[Illustration: A MAINE WOOD-CHOPPER.]
All boys and girls know that boards are made of sawed logs, and that logs
are trunks of trees. Few, however, know with what hardship and difficulty
the trees are felled, trimmed and carried from the woods where they grow
to the mills where they are made into boards.
In the far West, and in the wilds of Maine, are acres upon acres, and
miles upon miles, of evergreen forests. One wooded tract in Maine is so
vast that it takes an army of choppers twenty years to cut it over. By
the time it is done a new growth has sprung up, and an intermediate one
is large enough to cut; so the chopping goes on year after year. The
first or primeval growth is pine. That is most valuable. After the pines
are cut, spruce and hemlock spring up and grow.
Most of the men who live in the vicinity of the lake region work in the
woods in the winter. They camp in tents and log huts near the tracts
where they are felling trees. All day long, day after day, week after
week, they chop down such trees as are large enough to cut, lop off the
branches and haul the logs to the nearest water. This work is done in
winter because the logs are more easily managed over snow and ice. All
brooks large enough to carry them, all rivers, ponds and lakes, are
pressed into service and made to convey the ponderous freight towards
civilization. All along the shores and in the woods are busy scenes--men,
oxen and horses hard at work, the smoke from the logging camps curling
among the trees.
Every log has the initial or mark of the owner chopped deep into the wood
to identify it. Then, when the ice breaks up, the logs are sent down the
brooks to the rivers and through the rivers to the lakes. The logging
camps are disbanded, the loggers return to their homes, and the
river-drivers alone are left to begin their duties.
The river-drivers are the men who travel with the logs from the beginning
of their journey till they are surrendered to the saw-mills. Each wears
shoes the soles of which are thickly studded with iron brads an inch
long; and each carries a long pole called a "pick-pole," which has a
strong sharp-pointed iron spike in the end. This they drive into the
wood, and it supports and steadies them as they spring from log to log.
Their first duty is to collect "the drive." The logs which form "the
drive" are packed together and held in place by a chain of guard-logs
which stretches entirely around the drive, forming what is called "the
boom." The guard-logs are chained together at the ends about two feet
apart. The guard is always much larger than the boom of logs, so that the
shape of the boom may be changed for wide or narrow waters.
At the head of each boom is a raft which supports two large windlasses,
each of which works an anchor. On this head-work about thirty
river-drivers take up their position to direct the course of the boom.
To change its position or shape, ten of the drivers spring into a boat or
bateau; one takes a paddle at the bow; eight take oars; and one, at the
stern, holds the anchor. They row with quick strokes toward the spot
where the anchor is to be dropped, the cable all the time unwinding from
the windlass.
"Let go!" shouts the foreman.
Splash! goes the anchor overboard.
The boat then darts back to the head-works. Out spring the men to help
turn the windlass to wind the cable in. They sing as they work, and the
windlass creaks a monotonous accompaniment as "Meet me by moonlight," or
the popular "Away over yonder," comes floating over the rippling water.
[Illustration: A RIVER-DRIVER.]
Meanwhile another bateau has been out with another anchor; and as both
windlasses turn, the boom swings toward the anchorage, and thus is so
much further on its way.
Though the men sing as they work, and make the best of their mishaps with
jests and laughter, they often carry homesick hearts. In cold and stormy
weather their hardships are great, an involuntary bath in the icy water
being an event of frequent occurrence. Also their work demands a constant
supply of strength which is very trying; frequently a head wind will
drive them back from a position which it has taken several days to gain,
and all the toil of fresh anchorages must be repeated.
The most dangerous part of the work is "sluicing" the logs. When the boom
reaches the run which connects the lake or river with the dam through the
sluice of which the logs must pass, the chain of guard-logs is detached,
and fastened in lines along both sides of the run, and the rafts are
drawn off to one side and anchored to trees. The river-drivers, armed
with their pick-poles, are then stationed along the run, on the dam,
wherever they may be needed.
The liberated logs now come sailing along, their speed quickening as they
near the sluice. When they reach it they dart through, their dull, rapid,
continuous thud mingling with the roar of the water. How they shoot the
sluice! log after log--two, six, a dozen together--pitching, tossing,
struggling, leaping end over end; finally submitting to destiny and
sailing serenely down the river toward another lake.
Meanwhile the river-drivers with their long poles and quick movements,
looking not unlike a band of savages, have enough to do, with steady
feet, and eyes on the alert. For of all the vast array of logs--and I
once saw twenty-four thousand in one drive--not one goes through the
sluice but is guided on to it by one or more of the drivers. They often
ride standing on the floating logs, conducting this, pushing that,
hurrying another, straightening, turning and guiding; and just before the
log on which a driver stands reaches the sluice, he springs to another.
Woe to him if his foot should slip, or his leap fail! He would be crushed
among the logs in the sluice, or dashed among the rocks in the seething
water.
[Illustration: "THE LIBERATED LOGS CAME SAILING ALONG."]
After all the logs are safely sluiced, the chains of the guards are
slipped, the rafts are broken up, and these, windlasses and all, follow
the logs. Then the boats are put through the sluice. Sometimes, when the
dam is high, some of the river-drivers go through in the boats--a
dangerous practice, this; for often the bateaux have gone under water,
entirely out of sight, to come up below the falls, and more than once
have lives been lost in this foolhardy feat.
[Illustration: THROUGH THE SLUICE.--A DANGEROUS PRACTICE THIS.]
A boom generally passes from three to six dams, and sometimes takes four
months to reach the mills.
Occasionally the logs become jammed in the rivers, and must wait for more
water; if this can be supplied from a lake above, the difficulty is
easily remedied.
In the spring of 1880, a jam occurred at Mexico in Maine. The logs were
piled forty feet above the water and covered an extent of area as large
as an ordinary village. This great jam attracted visitors from all parts
of the country until the spring freshets of the next year could supply
the river with water sufficient to loose them and bear them on their way.
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At the present time, July, 1880, the jam is still there. I saw the
driving and sluicing as I have described it, in May, 1880. It was very
interesting.--S. B. C. S.