in the ashes at the edge of
the fire place and covered with hot ashes and when taken out
next day for dinner made a dish eulogized by woodsman and
visitor. In the evening cards and other amusements were
indulged in, and in the morning long before it was light the
men were all up, had their breakfast and were on heir way to
work. Our teams, consisting of three or four yoke of oxen and
some horses were sheltered in a log stable made snug and warm
by using plenty of hay letter to cover the roof and sides and
when the snow came the place was very warm and comfortable.
There were sixteen men at work in the woods which with the
cook, boss and teamsters made some twenty all told at the
camp.
As was the case wherever I had worked
all my life, I was put at different things. One of my first
jobs was to make a frame in which the oxen could be put and
held while being shod, for an ox is not like a horse in this
respect and has to be securely held while the operation is
going on. It was my job to make the ox yokes and keep them in
repair. There is no end to the variety of work for a handy
man around a camp, nor any were else, for that matter.
There was a main road laid out to the
place where the logs were landed on the bank of the river and
tributary roads to intersect the main road at different
points.
The men were assigned to the different
classes of work as they showed ability or do to the best
advantage, the most of them being choppers. A chopper must
exercise a good deal of judgment in falling a tree. It must
fall parallel with the road and there must be room for a cross
haul, that is room for one or two yoke of oxen to roll the
heavy end of the log onto the bunk of the sled, the other end
of the log being barked or smoothed off with an axe so that it
would slide along on the ground, or snow rather, as we did no
hauling until after snow came. These logs were left full
length of the tree and some time they would make four cuts
that is four logs sixteen feet long, that length being the
standard logs and a large majority cut that length.
My work for the first half of the
winter was a helper in loading and .. with McLane, the man
assigned to that work. Later I worked at cross sawing at the
landing where the trees were cut into proper lengths for logs,
with an old Englishmen whose name I have forgotten and who was
not very well liked by the men generally although I got along
nicely with him. After cutting the timber near by we moved to
another camp a mile or so up the Pokegema river where we
finished the winters work. We cut during the winter about
three million feet of the winter’s work. We cut some of the
finest logs I have ever seen. Our regular day’s work was
barking from fifty to seventy-five logs. Of course this could
not have been done had we not been in the best of timber. We
were the first white men to put an axe into a tree in that
section.
The winter passed without special
incident and quite pleasantly. On several Sundays two or
three of the men and myself had gone down to the mission to
attend services. The missionary’s name was Boutelle and he
and his family were very nice people. Occasionally I remained
and ate with them. The Indians were Chippewa and an orderly
and honest set so far as we knew. The services were in that
language as was the Sunday school for the younger ones. The
mission was self sustaining and did an excellent work. I knew
Boutelle for many years. Later he went to Stillwater and made
that place his home and some of his children are still living
there.
As soon as the snow began to go we
broke camp the men were tired and the teams about worn out.
All but about six men went away and the teams were taken to
the Falls. We now began to get ready to drive the logs to the
mill and driving tools such as hand spikes, pike poles, camb
hooks, oars, paddles etc. had to be made. Then the boom
sticks had to be formed. These were the longest and slimmest
trees we could find and ran from seventy-five to ninety feet
in length and not over two feet through. Each end was squared
and flattened to about ten inches or a foot and a couple of
feet back from the end so that the ends would lap. A mortice
a couple of inches or so wide and eight or ten inches long was
cut in each end and when the ends of two sticks were put
together a piece of hard wood called a “through shot” with a
head on one end and a hole for a key in the other was put
through the two sticks and the key inserted and this made a
secure connection. This boom was to be used to enclose the
logs while they were being driven through lakes Pokegema and
Cross and at other places when necessary.
Another necessity we made before
starting out was a Wangan, on which to carry our driving
supplies and outfit. This one was about thirty-feet in length
and made from two tree trunks or logs, each log making one
half the boat, there being only one seam in the boat and that
in the center of the hull from stem to stern where the halves
come together. Each half of the boat was dressed off on the
outside like the model of a boat hull and being in two pieces
there was a much better chance to cut out the inside of the
boat than as though it were dug out of one single log. The
inner edges of these halves had to be very straight and true
so as to make a good joint, the outside being beveled slightly
to assist in the calking. |
